Locomotive
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is rather referred to as multiple units, motor coaches, railcars or power cars. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, push-pull operation has become common, where the train may have a locomotive at the front, at the rear, or at each end; the word locomotive originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus "place", the Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in 1814 to distinguish between self-propelled and stationary steam engines. Prior to locomotives, the motive force for railways had been generated by various lower-technology methods such as human power, horse power, gravity or stationary engines that drove cable systems. Few such systems are still in existence today. Locomotives may generate their power from fuel, or they may take power from an outside source of electricity.
It is common to classify locomotives by their source of energy. The common ones include: A steam locomotive is a locomotive whose primary power source is a steam engine; the most common form of steam locomotive contains a boiler to generate the steam used by the engine. The water in the boiler is heated by burning combustible material – coal, wood, or oil – to produce steam; the steam moves reciprocating pistons which are connected to the locomotive's main wheels, known as the "drivers". Both fuel and water supplies are carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in wagons called "tenders" pulled behind; the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was built by Richard Trevithick in 1802. It was constructed for the Coalbrookdale ironworks in Shropshire in the United Kingdom though no record of it working there has survived. On 21 February 1804, the first recorded steam-hauled railway journey took place as another of Trevithick's locomotives hauled a train from the Pen-y-darren ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil, to Abercynon in South Wales.
Accompanied by Andrew Vivian, it ran with mixed success. The design incorporated a number of important innovations including the use of high-pressure steam which reduced the weight of the engine and increased its efficiency. In 1812, Matthew Murray's twin-cylinder rack locomotive Salamanca first ran on the edge-railed rack-and-pinion Middleton Railway. Another well-known early locomotive was Puffing Billy, built 1813–14 by engineer William Hedley for the Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne; this locomotive is the oldest preserved, is on static display in the Science Museum, London. George Stephenson built Locomotion No. 1 for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the north-east of England, the first public steam railway in the world. In 1829, his son Robert built The Rocket in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Rocket was entered into, won, the Rainhill Trials; this success led to the company emerging as the pre-eminent early builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the UK, US and much of Europe.
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, built by Stephenson, opened a year making exclusive use of steam power for passenger and goods trains. The steam locomotive remained by far the most common type of locomotive until after World War II. Steam locomotives are less efficient than modern diesel and electric locomotives, a larger workforce is required to operate and service them. British Rail figures showed that the cost of crewing and fuelling a steam locomotive was about two and a half times larger than the cost of supporting an equivalent diesel locomotive, the daily mileage they could run was lower. Between about 1950 and 1970, the majority of steam locomotives were retired from commercial service and replaced with electric and diesel-electric locomotives. While North America transitioned from steam during the 1950s, continental Europe by the 1970s, in other parts of the world, the transition happened later. Steam was a familiar technology that used widely-available fuels and in low-wage economies did not suffer as wide a cost disparity.
It continued to be used in many countries until the end of the 20th century. By the end of the 20th century the only steam power remaining in regular use around the world was on heritage railways. Internal combustion locomotives use an internal combustion engine, connected to the driving wheels by a transmission, they keep the engine running at a near-constant speed whether the locomotive is stationary or moving. Kerosene locomotives use kerosene as the fuel, they were the world's first oil locomotives, preceding diesel and other oil locomotives by some years. The first known kerosene locomotive was a draisine built by Daimler in 1887. A kerosene locomotive was built in 1894 by the Priestman Brothers of Kingston upon Hull for use on Hull docks; this locomotive was built using a 12 hp double-acting marine type engine, running at 300 rpm, mounted on a 4-wheel wagon chassis. It was only able to haul one loaded wagon at a time, due to its low power output, was not a great success; the first successful kerosene locomotive was "Lachesis" built by Richard Hornsby & Sons Ltd. and delivered to Woolwich Arsenal railway in 1896.
The company built a series of kerosene locomotives between 1896 and 1903, for use by the British military. Petrol locomotives use petrol as their fuel. Most petrol locomotives built were petrol-mechanical, using a mechanical transmission to deliver the power output of the engine t
SS Great Eastern
SS Great Eastern was an iron sailing steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, built by J. Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames, London. She was by far the largest ship built at the time of her 1858 launch, had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling, her length of 692 feet was only surpassed in 1899 by the 705-foot 17,274-gross-ton RMS Oceanic, her gross tonnage of 18,915 was only surpassed in 1901 by the 701-foot 21,035-gross-ton RMS Celtic, her 4,000-passenger capacity was surpassed in 1913 by the 4,935-passenger SS Imperator. The ship's five funnels were rare; these were reduced to four. Brunel knew her affectionately as the "Great Babe", he died in 1859 shortly after her ill-fated maiden voyage, during which she was damaged by an explosion. After repairs, she plied for several years as a passenger liner between Britain and North America before being converted to a cable-laying ship and laying the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866.
Finishing her life as a floating music hall and advertising hoarding in Liverpool, she was broken up on Merseyside in 1889. After his success in pioneering steam travel to North America with Great Western and Great Britain, Brunel turned his attention to longer voyages as far as Australia and realised the potential of a ship that could travel round the world without the need of refuelling. On 25 March 1852, Brunel made a sketch of a steamship in his diary and wrote beneath it: "Say 600 ft x 65 ft x 30 ft"; these measurements were six times larger by volume than any ship afloat. Brunel realised. Using paddle wheels meant that the ship would be able to reach Calcutta, where the Hooghly River was too shallow for screws. Brunel showed his idea to John Scott Russell, an experienced naval architect and ship builder whom he had first met at the Great Exhibition. Scott Russell made his own calculations as to the ship's feasibility, he calculated that it would have a displacement of 20,000 tons and would require 8,500 horsepower to achieve 14 knots, but believed it was possible.
At Scott Russell's suggestion, they approached the directors of the Eastern Steam Navigation Company. The Eastern Company was formed in January 1851 with the plan of exploiting the increase in trade and emigration to India and Australia. To make this plan viable they needed a subsidy in the form of a mail contract from the British General Post Office, which they tendered for and Brunel started the construction of two vessels and Adelaide. However, in March 1852 the Government awarded the contracts to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company though the Eastern Company's tender was lower; this left them in the position of having a company without a purpose. Brunel's large ship promised to be able to compete with the fast clippers that dominated the route, as she would be able to carry sufficient coal for a non-stop passage and the company invited him to present his ideas to the board, he was unable to attend due to illness and Scott Russell took his place. The Company set up a committee to investigate the proposal, they reported in favour and the scheme was adopted at a board meeting held in July 1852.
Brunel was appointed Engineer to the project and he began to gather tenders to build the hull, paddle engines and screw engines. Brunel had a considerable stake in the company and when requested to appoint a resident engineer refused in no uncertain terms: I cannot act under any supervision, or form part of any system which recognises any other advisor than myself... if any doubt arises on these points I must cease to be responsible and cease to act. He was just as firm in the terms for the final contract where he insisted that nothing was to be undertaken without his express consent, that procedures and requirements for the construction were laid down. Although Brunel had estimated the cost of building the ship at £500,000, Scott Russell offered a low tender of £377,200: £275,200 for the hull, £60,000 for the screw engines and boilers, £42,000 for the paddle engines and boilers. Scott Russell offered to reduce the tender to £258,000 if an order for a sister ship was placed at the same time.
Brunel accepted Scott Russell's tender without questioning it. In the spring of 1854 work could at last begin; the first problem to arise was. Scott Russell's contract stipulated that it was to be built in a dock, but Russell quoted a price of £8–10,000 to build the necessary dock and so this part of the scheme was abandoned due to the cost and to the difficulty of finding a suitable site for the dock; the idea of a normal stern first launch was rejected because of the great length of the vessel because to provide the right launch angle the bow of the ship would have to be raised 40 feet in the air. It was decided to build the ship sideways to the river and use a mechanical slip designed by Brunel for the launch; the mechanical design was dropped on the grounds of cost, although the sideways plan remained. Having decided on a sideways launch, a suitable site had to be found, as S
Rolling stock
The term rolling stock in rail transport industry refers to any vehicles that move on a railway. It includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars and wagons. In the US, the definition has been expanded to include the wheeled vehicles used by businesses on roadways. Note that stock in the term is business related and used in a sense of inventory. Rolling stock is considered to be a liquid asset, or close to it, since the value of the vehicle can be estimated and shipped to the buyer without much cost or delay; the term contrasts with fixed stock, a collective term for the track, stations, other buildings, electric wires, etc. necessary to operate a railway. In Great Britain, types of rolling stock were given code names of animals. For example, "Toad" was used as a code name for the Great Western Railway goods brake van, while British Railways wagons used for track maintenance were named after fish, such as "Dogfish" for a ballast hopper; these codes were telegraphese, somewhat analogous to the SMS language of today.
List of railway vehicles Great Western Railway telegraphic codes Great Western Railway wagons Media related to rail vehicles at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of rolling stock at Wiktionary
Electrical telegraph
An electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses coded electrical signals to convey information via dedicated electrical wiring. Electrical telegraphy dates from the early 1800s, is distinct from the electrical telephony, which uses the analogue magnitude of electrical signals to convey information; the electrical telegraph, or more just telegraph, superseded optical semaphore telegraph systems, thus becoming the first form of electrical telecommunications. In a matter of decades after their creation in the 1830s, electrical telegraph networks permitted people and commerce to transmit messages across both continents and oceans instantly, with widespread social and economic impacts. From early studies of electricity, electrical phenomena were known to travel with great speed, many experimenters worked on the application of electricity to communications at a distance. All the known effects of electricity - such as sparks, electrostatic attraction, chemical changes, electric shocks, electromagnetism - were applied to the problems of detecting controlled transmissions of electricity at various distances.
In 1753, an anonymous writer in the Scots Magazine suggested an electrostatic telegraph. Using one wire for each letter of the alphabet, a message could be transmitted by connecting the wire terminals in turn to an electrostatic machine, observing the deflection of pith balls at the far end. Telegraphs employing electrostatic attraction were the basis of early experiments in electrical telegraphy in Europe, but were abandoned as being impractical and were never developed into a useful communication system. In 1774, Georges-Louis Le Sage realised an early electric telegraph; the telegraph had a separate wire for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet and its range was only between two rooms of his home. In 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, allowing for a continuous current of electricity for experimentation; this became a source of a low-voltage current that could be used to produce more distinct effects, and, far less limited than the momentary discharge of an electrostatic machine, which with Leyden jars were the only known man-made sources of electricity.
Another early experiment in electrical telegraphy was an'electrochemical telegraph' created by the German physician and inventor Samuel Thomas von Sömmering in 1809, based on an earlier, less robust design of 1804 by Spanish polymath and scientist Francisco Salva Campillo. Both their designs employed multiple wires to represent all Latin letters and numerals. Thus, messages could be conveyed electrically up to a few kilometers, with each of the telegraph receiver's wires immersed in a separate glass tube of acid. An electric current was sequentially applied by the sender through the various wires representing each digit of a message; the telegraph receiver's operator would watch the bubbles and could record the transmitted message. This is in contrast to telegraphs that used a single wire. Hans Christian Ørsted discovered in 1820 that an electric current produces a magnetic field that will deflect a compass needle. In the same year Johann Schweigger invented the galvanometer, with a coil of wire around a compass, which could be used as a sensitive indicator for an electric current.
In 1821, André-Marie Ampère suggested that telegraphy could be done by a system of galvanometers, with one wire per galvanometer to indicate each letter, said he had experimented with such a system. In 1824, Peter Barlow said that such a system only worked to a distance of about 200 feet, so was impractical. In 1825, William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet, with a single winding of uninsulated wire on a piece of varnished iron, which increased the magnetic force produced by electric current. Joseph Henry improved it in 1828 by placing several windings of insulated wire around the bar, creating a much more powerful electromagnet which could operate a telegraph through the high resistance of long telegraph wires. During his tenure at The Albany Academy from 1826 to 1832, Henry first demonstrated the theory of the'magnetic telegraph' by ringing a bell through a mile of wire strung around the room. In 1835, Joseph Henry and Edward Davy invented the critical electrical relay. Davy's relay used a magnetic needle which dipped into a mercury contact when an electric current passed through the surrounding coil.
Davy demonstrated his telegraph system in Regent's Park in 1837 and was granted a patent on 4 July 1838. Davy invented a printing telegraph which used the electric current from the telegraph signal to mark a ribbon of calico impregnated with potassium iodide and calcium hypochlorite; the first working telegraph was built by the English inventor Francis Ronalds in 1816 and used static electricity. At the family home on Hammersmith Mall, he set up a complete subterranean system in a 175 yard long trench as well as an eight mile long overhead telegraph; the lines were connected at both ends to revolving dials marked with the letters of the alphabet and electrical impulses sent along the wire were used to transmit messages. Offering his invention to the Admiralty in July 1816, it was rejected as "wholly unnecessary", his account of the scheme and the possibilities of rapid global communication in Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph and of some other Electrical Apparatus was the first published work on electric telegraphy and described the risk of signal retardation due to induction.
Elements of Ronalds’ design were utilised in the subsequent commercialisation of the telegraph over 2
Railway signalling
Railway signalling is a system used to direct railway traffic and keep trains clear of each other at all times. Trains move on fixed rails; this susceptibility is exacerbated by the enormous weight and inertia of a train, which makes it difficult to stop when encountering an obstacle. In the UK, the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 introduced a series of requirements on matters such as the implementation of interlocked block signalling and other safety measures as a direct result of the Armagh rail disaster in that year. Most forms of train control involve movement authority being passed from those responsible for each section of a rail network to the train crew; the set of rules and the physical equipment used to accomplish this determine what is known as the method of working, method of operation or safeworking. Not all these methods require the use of physical signals, some systems are specific to single track railways; the earliest rail cars were first hauled by mules. A mounted flagman on a horse preceded some early trains.
Hand and arm signals were used to direct the “train drivers”. Foggy and poor-visibility conditions gave rise to flags and lanterns. Wayside signalling dates back as far as 1832, used elevated flags or balls that could be seen from afar; the simplest form of operation, at least in terms of equipment, is to run the system according to a timetable. Every train crew adheres to a fixed schedule. Trains may only run on each track section at a scheduled time, during which they have'possession' and no other train may use the same section; when trains run in opposite directions on a single-track railroad, meeting points are scheduled, at which each train must wait for the other at a passing place. Neither train is permitted to move. In the US the display of two green flags is an indication that another train is following the first and the waiting train must wait for the next train to pass. In addition, the train carrying the flags gives eight blasts on the whistle; the waiting train must return eight blasts.
The timetable system has several disadvantages. First, there is no positive confirmation that the track ahead is clear, only that it is scheduled to be clear; the system does not allow for engine failures and other such problems, but the timetable is set up so that there should be sufficient time between trains for the crew of a failed or delayed train to walk far enough to set warning flags and detonators or torpedoes to alert any other train crew. A second problem is the system's inflexibility. Trains can not be delayed, or rescheduled without advance notice. A third problem is a corollary of the second: the system is inefficient. To provide flexibility, the timetable must give trains a broad allocation of time to allow for delays, so the line is not in the possession of each train for longer than is otherwise necessary. Nonetheless, this system permits operation on a vast scale, with no requirements for any kind of communication that travels faster than a train. Timetable operation was the normal mode of operation in North America in the early days of the railroad.
With the advent of the telegraph in 1841, a more sophisticated system became possible because this provided a means whereby messages could be transmitted ahead of the trains. The telegraph allows the dissemination of any timetable changes, known as train orders; these allow the cancellation and addition of train services. North American practice meant that train crews received their orders at the next station at which they stopped, or were sometimes handed up to a locomotive'on the run' via a long staff. Train orders allowed dispatchers to set up meets at sidings, force a train to wait in a siding for a priority train to pass, to maintain at least one block spacing between trains going the same direction. Timetable and train order operation was used on American railroads until the 1960s, including some quite large operations such as the Wabash Railroad and the Nickel Plate Road. Train order traffic control was used in Canada until the late 1980s on the Algoma Central Railway and some spurs of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Timetable and train order was not used outside North America, has been phased out in favor of radio dispatch on many light-traffic lines and electronic signals on high-traffic lines. More details of North American operating methods is given below. A similar method, known as'Telegraph and Crossing Order' was used on some busy single lines in the UK during the 19th century. However, a series of head-on collisions resulted from authority to proceed being wrongly given or misunderstood by the train crew - the worst of, the collision between Norwich and Brundall, Norfolk, in 1874; as a result, the system was phased out in favour of token systems. This eliminated the danger of ambiguous or conflicting instructions being given because token systems rely on objects to give authority, rather than verbal or written instructions. Trains cannot collide with each other if they are not permitted to occupy the same section of track at the same time, so railway lines are divided into sections known as blocks.
In normal circumstances, only one train is permitted in each block at a time. This principle forms the basis of most railway safety systems. Blocks can either be fixed or moving blocks (ends of blocks defined relative to moving t
Dugald Drummond
Dugald Drummond was a Scottish steam locomotive engineer. He had a career with the North British Railway, LB&SCR, Caledonian Railway and London and South Western Railway, he was the brother of the engineer Peter Drummond. He was a major locomotive designer and builder and many of his London and South Western Railway engines continued in main line service with the Southern Railway to enter British Railways service in 1947. Drummond was born in Ardrossan, Ayrshire on 1 January 1840, his father was permanent way inspector for the Bowling Railway. Drummond was apprenticed to Forest & Barr of Glasgow gaining further experience on the Dumbartonshire and Caledonian Railways, he was in charge of the boiler shop at the Canada Works, Birkenhead of Thomas Brassey before moving to the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway's Cowlairs railway works in 1864 under Samuel W. Johnson, he became foreman erector at the Lochgorm Works, Inverness, of the Highland Railway under William Stroudley and followed Stroudley to the London Brighton and South Coast Railway's Brighton Works in 1870.
In 1875, he was appointed Locomotive Superintendent of the North British Railway. Drummond was involved as an expert witness in the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, being called to give evidence about the state of the track after the disaster. Although Ladybank, a 0-4-2 locomotive of Drummond's design, had been booked to work the train it had broken down and was replaced by no. 224, a 4-4-0 to the design of Thomas Wheatley, thus freeing Drummond to act as an independent witness. He said that the entire train had fallen vertically down when the High Girders collapsed, from the impact marks the wheels had made on the lines. All the axles of the train were bent in one direction; the evidence helped disprove Thomas Bouch's theory that the train had been blown off the rails by the storm that night. In 1882 he moved to the Caledonian Railway. In April 1890 he tendered his resignation to enter business, establishing the Australasian Locomotive Engine Works at Sydney, Australia; the scheme failed and he returned to Scotland, founding the Glasgow Railway Engineering Company.
Although the business was moderately successful, Drummond accepted the post as locomotive engineer of the London and South Western Railway in 1895, at a salary less than that he had received on the Caledonian Railway. The title of his post was changed to Chief Mechanical Engineer in January 1905, although his duties hardly changed, he remained with the LSWR until his death. Drummond died on 8 November 1912 aged 72 at his home at Surbiton. A myth has developed; however C. Hamilton Ellis states that he had got cold and wet and demanded a hot mustard bath for his numb feet, he was scalded by the boiling water. He neglected the burns, gangrene set in and amputation became necessary, he died of the shock. He is buried at Brookwood Cemetery, adjacent to the LSWR mainline, in a family grave just a stone's throw from the former terminus of the London Necropolis Railway. Drummond's daughter, Christine Sarah Louise was born in Brighton in 1871, soon after the family's arrival there from Scotland, she married James Johnson, son of Samuel Waite Johnson CME of the Midland Railway 1873–1904.
Her third child, born in 1905 was named Dugald Samuel Waite Johnson after both of his grandfathers. Drummond designed the following classes of locomotives: NBR 165 class 0-6-0T LNER class J82 NBR 100 class 0-6-0 LNER class J32 NBR 474 class 2-2-2 NBR 476 class 4-4-0 LNER classes D27 and D28 NBR 157 class 0-4-2T 0-4-4T LNER class G8 NBR 494 class 4-4-0T LNER class D50 NBR 34 class 0-6-0 LNER class J34 Caledonian Railway 294 Class 0-6-0 LMS class 2F Caledonian Railway 66 Class 4-4-0 LMS class 2P Caledonian Railway 171 Class 0-4-4T LMS class 1P Caledonian Railway 262 Class 0-4-2ST LMS class 0P Caledonian Railway 264 Class 0-4-0ST LMS class 0F Caledonian Railway 123, 4-2-2 LMS 14010, class 1P Caledonian Railway 385 Class 0-6-0ST LMS class 3F Caledonian Railway 80 Class 4-4-0 LMS class 1P Caledonian Railway 272 Class 0-6-0ST LMS class 0F LSWR 700 class 0-6-0 known latterly as "the Black Motors" LSWR M7 class 0-4-4 tank engines known as "Motor Tanks" LSWR T7 class 4-2-2-0 prototype "double single" LSWR C8 class 4-4-0 LSWR F9 class 4-2-4T known as "the Bug" LSWR T9 class 4-4-0 known as "Greyhounds" LSWR E10 class 4-2-2-0 "double single" LSWR K10 class 4-4-0 known as "Small Hoppers" LSWR K11 class railcar LSWR L11 class 4-4-0 known as "Large Hoppers" LSWR S11 class 4-4-0 LSWR L12 class 4-4-0 known as "Bulldogs" LSWR H12 class railcar LSWR F13 class 4-6-0 LSWR H13 class railcar LSWR C14 class 2-2-0 motor tank – rebuilt as 0-4-0 LSWR K14 class 0-4-0 tank engines first designed by Adams as class B4 LSWR E14 class 4-6-0 known as "the Turkey" LSWR G14 class 4-6-0 LSWR P14 class 4-6-0 LSWR T14 class 4-6-0 known as "Paddleboxes" LSWR D15 class 4-4-0 GB189727949, published 15 October 1898, Improvements in locomotive boilers GB189901077, published 2 December 1899, Improvements in apparatus for use in heating railway carriages Dugald Drummond at www.lner.info Dugald & Peter Drummond at www.steamindex.com Bradley, D. L..
An illustrated history of LSWR Locomotives: the Drummond Classes. Didcot: Wild Swan Publications. ISBN 0-906867-42-8. Haresnape, Brian & Rowledge, Peter. Drummond Locomotives: a pictorial history. Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-1206-7. Ellis, C. Hamilton; the South Western Railway. London: Allen & Unwin
