1.
Beyer, Peacock and Company
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Beyer, Peacock and Company was an English railway Locomotive manufacturer with a factory in Gorton, Manchester. Founded by Charles Beyer, Richard Peacock and Henry Robertson, it traded from 1854 until 1966 and it received limited liability in 1902, becoming Beyer, Peacock and Company Limited. In 1854, the German born Charles Beyer resigned as engineer at Atlas works. It was Beyer that was responsible for success of production at Atlas. He had trained under the guidance of the inventor of cotton mill machinery. Richard Peacock resigned from his position as engineer of the Manchester, Sheffield. Confident in his ability to secure orders to build locomotives, Beyer’s resignation presented Peacock with a partnership opportunity. However, this was not a company and all partners were liable for debts should the business fail, in a mid-Victorian economic climate of boom and bust. Beyer could raise £9,524 and Peacock £5,500, Beyer and Peacock were founder members of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Unfortunately, Geach died, the loan was recalled and the project nearly died. To the rescue came Thomas Brassey who persuaded Henry Robertson to provide a £4,000 loan in return for being the third partner, Beyer appointed and worked closely with Hermann Ludwig Lange, in 1861. A native of his town, Plauen, Saxony, Langer trained as an engineer in Germany, became chief draughtsman in 1865. Four New South Wales Government Railways AD60 Class Beyer-Garratt Patent locomotives are preserved being the most powerful locomotives in the southern hemisphere when introduced. Gorton Foundry was on the side of the railway line to the Manchester, Sheffield. Between 1855 and 1966, the company built nearly 8,000 railway locomotives, several of their 1874-built steam locomotives for the Isle of Man Railway remain in daily use. A Gorton-built South African Railways GL class Beyer-Garratt locomotive is on display in the Museum of Science, in addition to building steam locomotives, Beyer, Peacock & Co. The foundry was at Openshaw near Manchester, England, and was built in 1854, the site was chosen because land was cheaper than in the city and had good water supply from a local reservoir. Beyer had designed the works so it always allowed room for expansion, in its 112-year history no buildings needed to be demolished as the works developed
2.
Whyte notation
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The notation counts the number of leading wheels, then the number of driving wheels, and finally the number of trailing wheels, groups of numbers being separated by dashes. Other classification schemes, like UIC classification and the French, Turkish and Swiss systems for steam locomotives, in the notation a locomotive with two leading axles in front, then three driving axles and then one trailing axle is classified as 4-6-2. Articulated locomotives such as Garratts, which are two locomotives joined by a common boiler, have a + between the arrangements of each engine. Thus a double Pacific type Garratt is a 4-6-2+2-6-4, for Garratt locomotives the + sign is used even when there are no intermediate unpowered wheels, e. g. the LMS Garratt 2-6-0+0-6-2. This is because the two units are more than just power bogies. They are complete engines, carrying fuel and water tanks, the + sign represents the bridge that links the two engines. Simpler articulated types such as Mallets, have a frame under a common boiler where there are no unpowered wheels between the sets of powered wheels. Typically, the frame is free to swing, whereas the rear frame is rigid with the boiler. Thus a Union Pacific Big Boy is a 4-8-8-4, four leading wheels, one group of eight driving wheels, another group of eight driving wheels and this numbering system is shared by duplex locomotives, which have powered wheel sets sharing a rigid frame. No suffix means a tender locomotive, T indicates a tank locomotive, in European practice, this is sometimes extended to indicate the type of tank locomotive, T means side tank, PT pannier tank, ST saddle tank, WT well tank. T+T means a tank locomotive that also has a tender, in Europe, the suffix R can signify rack or reversible, the latter being Bi-cabine locomotives used in France. The suffix F indicates a fireless locomotive, other suffixes have been used, including ng for narrow-gauge and CA or ca for compressed air. In Britain, small diesel and petrol locomotives are classified in the same way as steam locomotives. This may be followed by D for diesel or P for petrol, thus 0-6-0DE denotes a six-wheel diesel locomotive with electric transmission. Where the axles are coupled by chains or shafts or are individually driven, thus 4wPE indicates a four-wheel petrol locomotive with electric transmission. For large diesel locomotives the UIC classification is used, the main limitation of Whyte Notation is that it does not cover non-standard types such as Shay locomotives, which use geared trucks rather than driving wheels. The most commonly used system in Europe outside the United Kingdom is UIC classification, based on German practice, in American practice, most wheel arrangements in common use were given names, sometimes from the name of the first such locomotive built. For example, the 2-2-0 type arrangement is named Planet, after the 1830 locomotive on which it was first used, the most common wheel arrangements are listed below
3.
0-6-0
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This was the most common wheel arrangement used on both tender and tank locomotives in versions with both inside and outside cylinders. In the United Kingdom, the Whyte notation of wheel arrangement was often used for the classification of electric and diesel-electric locomotives with side-rod coupled driving wheels. The 0-6-0 configuration was the most widely used wheel arrangement for both tender and tank steam locomotives, the type was also widely used for diesel switchers. On the other hand, the lack of unpowered leading wheels have the result that 0-6-0 locomotives are less stable at speed and they are therefore mostly used on trains where high speed is unnecessary. The tank engine versions were used as switching locomotives since the smaller 0-4-0 types were not large enough to be versatile in this job. The earliest 0-6-0 locomotives had outside cylinders, as these were simpler to construct, however, once designers began to overcome the problem of the breakage of the crank axles, inside cylinder versions were found to be more stable. Thereafter this pattern was adopted, particularly in the United Kingdom. Tank engine versions of the type began to be built in quantity in the mid-1850s and had become common by the mid-1860s. 0-6-0 locomotives were amongst the first types to be used, the earliest recorded example was the Royal George, built by Timothy Hackworth for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1827. Derwent, a locomotive built in 1845 by William and Alfred Kitching for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, is preserved at Darlington Railway Centre. On most branch lines, though, larger and more powerful tank engines tended to be favoured, in New South Wales, the Z19 class was a tender type with this wheel arrangement, as was the Victorian Railways Y class. The Dorrigo Railway Museum collection includes seven Locomotives of the 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, tank locomotives used by Finland were the VR Class Vr1 and VR Class Vr4. The VR Class Vr1s were numbered 530 to 544,656 to 670 and 787 to 799 and they had outside cylinders and were operational from 1913 to 1975. Built by Tampella, Finland and Hanomag, they were nicknamed Chicken, number 669 is preserved at the Finnish Railway Museum. The Vr4s were a class of four locomotives, numbered 1400 to 1423, originally built as 0-6-0s by Vulcan Iron Works, United States, but modified to 0-6-2s in 1951-1955. Finland’s tender locomotives were the classes C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, the Finnish Steam Locomotive Class C1s were a class of ten locomotives numbered 21 to 30. They were operational from 1869 to 1926 and they were built by Neilson and Company and were nicknamed Bristollari. Number 21, preserved at the Finnish Railway Museum, is the second oldest preserved locomotive in Finland, the eighteen Class C2s were numbered 31 to 43 and 48 to 52
4.
Track gauge
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In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
5.
Driving wheel
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On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotives pistons. On diesel and electric locomotives, the wheels may be directly driven by the traction motors. Coupling rods are not usually used, and it is common for each axle to have its own motor. Jackshaft drive and coupling rods were used in the past but their use is now confined to shunting locomotives, on an articulated locomotive or a duplex locomotive, driving wheels are grouped into sets which are linked together within the set
6.
Coal
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Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen. A fossil fuel, coal forms when plant matter is converted into peat, which in turn is converted into lignite, then sub-bituminous coal, after that bituminous coal. This involves biological and geological processes that take place over time, throughout history, coal has been used as an energy resource, primarily burned for the production of electricity and heat, and is also used for industrial purposes, such as refining metals. Coal is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide, the extraction of coal, its use in energy production and its byproducts are all associated with environmental and health effects including climate change. Coal is extracted from the ground by coal mining, since 1983, the worlds top coal producer has been China. In 2015 China produced 3,747 million tonnes of coal –47. 7% of 7,861 million tonnes world coal production, in 2015 other large producers were United States, India, European Union and Australia. The word originally took the col in Old English, from Proto-Germanic *kula. In Old Turkic languages, kül is ash, cinders, öčür is quench, the compound charcoal in Turkic is öčür kül, literally quenched ashes, cinders, coals with elided anlaut ö- and inflection affixes -ülmüş. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying wetland areas, due to natural processes such as flooding, these forests were buried underneath soil. As more and more soil deposited over them, they were compressed, the temperature also rose as they sank deeper and deeper. As the process continued the plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation and this trapped the carbon in immense peat bogs that were eventually covered and deeply buried by sediments. Under high pressure and high temperature, dead vegetation was slowly converted to coal, as coal contains mainly carbon, the conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called carbonization. The wide, shallow seas of the Carboniferous Period provided ideal conditions for coal formation, the exception is the coal gap in the Permian–Triassic extinction event, where coal is rare. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants — this coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae, in its dehydrated form, peat is a highly effective absorbent for fuel and oil spills on land and water. It is also used as a conditioner for soil to make it able to retain. Lignite, or brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal, jet, a compact form of lignite, is sometimes polished and has been used as an ornamental stone since the Upper Palaeolithic
7.
Cylinder (locomotive)
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The cylinders of a steam locomotive are the components that convert the power stored in the steam into motion. Cylinders may be arranged in different ways. On early locomotives, such as Puffing Billy, the cylinders were often set vertical, the next stage, for example Stephensons Rocket, was to drive the wheels directly from steeply inclined cylinders placed at the back of the locomotive. Direct drive became the standard arrangement, but the cylinders were moved to the front, the front-mounted cylinders could be placed either inside or outside. The reason for this difference is unclear, from about 1920, outside cylinders became more common in the UK but many inside-cylinder engines continued to be built. Inside cylinders give a stable ride with less yaw or nosing. Some designers used inside cylinders for aesthetic reasons, the demand for more power led to the development of engines with three cylinders or four cylinders. As the cylinders are double-acting this gives four impulses per revolution, on a three-cylinder engine, two arrangements are possible, cranks set to give six equally spaced impulses per revolution – the usual arrangement. For a given tractive effort and adhesion factor, a locomotive of this design will be less prone to wheelslip when starting than a 2-cylinder locomotive. Outside cranks set at 90 degrees, inside crank set at 135 degrees and this arrangement was sometimes used on three-cylinder compound locomotives which used the outside cylinders for starting. This will give evenly spaced exhausts when the engine is working compound, two arrangements are also possible on a four-cylinder engine, all four cranks set at 90 degrees. With this arrangement the cylinders act in pairs, so there are four impulses per revolution, most four-cylinder engines are of this type. Pairs of cranks set at 90 degrees with the pair set at 45 degrees to the outside pair. This gives eight impulses per revolution and it increases weight and complexity, by requiring four sets of valve gear, but gives smoother torque and reduces the risk of slipping. This was relatively unusual in British practice but was used on the SR Lord Nelson class, such locomotives are easily distinguished by their exhaust beats, whicb occur at twice the frequency of a normal 2- or 4-cylinder engine. The valve chests or steam chests which contain the slide valves or piston valves may be located in various positions, if the cylinders are small, the valve chests may be located between the cylinders. For larger cylinders the valve chests are usually on top of the cylinders but, in early locomotives, the valve chests are usually on top of the cylinders but, in older locomotives, the valve chests were sometimes located alongside the cylinders and inserted through slots in the frames. This meant that, while the cylinders were outside, the valves were inside, there are many variations in the location of the valve gear
8.
Tractive force
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In railway engineering, the term tractive effort is often used synonymously with tractive force to describe the pulling or pushing capability of a locomotive. The published tractive force value for any vehicle may be theoretical—that is, the term tractive effort is often qualified as starting tractive effort, continuous tractive effort and maximum tractive effort. The product of μ and m is the factor of adhesion, Starting tractive effort, Starting tractive effort is the tractive force that can be generated at a standstill. This figure is important on railways because it determines the maximum weight that a locomotive can set into motion. Maximum tractive effort, Maximum tractive effort is defined as the highest tractive force that can be generated under any condition that is not injurious to the vehicle or machine. In most cases, maximum tractive effort is developed at low speed, due to the relationship between power, velocity and force, described as, P = vF or P/v = F tractive effort inversely varies with speed at any given level of available power. Continuous tractive effort is often shown in graph form at a range of speeds as part of a tractive effort curve, the period of time for which the maximum continuous tractive effort may be safely generated is usually limited by thermal considerations. Such as temperature rise in a traction motor, specifications of locomotives often include tractive effort curves, showing the relationship between tractive effort and velocity. The shape of the graph is shown at right, the line AB shows operation at the maximum tractive effort, the line BC shows continuous tractive effort that is inversely proportional to speed. Tractive effort curves often have graphs of rolling resistance superimposed on them—the intersection of the rolling resistance graph, once in motion, the train will develop additional drag as it accelerates due to aerodynamic forces, which increase with the square of the speed. Drag may also be produced at speed due to truck hunting, if acceleration continues, the train will eventually attain a speed at which the available tractive force of the locomotive will exactly offset the total drag, causing acceleration to cease. This top speed will be increased on a due to gravity assisting the motive power. Tractive effort can be calculated from a locomotives mechanical characteristics, or by actual testing with drawbar strain sensors. Power at rail is a term for the available power for traction, that is. An estimate for the effort of a single cylinder steam locomotive can be obtained from the cylinder pressure, cylinder area, stroke of the piston. The torque developed by the motion of the piston depends on the angle that the driving rod makes with the tangent of the radius on the driving wheel. For a more useful value an average value over the rotation of the wheel is used, the driving force is the torque divided by the wheel radius. Modern locomotives with roller bearings were probably underestimated, european designers used a constant of 0.6 instead of 0.85, so the two cannot be compared without a conversion factor
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