Things that seemed a good idea at the time, but in practice are pretty useless.

Now I really would like to see a demonstration of how this can be done, even if it is not in steam.

 

I know - the mind boggles!

Although I do have this vision of an impressively bearded driver peering into the firebox of his Dean Single, and remarking to his fireman "Arrrrr..... oi moight 'ave me a special tool fur thaaaat....."

 

I’d also like to see a demonstration of how this can be done - but only if it’s not in steam!

Tom

 

Any chance of scanning it and sharing?

Even just the title and author would be interesting

 

My copy is actually in storage, and I'd unfortunately forgotten the title. After a pretty exhaustive search online I was just about to give up, when lo and behold:

The Locomotive - It's Failures and Remedies by Thomas Pearce https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89089676373&view=1up&seq=9

The bit in question is on page 13, although it seems my memory was playing up - you don't use the fire irons at all, instead you just reach in and whack a bolt in. Which is obviously much more sensible.

 

Well done that man!

If you want something broadly contemporary Google ' locomotive engine driving Reynolds' and you should find his book, pm me of you cannot find a copy

 

Fascinating - I’ve only skimmed it, but I’ve got in my possession a hand written book from an LSWR engineman at Nine Elms. It contains various questions and answers that are so close to some of those in Pearce’s book that it seems highly likely that Pearce’s book was serving as a template for the questions asked, no doubt in the Nine Elms MIC class of the time. A degree of rote learning involved, maybe. The level of on-the-road failures that an engineman was expected to be able to resolve is surprising to modern eyes.

(Another interesting feature is a question about coal and water consumption of a train from Waterloo to Portsmouth that was clearly a favourite of the examiner, since it is attempted twice in two different hands - my assumption being that my notebook had been handed down through the generations, as it includes notes in different hands).

Tom

 

Yes I've had a quick skim as well, as it's been a while. The brief section detailing fixes for the vacuum system on the train itself came as a bit of a surprise!

I imagine as one of the earlier pocket-sized books it 'got around' a bit. It ran to at least eleven editions.

 

Thanks for posting the link to the photo of the Baden Railways 4-6-2. This engine has some interesting differences from the more numerous and better-known Bavarian Railways 4-6-2s. For starters, the divided drive and very large (2.10m/ 6ft 11in) coupled wheels. But both pacifics have very shapely chimneys - look as if they could have come from the Great Western works at Swindon!

The Baden engine ought to have been in a James Bond film. The elongated steam chests, with the high-pressure and low-pressure piston valves arranged in tandem on a single spindle, look like rocket launchers. And the two central tail-rods for the high-pressure cylinders look like a pair of machine-guns!

The other noticeable feature is that those two central tail-rods are at different heights, indicating that the two inside cylinders are at different heights. I only know of one other loco type with such off-set cylinders, namely the North Eastern Railway Class "J" of 1889. When originally built, the Class-J had 20-in (508mm) high-pressure and 28-in (711mm) low-pressure cylinders, which could not fit between the frames in the normal side-by-side position.

And talking of Class-J, that brings us to two other things that were once common but faded from the railway scene - "Single Drivers" and 2-cylinder compounds.

 

Tail rods also equalise the surface area of the piston faces providing that they were of the same diameter as the piston rod. Valve gears were arranged so that the admission point would be later on the piston rod side of the cylinder in order to try to equalise/balance the work done on the two sides in the absence of the tail rod. As for the tail rod supporting the mass of the piston it appears that incorporating an adequate bearing surface was a problem so it could be that the tail rod was viewed as an aid in maintaining piston alignment in the bore and also as a thrust equalisation device.

 

Yes, I would to ,I had a lead pug go once ,due to a bad bout of priming ,that was due to dirty water and foaming ,when working flat out. The fire was out in matter of minuets if not seconds .Hand brake had to be quickly wound on to stop running back down a steep grade. My mate jumped off to pin a wagon brake down to be on the safe side.

 

Thanks a lot for your information and the photo bluetrain!

Knut

 

But then he extended the tanks back into the cab, stopping the driver standing naturally to see through said windows... As did many others!

 

After done some research ; the Southern K-class tank engines had piston tail rods

 

But not for long

Tom

 

That`s right Tom! :https://www.tradebit.com/usr/fixyou...-free-chainsaw-clipart-illustration-43163.jpg

 

As did the other K-class tanks, the Metropolitan Railway variation on the Woolwich theme.
Pat

 

And of course they also had those high up spectacle glasses that started this thread off.

 

The Metropolitan 4-4-4 and 2-6-4 tanks, which became LNER Classes H2 and L2, retained their tail-rods until withdrawal in the late 1940s.

https://www.lner.info/locos/H/h2.php

https://www.lner.info/locos/L/l2.php

 

And, as a fan of tank locos, what handsome beasts they were.