The Steam Locomotive: An Engineering History

256 Pages·2012·6.37 MB·English

by  Ken Gibbs

To all those railway pioneers mentioned in the book.
They certainly started something!
And the world became a smaller place.
This electronic edition published 2013
Amberley Publishing
The Hill, Stroud, Gloucestershire
GL5 4EP
www.amberley-books.com
Copyright © Ken Gibbs 2009, 2013
ISBN 9781445609188 (PRINT)
ISBN 9781445624259 (e-BOOK)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1: Early Locomotive Design and Manufacture
2: The Early Years of ‘The American Approach’
3: Development of Material – The Metals
4: How Were Measurements Determined?
5: Building a Locomotive – Frames: ‘Sandwich’, ‘Plate’ and ‘Bar’
6: Making a Crank Axle – Method and Problems
7: The Locomotive Boiler – Design and Construction
8: The Regulator and Boiler Design
9: The Safety Valve and ‘Pressure Gauge’
10: The Development of Valve Gear
11: Valve Gears and the Valves
12: The Indicator Diagram – A Note on What it is and What it Does
13: Locomotive Testing and the Test Plant on Which it is Done
14: Locomotive Wheels – Design and Manufacture
15: Locomotive Springs – Design and Manufacture
16: Locomotive Axle Box Design
17: Locomotive Lubrication
18: Locomotive Balancing
19: The Quest for Efficient Brakes – Hand, Steam, Vacuum, Air
20: An Efficient Way of Application – Automatic Train Control
21: The Vacuum System – The Air Brake and the Steam Brake
22: The ‘Injector’ – Getting Water into the Boiler
23: Cast Components and the Foundry – How do They Make Loco Cylinders?
24: Other Components – Hand Forging, Drop Stamping and Steam Hammer-Pressing
25: The ‘Nuts and Bolts’ Story
26: Outlines of History – Events of Locomotive Design and Use in the Mid-1800s
27: Locomotives Just Get Bigger – Classification of Wheel Arrangements
28: The American Dream – ‘Biggest is Best’ Up to the 2-10-10-2
29: Lifting and Moving Locomotives in the Main Workshops
30: Lifting and Moving Locomotives Outside the Main Workshops
31: The Swindon Workshops Through the Years
32: Workshop Staff – Time Recording and Payment Methods
33: The End of a Steam Locomotive Works
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book has been compiled from a number of magazine articles written by me over a
number of years, making a miscellany of steam locomotive construction notes, tied
together by additional relevant information, with reference to sights and operations
from the workshops experienced in my apprentice years and subsequent practical
knowledge gained in the works from 1944 to the end of official ‘steam’, and really
beyond, as I am still working for several heritage railway groups. The photographs are
from all sources acquired over many years, and selected for the book. Most modern
photographs by the author.
As for the apprenticeship; I would do it all again!
Ken Gibbs
LCGI (M.Eng.)
INTRODUCTION
Let’s have a quick look at the first real steam pioneers.
The first recorded person fascinated by Steam was Hero of Alexandria in 200 BC,
who devised what could be called an embryonic steam turbine. This consisted of a
hollow ball supported with two horizontal bearings, with two opposed bent spouts,
looking like two arms of a swastika. Filled with water and heated, the steam generated
exited through the spouts and rotated the ball. Really a curio and not exploited!
So while the world developed and settled down somewhat, hundreds of years went
by while technology developed beyond the physical strength of man and horse. The
extraction of minerals of various sorts from the earth had, by the seventeenth century,
considerably developed. Mining techniques were among the technologies developed,
and it was found that the deeper man dug into the earth, the more he was hampered by
the essential to life itself, water.
The old saying ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ is still as true today as it has
always been. Lifting water a short distance without pumping it or carrying it in buckets
was assisted by the experiments of one Thomas Savery, who devised a system of
forming a vacuum which sucked up water through a pipe, then having delivered it to a
higher level chamber, delivered it to another higher level chamber by the pressure of
steam on the water surface, forcing it up a delivery pipe. Savery also set up the world’s
first steam engine (stationary) manufactory in London in 1702. His pump is described
and illustrated in his work of the same date, titled The Miner’s Friend. While his pump
was suitable for big houses, it would not work in mines. The Steam Age was opening
up, continual improvement was inevitable, and 1705 saw the next important step.
The improvements applied by Thomas Newcomen represented a great step
forward. The illustration shows the beam, pump rods one end, steam cylinder the other.
Steam entered the cylinder, a jet of cold water condensed the steam which had entered
as the weight of the pump rod pulled the piston up to the cylinder top, and the
atmospheric pressure forced the piston down, thus raising the pump rod. This system
operated in mines for about sixty years, when a young James Watt started his model-
making and experimenting. He noted the jet of cold water cooled the cylinder and left
the walls of the cylinder wet. He considered this a waste of heat and thus the power of
the steam. He devised a separate chamber where the steam could be condensed with the
cold water, keeping the heat in the cylinder, making the operation more effective.
Development continued.
Newcomen’s ‘Atmospheric’ Engine. A: Boiler furnace; B: Steam boiler; C: Steam valve; D: Engine cylinder; E:
Piston; F: Piston rod; G: Main beam; H: Heavy pump-rod; J: Mine pump; K: Pump for condensing water; L: Pipe
leading to condensing water-tank; M: Condensing water pipe; N: Injection cock to cylinder; O: Water tap to top of
piston; P: Relief or snifting valve; Q: Eduction pipe with no-return valve at end; R: Feed-water tank.
How the railway story began: the Pennydarren locomotive of Richard Trevithick, 1804.
So, steam, cylinders, rocking beams, static engines spreading over the countryside.
But James Watt, double-acting steam, and no cold water spray changed all that!
It was inevitable that such a power source would find another application. So while
theories were discussed, and models made, it was a Cornish man who decided on a
mobile application in full size. Richard Trevithick decided to replace the limited power
of man and horse with a mobile application of the principles of the static steam engine;
thus 1804 saw the introduction of the steam locomotive to the mining and quarrying
tram roads and plate ways. The power of man and horse had been overtaken!
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