Re: Thought exercise - steam VFT

["John Garaty" <jkgaraty@1earth.net>]

Greetings All
Matthew's suggestion has an additional advantage in that if you make the
generating plant big enough, ALL axles in the consist can be powered. This
should greatly increase your power/weight ratio and allow high speed to be
reached quickly and maintained easily. A true steam powered TGV...

Regards, John Garaty


Matthew Geier <matthew@mail.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message
8qut8h$k6b$1@spacebar.ucc.usyd.edu.au">news:8qut8h$k6b$1@spacebar.ucc.usyd.edu.au...
> David seems pretty set on a coal fired recripocating steamer.
>  I still think they would have gone electric at the time, using the Snowy
Hydro
> project as the main power supply.
>
>  In 1947 C&O, with loads of coal, were resisting the comming of the diesel
electric.
>
> They ordered 3 huge coal fired steam turbine electrics from Westinghouse &
baldwin.
> This book I have claims they were the heaviest and largest steam
locomotives ever
> built.
>
>  Its stats are listed as
> Coal-fired fire-tube boiler (112sq ft grate), 310psi,  a 6000hp turbine
> coupled to 2 generators that fed 8 axle hung traction motors.
>
>  Weight - 230.5t adhesive, 560t total.
>  Max axle load, 28.8t
>  Lenght - 154ft
>  Tractive effort - 436kN
>  Max speed 100Mph
>
>  It carried 27t of coal in a forward bunker, water in a tender in the
rear.
>
>  Its wheel arrangement is listed as 2-1 C0-1-C0 B0
>
>  The M-1s apparently lasted about 3 years before they gave up on them and
sucummbed
> to diesels.
>
>  They would have been an impressive sight!.
>
>  The steam HST (hardly TGV) could have used a version of these
steam-turbine-
> electrics, the electric transmission being able to get the power out to
multiple
> axles with out any hammer blow effects, or complex mechanics.
>  If you are going to go for complex drive mechanisims to address the
hammer
> blow at high speeds, the complexity of an electric transmission starts to
not
> be so much of a killer.
>