1480 feet isn't very high. There's plenty of similar altitudes here in the
midwest and all the railroads operated with no smoke. Steam in the form of
exhaust from the cylinders in sent up the stack to create a draft, so it may
be more obvious under load, but smoke is the result of bad firing, resulting
in unburned stuff going to waste, so firemen were taught to operate without
smoke. But it sure does look purty!
-----Original Message-----
From: Piers Hemy
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 12:45 PM
To: 'Olympus Camera Discussion'
Subject: Re: [OM] Steam trains running this summer
You maybe need to know that the train is approaching the highest point on
the British railway system, altitude 1480 feet, so the extra steam being
pumped into the smokebox may not be just for appearance's sake! A gradient
profile of the section just north shows gradients of 1:60:
<http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/map_zoom.jsp?item_id=43880&zoom=3>
And keep in mind that both locomotives are 70-75 years old! If you want to
compare with a better-condition locomotive, take a look at this newly-built
beauty on the same line: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhlYBR91igo>
The first half of the clip includes the portions of the line in my images,
while the run down to the brick viaduct towards the end of the clip is at
1:60 gradient. Not much steam to be seen there!
Piers
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Braun [mailto:pbraun42@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 11 July 2013 18:19
To: Olympus Camera Discussion
Subject: Re: [OM] Steam trains running this summer
On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Piers Hemy <piers@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I did just that - get multiple vantage points - when returning up here
> from "down south" five years ago. I hadn't intended to, and didn't
> know what all th tripods were for as we came north, but the blast of
> steam from under a bridge soon put me right. There were freqent stops
> after that. All these were taken within about an hour, despite the variety
of weather on show:
>
> http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=7063
>
> For the cognoscenti it's a Stanier Black Five 4-6-0 leading a Gresley
> A4 Pacific. I suspect the driver of one was ex-Navy, as the command
> "Make Smoke!" comes to mind.
>
The funny thing is that the photographer-friendly plume of smoke and steam
is really the by-product of a poorly-running engine... when things are
burning properly and cleanly, you barely see anything coming out of the
stack. They just pump extra steam into the smokebox so you get a heavy,
opaque mixture of steam, exhaust and ash that looks pretty for photos, but
is terribly inefficient.
--
Paul Braun WD9GCO
Music Junkie
"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard
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