Look what I caught today (Harrison's thread) - Trains Magazine

Flintlock,

you too can't sit still for a longer period? I know one guy who cannot go to the cinema for that reason, and he loved old movies. It's hard, he used to take care to sit right in the middle to have a good view, now he has to sit and the side-most seat to be able to stand up and go out for a few minutes and move around, then go back in and see the rest.

The 41 slips: no, you don't have to "help" it, the combination of the side-rod regulator which is somewhat tricky to adjust to the right steam chest pressure, and her typical temperament is enough to make her spin wheels now and then. Even though she has smaller than average cylinders for her adhesion weight. She has 520 x 720 mm for 80 tons and the 52 class has 600 x 660 mm on smaller wheels also for 80 tons (metric), only 16 tons on the Decapod axles. This is because the 41 was originally one of the 20 atm (295 psi?) boilers classes but later "rebuked" to the standard 16 atm (228 psi). Shades of PRR "small cylinders" policy: it didn't help to keep her wheels steady, no better than with the T1. Because what makes a loco slip? It's piston thrust and that is piston area by steam pressure. So, the 41s were deprived of some of their medium speed to upper speed power output and so were the T1 because what they could have done on short cut-off and good steam consumption she now had to do on longer cut-off and less well consumption. What helps slipping is not oil on rails but oil on wheel rims from lubrication of rod bearings. All DR standard loco types had this problem more or less. It gets away during a trip, at least after the first braking to a stop. But moving out of the depot has seen a locomotive spin wheels without even making an exhaust beat, just steam from the chimney. The matter was more pronounced when the loco was clean around the wheels than when covered with dust and brake grind-off which can hold oil off wandering down the spoke to the wheel tire and onto the contact surface. That's why our locos often had this typical "wet" mechanics look. The 41 1144 (originally 41 144) is a well kept clean loco, there it can easily happen a trace of warm oil creeps down the wheels during a stop and causes a slip when starting away again.

What hurts more is that the locos develop small defects during the days of operation, or not-so-small defects. With the 41 you will see (its later on I think) the driver takes care he has no water in the cylinders, opens the drain cocks for a moment. Some other crews wouldn't do that and with a fireman who "fills the glass" it can easily happen you have water carried over into the cylinders. It will go out again with exhaust beats but for the moment its a hazard to cylinder glands and washes the oil film off. The 44 1486 has suffered a leaky drain valve even from that, likely from a slip. In regular work times, these locomotives ran for weeks and weeks on end without any such trouble, now a few days are enough to develop such deficiencies! That's what hurts. Also, the forever clanking rods, especially the heavy ones of the 52: crosshead clacking and main rod small end and big end developing excessive play. The 52 1360 you see here has just that and with every second exhaust beat you hear a hard "clang-clang". That hurts, it reminds me of how the crews at Hamm let us 05s get worn down, they said "Oh, she was built to go 200 km/h, now we only go 120 km/h, so let her clank along!" On the last couple of takes the 44 has gotten better (repaired?) or the sequence is mixed up and the last takes were before the ones with the leak. Generally, there is a lot of steam with the two 44s where it shouldn't be. All three-cylinder standard locos had the live steam pipe forked on the left outside the smokebox, and that was leaking on the 1486, less so on the 25xx.

That was a big issue with the oil-fired Hamburg 012 Pacifics working full cry up to Westerland with trains 12 times their adhesion weight, sometimes more. Those were brave locomotives and they ran their souls out on these trips. I didn't find a video but listen to this sound recording: On the incline up to the ~ 160 ft high Hochdonner bridge over the North Sea - Baltic Sea channel: 012 001 with E 2109 starts out of Burg at the foot of the incline, accelerates very hard at the limit of adhesion on August second, 1972, shortly before the end of the Hamburg 012s in September that year: (you have to copy and paste the addresses)

and 012 061 with the then renowned heavy D821 racing up the incline at ~ 120 km/h. 012 061 was one of those who got to Rheine and was among the last six to get the fires extinguished finally in the fall of 1975.

and another 012 really fast on the up to the bridge, exhaust more rhythmic with wheels turn, that is irregular steam distribution.

And perhaps to wind it up a steam special on 25th of March 1995 running through Plauen station on an incline in Thuringen with the Baden IVh, 18 323 four-cylinder compound overhauled in Pila, Poland, and already leaky again really badly, oil-fired 44 0093 in the rear "doing all the work alone":

What I like about our steam locomotives is that deep sound of the exhaust, due to the design of the draughting with wide draughting nozzle and chimney and no baffle plate (mater mechanics self-cleaning), and I was once part of this family of machines that could change from mild to wild in their voices ..

Sorry, if I interrupted the diesel thread.

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