Historical images - Images that made history

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Lone Dogma said:
English Electric Design Prototype 1, the first Type 5 (3000hp+) locomotive to run on British rails.
View attachment 3407948
CC BY-SA 2.0 Ben Brooksbank
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"Deltic" (and the production class based on it) was the most powerful diesel locomotive in the world (3300hp) when it was built and for quite some time afterwards. The previous record-holder was the Baldwin "Centipede", notable for having a ludicrous 12 axles and four engines, making 3000hp (Deltic achieved more power with only 2 engines and 6 axles). The "Centipede" was designed to have anything up to eight engines, though only four were ever installed. Baldwin, one of the most successful steam locomotive manufacturers, really struggled with making diesels. The "Centipedes" were built by hand like steam engines, and every one was slightly different in its wiring and engineering, making them incredibly difficult and expensive to maintain, not helped by the bad reliability of their power units. They didn't last very long and Baldwin eventually quit the railroad business altogether.

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This is one of only a handful of surviving colour photographs of a "Centipede".

How did the Deltic get so much power? That was due to the unusual design of its engines, which were of the opposed-piston type, whereby the cylinders had a piston at each end with no cylinder head. These pistons were arranged into a triangle formation, driving three separate crankshafts which were then geared together. This drastically reduced weight and space, and produced very high power, and were used extensively in warships in WWII.

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Opposed-piston diesel engines were invented in Germany in the 1930s, though the triangle formation was a British innovation. The Germans used them in a flat formation, with two crankshafts, producing a flat engine that could fit in an aircraft's wing:

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Not many people know that the Germans fielded a large number of aircraft powered by diesel engines, particularly seaplanes as they could be refuelled at sea by U-boats that were also diesel-powered. The most notable was the gigantic Blohm & Voss BV 222 flying boat, the largest seaplane in the world until 1946:

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Opposed-piston engines fell out of favour in the West, as their complexity made them difficult and time-consuming to repair - the Deltics were designed to have hot-swappable engines, a crew could swap a defective engine for a spare in a couple of hours, allowing them to be repaired in the shop without taking the locomotive out of service. As far as I'm aware, the only opposed-piston rail locomotives still running are the monstrous Russian TE-10s, with power units based on the Fairbanks-Morse opposed-piston engine used in minesweepers sold to the Russians under lend-lease in WWII. Given the maintenance standards typical of Russian railways, these power units don't run terribly cleanly, leading to absolute hellfire scenes like this:


EDIT: A bit of Google Translate-aided research reveals why these locos produce so much smoke when accelerating - they have an unusual twin-turbo arrangement with a turbocharger feeding a supercharger that then feeds the intercoolers. This has its advantages - plenty of power for one, as well as good performance at high altitude and extreme temperatures, very important considerations in the USSR, but the drawback is spectacular turbo lag, made worse by the fact that opposed-piston engines are slow to throttle up. This makes the fuel mixture incredibly rich when the RPM is increasing, producing the TE-10's signature black smoke and flames when it pulls away.
 
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Baldwin had a little success in the switching engine market, but, yeah, never quite got the hang of building "proper" mainline diesels. The centipedes broke down so often, they were nicknamed "The Repairman's Friend"

Prior to WWII, the "Big 3" of American locomotive manufacturing were Alco, Baldwin and Lima, who combined had well over a century and a half of experience building steam engines.

However, said war put a damper on them doing any R & D , leaving them lagging behind in the immediate post-war years as General Motors Electro-Motive Division and General Electric stole the march on them with efficient diesel-electrics, powered in some cases by the very same marine diesels they had developed to great success for the war to power submarines and ships.

Steam disappeared virtually overnight when they hit the market.

Subsequently, Lima exited in 1949, merging with Baldwin, who itself was out of business by 1956, Alco hung on doggedly until 1969 when their inability to vastly improve reliability and fuel economy on their engines compared to EMD and GE , combined with a decline in railroads in general, proved the final nail in the coffin. Like those Fiarbanks-Morse prime movers, Alcos smoked a LOT from leaky turbochargers and other less-durable components. Enough they were sometimes called "honorary steam engines".



Here's EMD GP-7 #100, a proof-of-concept freight engine they demonstrated to various railroads starting in 1947

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By 1950, just three years later, NO American railroad was ordering new steam engines, and the ones that were hanging on were building them in-house in their own shops. In fact, the GP-series were so successful, they still can be found running on short lines and other local railroads to this day.

My local railroad at work, the two engines up front are modified and modernized GP-9s, dating from 1953. The only thing that can ever truly put them down would be a wreck, or, the frames succumbing to eventual stress cracks. Like a B-52, they'll probably have 100-year long service lives when they finally go for scrap, amazing really.

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The Deltics hung on well into the early 1980's with six being preserved from scrapping. They make up for the fact that when British Railways underwent their big nationalization and modernization plan in the 60's, and decided to wholesale dump steam engines without a lot of forethought, dozens of heavy engine manufacturers, many who'd specialized in ships and airplanes and had never built trains before, were called upon to build hundreds and hundreds of engines. When they worked? They were great, but a LOT of them were rubbish, if you ever stumble across a "worst" list of trains or engineering failures, chances are at least ONE class of engine from BR in the 60's will be on there, possibly more.
 
Spunt said:
"Deltic" (and the production class based on it) was the most powerful diesel locomotive in the world (3300hp) when it was built and for quite some time afterwards.
Click to expand...
Spunt said:
How did the Deltic get so much power? That was due to the unusual design of its engines, which were of the opposed-piston type, whereby the cylinders had a piston at each end with no cylinder head. These pistons were arranged into a triangle formation, driving three separate crankshafts which were then geared together. This drastically reduced weight and space, and produced very high power, and were used extensively in warships in WWII.
Click to expand...
The best part is, they sound like a bunch of angry bees wanting to kill you.
 
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