Off the Rails - Train Stuff

[thunderer]

it depends what you are referring to.

There are a series of inspection doors at various places on and around the boiler of a locomotive that allow inspection of internal condition of the water space (water jacket) around the foundation ring at the base of the firebox as well as the firebox crown. It allows inspection of overall condition, checking of stays and for inspection of whether any wear through limscale scouring has ocurred and if so, how much.

There are also the firehole door, smokebox door and dampers on the ashpan that, when open, allow cold air in to the smokebox end of the fluetubes, firebox end of the flue tubes or the ashpan area.

As with anything, rapid cooling is a problem for a loco boiler, just as a series of cold-hot-cold cycles causes issues as the A1 trust found with Bornado, sorry, I meant Tornado.

[Renegadenemo]

Sadly I have no idea as I was mostly concerned with how to internally blast an inch diameter pipe for the first five or six inches of its length so the swageing tool could be re-used without collecting an uneven layer of soot and thus applying uneven pressure around the pipe's inner circumference. Perhaps the only clue is that the bulk of the water was pouring from the front of the boiler. The end where the coal goes in was dry part from two or three pipes whereas the other end had cracked pretty much every pipe away from its endplate. Why aren't they silver soldered or brazed or something a bit more resilient?

[Filtertron]

Sounds possible that the tubes weren't expanded or caulked at the tube plate properly. It also sounds as though the boiler has hogged through a rush of cold air, which probably was enough to cool the tubes causing them to contract and weep at the front tube plate. In laymens terms, the tube plate is the front plate of the boiler berrel with all the holes in it for the tubes to go through. There is also a tube plate which form part of the firebox front above the throatplate. Generally the tubes are expanded (or swaged) against the tube plate and caulked at the ends.

In Australia, pretty much all of the mainline steam locos have steel boilers, so a bead is welded around the tubes as a means of caulking them. Not having much experience with copper fireboxes and tubes, I'm not too sure of the process. As far as I am aware, the only mainline steam loco operational at present in Australia to have a copper firebox and tubes is Y112 in Victoria. It's also the only saturated steam mainline loco in Victoria. My only real experience with that loco was around 23 years ago, when I prepped it for a boiler washout - cleaned the smokebox out completely, and also the ashpan which was full of wet ash that had all but solidified. The latter job had to be performed in a pit. A complete mongrel of a job. The more qualified blokes took out the washout plugs and other sundry items.

Here's a photo of the Y. It was built in Ballarat (around eleven miles from where I live) by the Phoenix Foundry in 1889 to a Kitson design. It was rebuilt with a larger boiler around 1907. It still lives in Ballarat most of the time, but is currently in Melbourne being repaired.

[mtskull]

Sadly I have no idea as I was mostly concerned with how to internally blast an inch diameter pipe for the first five or six inches of its length so the swageing tool could be re-used without collecting an uneven layer of soot and thus applying uneven pressure around the pipe's inner circumference. Perhaps the only clue is that the bulk of the water was pouring from the front of the boiler. The end where the coal goes in was dry part from two or three pipes whereas the other end had cracked pretty much every pipe away from its endplate. Why aren't they silver soldered or brazed or something a bit more resilient?

If all of the damage was at the front tube plate end, it would appear that it was the smokebox door (the round thing at the front like a big dustbin lid) that was opened inappropriately. The door is there because soot, ash etc. tend to accumulate in the smokebox, consequently it needs to be cleaned out periodically.
There are several methods that have been used to secure tubes, particularly at the firebox end; welding and threading tubes being amongst them but I can think of a number of reasons why simply expanding into tube plates was very common:
1) There is the issue of differential expansion to contend with, particularly where the common combination of steel boiler barrel and copper tubes is used; a tube that is expanded into the tube plate could be expected to have a little “give” compared to one that is positively fixed.
2) Ease of construction and maintenance; boiler tubes need to be replaced from time to time and it is probably easier to collapse the ends of a scrap tube and expand the ends of a new one than to unbraze and re-braze. Not sure about the effects of localised heat on a tube plate, either.
3) If properly looked after, expanding tubes into a tube plate is a perfectly sound method. It isn’t desirable to subject any boiler to rapid heating or cooling but, if the worst happened, having to re-expand a set of tubes would be preferable to replacing a whole load of cracked ones...
This gives a lot of insight and is a right riveting read if you are really bored:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/ ... oilers.pdf

[Filtertron]

Something which may interest a few of you. On my recent travels, I managed to get a photo of CL17 under restoration in Cootamundra, NSW. CL17 was built by Clyde Engineering, Granville NSW in 1972. It is historically significant, as it was the last bulldog/bullnosed diesel built in the world by an affiliate of GM-EMD. The first appeared in the 1940's. CL17 was the seventeenth member of the CL class, which were built for the Commonwealth Railways for traffic across the Nullabor Plain, and featured an EMD 16-645E3 engine, producing around 3000hp at the rail.

In the early 1990's, the entire CL class were taken to Morrison Knudsen Australia, Whyalla South Australia for complete rebuild, which included stripping the locomotives down to the carbody, and installing new electrics and upgraded the engine - an EMD 16-645E3C. Ownership was transferred to MKA, and the finished locomotives were leased back to Australian National Railways (formerly CR). The class was split in two, with the first half being setup for freight traffic. This included lower gearing of the traction motors for better hauling capability, and being classified as CLF. The second half were setup for passenger train haulage, and were fitted with a head end power unit to power the electrics in the passenger carriages, and a higher gear ratio on the traction motors for a quicker take off and speed. These were classified as CLP. The original numbers were not retained, and were swapped about, with CL17 becoming CLP10.

The CLP's were used on all of ANR's passenger services, including The Ghan and Indian Pacific, until these services were sold to Great Southern Railway in 1997, when ANR was dissolved. Ownership of the CLF/CLP was passed to Australian Southern Railroad in 1997, when the MKA business wound up. From then on, all were used in freight traffic Australia wide. In 2006, the ARG was wound up by it's shareholders, and the assets split between Genesee Wyoming Australia, and QR National, who retained the ARG branding for it's Western Australian operations. CLP10 went to QR National, and spent most of it's time running container trains between Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

In 2012 QRN withdrew the CLF/P class as new locomotives entered traffic, and sold them to Apex International for re-sale internationally. They were moved to Ettamogah in Southern NSW for a period of storage in 2013, and again to Goulburn NSW in 2015. In 2017, a fundraiser was launched to save CLP10, given it's historical significance. The fundraiser was announced as being successful in 2018, and another fundraiser was launched to reverse the changes made to the locomotive's external appearance to how it was originally. The fund is also to reactivate the re-born CL17 as a working museum piece, which will haul special trains on a regular basis as well as being displayed at special events. It was moved to Cootamundra for restoration not long the announcement of the fundraiser's success.

This is the progress so far. Much of the bodywork on the driver side is complete, but the fireman's side is still devoid of panelling. The engine and other components have been assessed as sound, with some parts, such as the turbo unit, are currently being overhauled offsite. I hope to be able to visit this weekend for a further look, but given it's a good six hour drive from home, time might be limited. Anyway. Here it is as of two weeks ago:

[captain sparkle]

Great stuff!
We've still got one or two "bullnose" types knocking about, the Deltics. There's a close up of one here, on a once in a lifetime special along the Heysham nuclear power station branch line.

[Filtertron]

Deltics are cool. Had a look at a few a few years back when I was in the UK, but didn't see any in action. Over here in Australia we have locos dating from 1952 still in revenue service running freight. The oldest two would be GM10 (June 1952), which was built for the Commonwealth Railways, and B61 (July 1952), which was built for the Victorian Railways. The B class were double-ended like your Deltics. Both are now owned by Southern Shorthaul Railroad. You could say it's pretty much a working museum. It certainly attracts a lot of international visitors who can't believe we still use this stuff in service.

So you know what I'm on about, here is a photo of GM10 leading an empty wheat train towards Ararat, on 8/7/18. You will notice a couple more GM's in the lash-up, these are GM27 (1963) and GM22 (1962). The other thing is ALCo built 442s1 (formerly NSWGR 44220 of 1972).


...And B61 leading a loaded wheat train from Dimboola with GM22 and L277 (Formerly Comalco's R1001 of 1972) through Stawell on 2/2/18.

[Ernie Lazenby]

I have been reading this thread with interest. Good stuff!
I was about13 years old, 60 years ago, and an avid train spotter living in Ashington Northumberland. I have never forgotten the sound of a Deltic approaching at speed on its way South. It was 'Lancon Paddy' . Tremendous machines. Like many youngsters I spent many hours at Newcastle station trying to tick of all the locos in my Ian Allen train spotters book. My one regret I never got to see A4 pacific 'Silver Fox'

[Ernie Lazenby]

Sorry age has caught me up it should of course be St Paddy or even Alycidon I saw both of them. Don't know where I got Lancon Paddy from?

[Richie]

I have an old OO gauge tri-ang loco like that, the light even works on it !! It’s the closest I have actually got to the real thing unfortunately