There were only a small number of engineers in the second half of the 20th century whose belief in a future for steam traction was robust enough for them to combine current scientific and engineering knowledge to design or modify steam locomotives to deliver levels of performance, efficiency and/or operating costs that were unheard of […]
André Chapelon was a French locomotive engineer who pioneered the adoption of thermodynamics and gas/fluid flow theories in the design of steam locomotives. Even though he first demonstrated the astonishing performance improvements that could be attained by relatively simple application of these theories as early as 1926, his work was largely ignored by his more […]
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SAR Recordings from the 1980s With the exception of Track 10, the following recordings were made by David Wardale and Nick Bartlett in South Africa in the early 1980s. They were kindly made available to this website by David Wardale. The following descriptions of each track have been provided by David Wardale: Steam Recordings: all […]
Locomotive and Train Brakes There are three types of brakes used in railway operations: the Air Brake, the Steam Brake and the Vacuum Brake. Steam Brake (steam locomotives only): steam brakes are used only on steam locomotives and their tenders. Steam brakes use the steam from the locomotive’s boiler to generate the braking force that […]
Locomotive Exhausts Page Under Development This page is still “under development”. Please contact Chris Newman at webmaster@advanced-steam.org if you would like to help by contributing text to this or any other page.’ Background A steam locomotive’s exhaust system is perhaps the most innovative of all the ideas that underpin the “Stephensonian” concept. It’s cleverness derives from its automation whereby the […]
Incomplete Expansion of Steam in the Cylinder Page Under Development This page is still “under development”. Please contact Chris Newman at webmaster@advanced-steam.org if you would like to help by contributing text to this or any other page. The term “incomplete expansion” is used to describe the curtailment of the expansion of steam inside a of a […]
Triangular Losses in Cylinders Page Under Development This page is still “under development”. Please contact Chris Newman at webmaster@advanced-steam.org if you would like to help by contributing text to this or any other page. The term “triangular losses” is used to describe the rounding of the corners of a locomotive’s indicator diagram caused by the opening […]
Cylinder Clearance Volume The clearance volume of a cylinder (often presented as a percentage term) is that part or proportion of the cylinder volume that is not swept by the piston. It is therefore the volume (or proportion of total volume) taken up by the steam passages and cylinder-head cavities – i.e. the volume contained between […]
Superheating of Steam Page Under Development This page is still “under development”. Please contact Chris Newman at webmaster@5at.co.uk if you would like to help by contributing text to this or any other page.’ Background On page 160 of his book “The Red Devil and Other Tales from the Age of Steam” Wardale confirms that: “The fundamental […]
Primary and Secondary Combustion Air and Combustion Gases Combustion Air is the air drawn through the firebox by the draughting system which allows combustion to take place. Only the oxygen content of the air (approx 18%) is used in the combustion process, the remainder (mostly nitrogen) being inert and serving no function other than wasting […]
Dynamic Augment or Hammer Blow Hammer Blow or “Dynamic Augment” is a dynamic force imposed through the driving wheels and onto the railway track resulting from the rotation of out-of-balance weights that are attached to the driving wheels for the purpose of counteracting the horizontal inertia forces resulting from the “to-and-fro” motion of the reciprocating motion […]