Re: R711 lifts safety valves today!

[David A. <David_A@nospam.mailroom.com>]

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:33:10 +1000, steam4me@enternet.com.au (Yuri J
Sos) wrote:

>The wonderful, wonderful sound of the lifting of the safety valves
>this afternoon at Ballarat East and the roar of the oil burner in the
>firebox heralded the return of R711 to the land of the living.
>
>This distinctive locomotive was due to move under its own power for
<snip>

and distinctive is the word ... what have they done to the chimney ???
The twin exhaust setup looks totally bizarre !  The front one is
pointing forwards ... I can't see how this is going to help with
dispersing the exhaust, but I don't have any details on what they are
trying to do or how it benefits the efficiency of the loco.  Perhaps
they can switch bewtween exhausts for forward and reverse running ?

The rectangular sand dome lacks the elegance of the original also,
although it no doubt has a higher capacity.  Perhaps this will avoid
things like the total stall suffered by 766 on Easter Monday this
year.  Is the steam dome cover going to be separate or faired into the
steam dome ?  One last obvious question; any word yet on what colour
it is going to be ?

It's going to take a bit of getting used to the appearance, but full
marks to WCR for bringing 711 into the 90s.  This isn't preservation
we're talking about here, in that sense it is no longer a VR R class.
It's appropriate that Steamrail keep theirs looking original so we can
see the Rs the way they were.  If your going to have steam traction in
front line service it might as well be as efficient as you can make
it.  

PBRs NAs have various mods to make them more user friendly whilst
still looking original.  Extra lubricators, steam sanding gear in some
cases, modern grease nipples and welded, fibre glass lined tanks with
glued on rivets !  But boy have they got a great sound for such a
small engine !  It will be interesting to see how 711s exhaust sounds
after all the tweaking.  A sharp exhaust sound isn't necessarily
consistant with high efficiency, even though it sounds better IMO.

Cheers, David A.
Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone !
David A. | Woodend, Australia