Moving Targets

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

 

Tentsmuir, Fife

 

Apologies for the image quality … My brother took this from a very awkward angle.

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I’ve tweaked it a little, to improve legibility

…Hopefully of interest to some.

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

That’s the chassis for a very common type of mine, quarry and factory narrow-gauge railway wagon, so would have been conveniently readily available for that training-range use.

In mine mode it often carried a side-tipping hopper of Vee-profile, tipped by a curved angle-steel rivetted to the tub, and rolling on the horizontal cross-bar at each end. The central peg still in place at the near end located the hopper in upright position.

The axle-boxes carry roller-bearings, and the suspension is limited vertical movement against rubber pads.

The “arrow-head” at the near end is the top of a coupling-pin, I think to take a chain-link.

 

Considering it’s been buried in sand and salt-water for so long, it’s in remarkably good condition!

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Probably made by Robert Hudson in Leeds. A couple of them in much better condition survived at Embsay Steam Railway

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Nigel & Duncan

Thanks for the information

… I will make it known

MichaelG.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I agree with Duncan, if not a Robert Hudson one, it’s very similar.

Here are some going back for a refill, the little engines would pull 20 or so full wagons all day long.

I did have a period of repairing some of these wagons, but the whole system was replaced by 30″ conveyer belts.

Regards Nick.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Interesting ! There was a similar set up here on the Norolk coast near thornham or Titchwell. The practice range at Holme left the beach littered with shells – most years the bomb disposal boys have a session of clearing what the tide has brought up.- mostly 6 Lb ers.  Noel.

[Chuck TaperParticipant @chucktaper]

Sort of related (munitions). Found whilst on vacation. Could not clamber all over so could not get any decent interior shots.

The interesting thing, for me, (and from a poor translation – was that it appears to have run, partially at least, on compressed air!). Given its use I can understand but can’t see it having much travel time.

Regards

Frank C.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I have first-hand experience with those Hudson wagons, from several years helping at Purbeck Mining Museum, near Corfe Castle.

The Museum is on the site of a transfer-station that collected ball-clay brought there by narrow-gauge railways from the mines, dried it then loaded it onto Standard-gauge wagons on what is now the preserved Swanage Railway.  (Ex-Southern Railway / BR Southern Region)

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“…  a mixture of hot water and compressed air…”

If my vaguely-remembered French is correct.

That seems odd. Perhaps the locomotive’s saviours, apparently the local-history society, did not really understand it.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

FWIW … my favourite OCR translation app gives this from the photo:

Locomotive from 1911 without fireplace,
working with a hot water mixture
and compressed air, used in ammunition depots,
coming from the town of Ambérieu, purchased, handled,
transported and installed in 2005, by the Association

MichaelG

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Now … put this text into a Google search:

Locomotive from 1911 without fireplace, working with a hot water mixture and compressed air, used in ammunition depots, coming from the town of Ambérieu

and the AI overview will explain !

MichaelG.

 

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Looks to be similar to this loco I found in the Budapest Railway Museum a few years ago.

There are some unusual engines at the museum and this fireless 0-4-0 tank loco 91,001 (UIC B-f2t) is definitely different. Technically it probably isn’t a tank engine as it has no tank or firebox, just a large steam receiver. Designed for working in hazardous environments, the receiver was just filled from the factory steam main as required. Built by Lokomotivfabrik Krauss & Co. of Linz am Donau, Austria in 1915.

If you would like to see some more visit Budapest Railway History Museum on my website.

John

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

The Fireless engine was used in the UK for explosive environments, I think one was used at Holton Heath (Poole). Nigels reference to the ball clay works on Purbeck, the museum is well worth visiting. Chris Legg wrote 2 books on the narrow gauge railways that served them, Fayles Tramway and The Furzrbrooh Railway.  Noel.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

All the explanations I have seen for fireless locomotives state only they use hot water and steam, the same principle as bottled l.p.g., so I wonder how a mix of steam and compressed-air would work. Indeed, if it would work at all.

Steam alone, without water, would not work: the pressure and temperature would drop far too rapidly.

Compressed-air supplied via a pressure-regulating valve (distinct from and upstream of, the locomotive’s regulator) would be more effective but still have a rather short range. The elaborate unit in the cab of the Ambérieu example suggests this mode; but could such a pressure-regulator have been applied to using steam as well, to keep the reservoir conditions stable?

I’d guess the Austrian locomotive was intended for hotwater / steam operation.

 

Wikipedia states they used steam or air, not both.

Try this for a direct, authoritative, answer:

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/in-depth/the-week-in-1914

which credits Andrew Barclay & Sons, of Kilmarnock, as pioneering these locomotives, and building 114 of them (at time of original press, in 1914). It also states these could stand in steam for a day, and move the normally short distances back for re-charging at as low as 15psi!

An extra safety feature cited by The Engineer, and new knowledge to me, was that the rubbing surfaces and buffers had special facings to prevent sparks. Particularly important in highly-gaseous areas, or sites like Holton Heath that made and used raw nitro-glycerine, one of the least stable of compounds.

 

Holton Heath was the Admiralty’s main factory for the gun propellant ‘Cordite’, based, like Dynamite, on nitro-glycerine and a stabiliser. The site was derelict for many years but is now a modern industrial-estate. The main Weymouth-Poole-London line passes it, with a halt used at peak times; and for some years a private siding branched off there to serve a fertiliser warehouse.

 

Note that comment about the optionally-extra Brakes in Hudson’s own catalogue. I can’t imagine many advertising types these days being that candid!

The description refers to ball-bearing axle-boxes. Those at Norden have roller-bearings, but it’s entirely possible Hudson modified the design, or the Norden ones were by a different manufacturer.

 

I understand there is somewhere near Norden a former tramway tunnel under the main Wareham – Swanage road. I don’t know where, so have not seen it, but it is apparently one of the oldest railway tunnels in the country – which would mean oldest anywhere.

Norden is some miles inland but one of the tramways crossed the heath to a pier on a remote part of Poole Harbour. I can just remember seeing what I now know was a Hunslet diesel locomotive working at Norden, in the early-1960s so probably not long before these narrow-gauge railways became disused.

The Ball-clay, white and very fine-grained, does not occur in Purbeck in broad strata or spreads like many sedimentary rocks, but in discrete, scattered lenses in river-sands and gravels, hence the large number and scatter of the mines and (now) opencast quarries. It should not be confused with the white “clay tips” around St. Austell. That is not clay but highly-pure silica sand, and I surprised it was ever a waste product from that area’s ball-clay mines.

 

I used a piece of scrapped axle from one of these wagons for my Steam-wagon’s single-piece crankshaft. I have no idea of the steel’s grade, but it turns very nicely with HSS tools.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I remember seeing a fireless loco in use at the Bowaters papermill in the late sixties during a school outing. Used because there was a ready supply of hot water for the pulp process.
I imagine the compressed air version would be used where there was suitable supply eg down a mine. The signage for the picture above may have been the work of a desk-jockey and google rather than an explanation from a previous driver.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

There used to be a fireless loco plonked on a roundabout in Eccles near Manchester. Mcr is now so car unfriendly that if I want to go I travel by diesel train rather than electric car. Can’t win them all I suppose

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, How they work. Fireless steam locomotives

A bit about those that use compressed air. More fireless locomotives

Regards Nick.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

[…]
I wonder how a mix of steam and compressed-air would work. Indeed, if it would work at all.

 

[…]

 

I take it you didn’t follow the various hints that GoogleAI provided

… at one point it asked me

Would you like more technical details on the Lamm & Francq thermal storage system, or are you looking for information regarding other railway exhibits currently featured at the Ambérieu-en-Bugey Railway Museum?

So I selected the first … and received quite a detailed explanation.

MichaelG.

 

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Basically superheated water that flashes to steam as the pressure reduces due to consumption of the resulting steam. You can store a lot more energy in a given volume of water than steam.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

The last steam locos made by Sentinel were fireless cookers, for an ICI chemical factory, I think, in 1958/9.

Can’t remember whether they were 0-4-0 or 0-6-0.

They were charged from a superheated supply, with the supply pipe, on the loco, passing through a lead filled tank. The incoming high temperature melted the lead, which then acted as a steam drier / superheater while the loco was working.

Howard

[Robert Atkinson 2]

On Robert Atkinson 2 Said:

Basically superheated water that flashes to steam as the pressure reduces due to consumption of the resulting steam. You can store a lot more energy in a given volume of water than steam.

Superheated water will only exist when steam is being taken.  At zero flow the steam and water must be in equibrium at saturation conditions.  Contrary to what AI would have us believe according to Nicholas’s link.

Martin

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