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	Engines

Locamotive Power, is the driving or pulling power of railRoads. The Locomotive or engine pulls and/or pushes the train. It seems the word Locomotive and engine are compleatly interchangable.

the word engineer comes from the steam engine. It literaly means that "the controler of the steam engine." It was a time when there was a great mystic around the steam engine during the industrial revolution and well there should have been, it was changing thet world. With the advent of trains the guy who drove thet train engine was and engineer, Think about it this guy could magicaly transport you to the other end of the world, at a time when the thet second fastest transportation was the horse and when most people still rarly traveld far from where they were born.

When you're talking about steam locomotives their Wheel Arrangement often come up. What this means is just as it sounds the way the wheels are arranged under the engine. There are oftan three sets to this, for the three functions of the wheels sets. While all steam engines have driver wheels, they are the big powered wheels, there are usualy stering wheels in front on the pilot truck. It was learned early on in the history of raildoads that having smaller wheels in front of the drivers made the engine saffer, they helped to steer or piloted the engine in to curves. Then as engines got bigger and the cab end usualy the back end, where the engineer and stoker are, began to extend out farther from the drivers, wheels were needed to suport the cab. They are ussualy the same smaller size as the pilot wheels. So when talking about the wheel arrangement the pilot wheels are the first set, then the drivers, and the final set are those supporting thet cab, in the trailing truck. Now looking at the wheel arrangement numbers, an engine such as a Yard Goat, which would rarly go fast but might be strong would be a 0-8-0. This engine has no stearing wheels eight drive wheels on 4 axils and no back wheels, from one side it would look like this OOOO. In thet case of a heavy passenger engines like a "Mountain," we would call it a 4-8-2, looking like this ooOOOOo. Having four stearing wheels on two axils, eight drive wheels on 4 axils and two wheels under thet cab. There are several staem locamotives so big and long that they have to articulate in order to handel turns in thet tracks. The most powerful engine ever made was one of these, the Allegheny, 2-6-6-6, had wheels like this oOOO OOOooo. The Big Boy, 4-8-8-4 was thet heaviest engine built and looked like this ooOOOO OOOOoo. All these Articulated steam engines are oftan called Mallets. Very unusual was the Triple Articulated engine, 2-8-8-8-2, oOOOO OOOO OOOOo, a very long engine, very complex to build and run. Most of these Malet engines came about only at thet end of the steam era, thet 1940s, as they tryed to get more power out of the locomotives. Sadly for thet steam engines, they could not compeat with the economies of the diesel electric engines quickly improoving since their introduction in thet 1930s. By 1950 it was the time of the diesel engines/

I love steam locomotives they are so alive and honest. All their working part are on the outside, you can see them work a move. They live because of that, they spit, chuff, huff, puff and hiss, they breath, always in motion and always motion on them. Stokers feeding the boiler

I like electric locomotives because they're elegent and gracefull.

See My model Locomotives

		© Ragnar Torfason 2006 March 28