[question] Are The Chimneys On English Diesel Locos Off Center To Protect Ohe From Carbon Deposit?

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by r4g3nony, Mar 21, 2021.

  1. r4g3nony

    r4g3nony Active Member

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    I always wondered why there are two chimneys which are off center. Because in India we also use diesel locos on electric line but all of them have chimney in center. Screenshot_20210321-102157.png
     
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  2. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    Hadn't thought about it but I'd guess the position of the exhaust just depends on the configuration and orientation of the engine. OHLE did first appear when steam locomotives were in common use and sharing lines with leccys. If you look at catenary though it doesn't just run down the centre line of the track- if it did it would wear a notch in pantographs. The practice is to alternate long and short arms on the masts so the contact point continually moves from side to side.

    Exhaust from loco's is certainly a consideration in OHLE design. I recall some years ago the North Yorkshire Moors Railway allowed had some set up in its tunnel for testing.
     
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  3. r4g3nony

    r4g3nony Active Member

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    I thought that i would'nt cause a problem untill I watched a DTG stream vod where matt and jamie discuss that why they dont run a steam loco on electrified lines when railway electrification first came in England that triggered me tho thinking is that why these chimneys are like this.

    P.S: I'm new to interacting with fellow railfans of other countries I dont know much about foreign railways. I didn't even know that most countries use standard guage xD.
     
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  4. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    I didn't see that. If you ever watch footage of British steam you'll notice some of the loco's have diagonal stripes on the sides of the cab indicating that they were not suitable for running under OHLE but I don't know why some were singled out.

    One of the first electrified lines actually ran near me from Shildon to Newport and shared part of its route (from Shildon to a junction near where Newton Aycliffe Station stands today) with the line from Bishop Auckland to Darlington. Steam would have had to run under the catenary if only to cross electrified lines. It was an initiative of the NER which had high ambitions for electrification but the Great War intervened then grouping and, in the '30s I think, the equipment was life expired. The LNER was going to have to do something and chose to tear it down giving the line the unique distinction of being converted from electric to steam.

    Indian broad gauge is curious. Railway building in India was started by the British I think using standard gauge so I wonder how broad gauge was adopted. The first railways in Australia were engineered by an Irishman who built them to Irish standard gauge but that's 5'3".

    I'd very much like to see some Indian routes in TS.
     
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  5. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    Just as an addendum to your OP the Class 50 you illustrate has a V engine (a V-16 I think). It'll effectively have two exhaust manifolds, one for each rank of cylinders, which could be channelled to a single exhaust port but I can't think of a particular reason to do that. Each would need it's own silencer I suppose but perhaps separate smaller silencers were easier to arrange in the restrictive British loading gauge. Other locomotives have single exhaust outlets. Deltic engines have three ranks of cylinders but a single outlet (Deltic locomotives have twin exhaust outlets but that's one for each engine).

    There was a Diesel-mechanical locomotive prototype, BR number 10100 commonly called the Fell Diesel after one of its designers rather than for any dreadful aspect it may have had, that had six engines. I know nothing about the exhaust arrangement.
     
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  6. r4g3nony

    r4g3nony Active Member

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    Indian railways was indeed started by British in mid 19th century but they used broad guage because railways was built in India primarily to bring goods from midland to ports so broad guage was more efficient. By the time British left the network was too big to convert to standard. Currently there's a high speed route which is in planing stage of development betweem Mumbai and Ahmedabad which will be standard guage
     
  7. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    Oh indeed- my meaning was that I thought the first Indian railways were standard gauge rather than there being any doubt about who had them built.

    Railways in Britain started as industrial wagonways which were built to whatever arbitrary gauge was chosen by whoever was in charge. Those in the north east of England happened to use 4'8" or thereabouts so George Stephenson adopted that as his standard when he started mechanising them and building new railways in the 1820s but there was still some fluidity never mind Brunel's 7' 0.25" broad gauge for the Great Western. (Brunel wasn't completely mad- he wanted trains to run smoothly at speed and, if that's the aim and you're using Victorian engineering principles, making things bigger is a good start.)

    Railways started later in other countries of course and you see the same thing going on especially in the USA which laid track to all sorts of gauges at first (I believe the BART, L.A's metro system uses 5'6" gauge much to its disadvantage). Perhaps India is lucky she didn't end up with Brunel's gauge.

    Will the trains be built in India or existing bought "off the shelf" designs from a manufacturer?
     
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  8. r4g3nony

    r4g3nony Active Member

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    They make deals with companies like Alstorm to make locos they do testing and then buy rights for the loco and produce them inhouse
    The latest edition is WAG-12 (W-wide/broad guage, A-AC power, G-Goods/freight)

    As of coaches indian passenger trains usually run 16-21 coach formations (It felt really weird when i saw really small trains in Europe/UK in TS ) they use ICF (Traditional) or LHB(Comparatively newer) coaches. India only use emu/dmus for suburban railways.
     
  9. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    That makes good sense considering the numbers that India's network must need. I imagine the experience gained building them must also be helpful to the fitters who must also be maintaining them. I watched a TV show that visited an Indian locomotive factory and works and the size of it was staggering- you could have set up a formula one track in it.

    By far the longest (and fastest) passenger trains running in Britain today are the Eurostars with twenty units. Long heavy trains weren't uncommon during the War but now 14 coaches is long though I do remember the Deltics running through Durham at night on mail trains with 20+ on. Couldn't get to sleep until they went past in fact.

    Mmm... Deltics.
     
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  10. r4g3nony

    r4g3nony Active Member

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    Yep there was one in the city where my college was and its massive.

    If I'm not wrong Eurostar are the trains that run through the channel tunnel to Europe right?
     
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  11. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    That's right- the passenger service. There's freight traffic as well of course. There was also a cross channel journey made by a German ICE train. AFAIK that was a one-off trial but the tunnel and HS1 (High Speed 1- the line between the tunnel and London) is built to the Berne loading gauge so I know of no reason why other continental passenger trains couldn't make the trip.
     

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