Why Switzerland tried to fuel steam locomotives with electricity - Electric Steam Locomotives
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- In this video, we take a look at why Swiss railways tried to run their steam locomotives with electricity instead of coal
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"Ze engine woke up, it's electric heater was missing, and the engineer was never heard from again!"
HAHAHA, anyway. That's how I lost my operators license.
I would like to add, that Diesel power never became the backbone of railtraction in Germany, Austria or Switzerland. After WW2 Important Mainlines were mostly electrified and the Branchlines became the domain of Diesel power. Also many Mainlines were and stayed electrified before WW2. just wanted to point that out. Best regards:)
Ah, yes... TF references are few and wide apart these days!
@@goshomamuta as a tf2 fan and an steam engine fan I love theses jokes.
Mahty fahne job there, pardner.
A hydroelectrically fired steam locomotive is just the sort of steampunk solarpunk fusion I am 100% down for.
Think 1 step further.
A nuclear reactor fired steamengine.
@@obelic71 That'd be atompunk/steampunk (and, interestingly, there is something like that in the video game Fallout 4; a model of what is implied to be a nuclear-powered steam locomotive.)
@@dominicporter5100 Real shit?
Steampunk-solarpunk fusions sound alpha as fuck.
@@concept5631 I know! I want my massive cogs and pistons, and I want them ecofriendly with lots of plants damn it! :P
Another problem was that due to the war it was more difficult to get material to build new engines. To add to that, industrial spurs usually aren't electrified, we don't have oil either, batteries aren't amazing either and with that system you can at least run some time without electricity.
And if they would have used battery backups how much lead would they have in had to import to make that happen.
@@MrJstorm4 batteries back then just couldn't work. electronics were just too primitive in the 40s
@@AsbestosMuffins they worked well enough for submarines, so the electronics wouldn't be a problem. But it was probably much cheaper to just elecrify the lines instead of using batteries.
@@kojetono5853 electricity go crazy when it touches water . So if the steam touches the wires , so how did not the electricity reacted
@@sharanventure Steam is a vapor, so there's not enough electricity or continuity through the vapor to conduct electricity. Same as why there's no electrical shorts between power lines in heavy fog.
Classic Switzerland, ahead of its time due to that golden era science bonus.
Or do you mean they being neutral
Ye
@@memazov6601 Carbon neutral ahead of its time.
Except that using the electricity to power traction motors direct would result in a loco 9 times as powerful for the same electricity input used to heat water. Just one reason they removed the experiment.
Germany built large series of steam locomotives because coal was mined domestically. This was simplified more and more and the material was reduced to the necessary. In contrast, gasoline and diesel for vehicles were in short supply.
Although there were already pre-war diesel and electric locomotives.
The steam locomotives often stayed behind in other countries after 1945 and were used there again.
Even German wartime locomotives were converted to Russian gauge and continued to serve there for a long time. Even after 1945 such locomotives were brought to Russia from East Germany, including the tracks. Reconstruction in the West Germany was already beginning.
If an industrial plant produces large amounts of steam, there is also the possibility of fireless steam locomotives. At least for shunting and short distances. These can be recognized by the unusually large water-steam tank instead of the boiler and large steam engines. Overall, these steam locomotives are built more simply.
theres also a reason the heaters weren’t very widespread. most locomotives will stay warm overnight, they may even still have 5/10 psi from the previous day. on one if the locomotives i fire Ive even still felt some warmth come out of the firebox after a whole week tho this is quite rare
I mean, anyone who doesn't have a proper fire pit (like a big metal drum for instance). Could tell you that fires are quite resilient if sheltered, the first time I did a bonfire with mine. I doused it with like, 2 gallons of water. Went to sleep and when I went out the next day to dump it, it was still going towards the bottom
We used to heat part of the house with an old pot belly and you would only have to build a good fire a few times a week. The material held onto enough heat to keep that part of the house above 70 for a day or two after. So I wouldn't be surprised in a properly insulated round house parked with other locos that they would hold some heat.
@@SoggyCoffeeAddict embers. They are some hot sons of biches.
I and my father were clearing up an olive orchard, and I had stacked about 2t of wood. Before we left extiguished everything, and covered the ashes with soil. But in the night, all it took was a gust of wind for everything to be reduced.
Luckily, the olive trees of the orchard survived untouched, but two olive trees from a neighbor orchard got burnt, which they were compensated.
An interesting idea!
Unfortunately, as I explain to many people, there is something called energy transfer loss. It occurs when energy is turned from one type to another such as the burning of coal to generate electricity. it applies everywhere and even happens when electricity is used to charge a battery. (I often argue with the electric cars are wonderful brigade)
I can see where the engineers were coming from with this idea and how their energy availability created their final plans.
That's a fascinating fact about how long a steamer can run without any energy input. It reminds me of the Fireless Steam engines that actually outlived ordinary steam engines in the U.S. They were used wherever the risk of sparks starting a blaze was high, such as a timber creosoting plant.
Since it's hydro electricity doesn't that mean water Fully powered the locomotives?
Technically speaking, all trains run on nuclear energy from outer space, since pretty much all energy on Earth comes from the Sun in one way or another
If you count Funiculars as "Trains" (usually, they are considered Cable Cars), there are real Water Powered Trains. Some Funiculars have Water Ballast Tanks, so they can fill the Car going down enough to pull the other Car up, so they don't need any other Power Source.
@@MrHack4never That's a tautology. A particularly unhelpful one. Like your birthweight, plus everything you eat, minus all the poo you do (and talk) equals your weight at death. Equally true and unhelpful.
Hydroelectric power uses potential energy so technically they were gravity engines.
@@MrHack4never I think using the word "technically," you're trying to puff yourself up. You know, like technically you must be right. But technically, you're a bit of a prat? And you're technically wrong. Nuclear power. Technically, of course.
It's funny, when I was young and still learning about the history of trains (I was probably about 4 years old), I thought this was a great idea. I thought nobody had done it before. I had no access to the internet, only a limited supply of books, mostly on American trains. When I got older and realized it had been done I had mixed feelings about it. 😂
Know the feeling.
Still, surely it would be a good idea for heritage railways that otherwise might not be able to afford coal? Perhaps even putting high-density batteries in the bunkers?
Coal is getting rarer, but electricity is everywhere!
@@caramelldansen2204 That kills the heritage. I think it's safe to say most organizations would sooner put their engines on static display before making a radical modification like that that would ruin its historical integrity.
@@PowerTrain611 You wouldn't have to start ripping parts out. You could almost certainly design a "slot-in" approach that leaves everything else in place and just heats up what the coal would heat up.
@@caramelldansen2204 You could, but it would almost certainly be a maintenance nightmare that would be more expensive to plan, operate and maintain than running with coal or converting to oil fire, like many operations in the US are.
There are more viable options, no need to re-invent the wheel.
For this to work properly, you need to redesign the boiler. A yarrow boiler with heating elements inside each pipe. More surface area, and a smaller profile. Since a typical yarrow boiler could have hundreds of pipes, you can have 3/4 of them with heating elements, the rest for downcoming the water.
But a regular electric locomotive is way way more simple than these desperate contraption.
Resistive electric heating is 100% efficient, with reciprocating piston steam engine being about 6% efficient, for a total of being 6% efficient.
Direct drive electric motors are 91% efficient.
Until this video debuted, I envisioned how these types of steam locomotives work. And with you mentioning their system works somewhat like a kettle, I was...partly right. this was a pretty nice and "Shocking" video.
I know sometimes train stories have antagonists call them kettles. Maybe because of the boiler being kind of like a kettle?
the whistle would go off when there’s enough pressure.
Just imagine, a steam loco running on third rail electric, powering an electrical heater boiler with a condenser. A flywheel to store excess energy in place of coal tender. That would've been one heck of an eco locomotive
An….ecomotive, you could say.
something germans would do... why simple when we can make it complicated. also if you want to run old trains for tourists i believe swiss still have some of those engines around for that purpose
@@jamesgroccia644 ba dum tss
Would be great for tunnel runs, silly engineers have the delusion that modern long tunnels will only ever see electrics outside of emergencies and thus skimp on ventilation systems, so good luck getting your heritage steam loco to run through these new sections of their old territory without suffocating everyone… running your boiler off electricity would fix that and additionally make it less of a pain to get coal chunks big enough to throw into your firebox…
With dynamos running on the passenger carriage wheels generating power for the electric lighting ? Sounds brilliant.
Another problem might have been the supply of raw materials required to build electric locomotives, such as copper. (As a side note, some electrics of that era had aluminium wiring to save copper ... which was a rarity in war times on many sides.)
Nevertheless the production of new electric locomotives did go on and the Swiss railways were at the forefront of development. One of the first universal 4-axle electric locomotives capable of hauling both freight and passenger express trains on mountainous lines was the BLS Ae 4/4 built from 1944, faster and more powerful than the similarly-sized German E44. And continuous production of the Ee 3/3 electric shunters went on.
As the video mentions though, it was also thought the electric-steam shunters would be useful on partially electrified stations. In the end they proved to be overly complicated and inefficient though, and it was easier to just complete the electrification. (This is in contrast to some countries that delayed electrification, fearing it would be a strategic obstacle in times of war, allowing to shut down the whole system more easily ...)
E 44 prototype was from 1928 so your comparison is not accurate. Better to use E 40 prototype from 1947
@@steffenrosmus9177 E40 came 1957 and like the E10 followed the E10.0 prototypes of 1952. Which were certainly influenced both by the E44 and the Ae4/4. It's all part of a development with mutual inspiration, but back then each country still had its own railway industry and different technological preferences.
Aluminium was in short supply too - because Germany was using coal fired power stations to power aluminium refineries - no coal = no aluminium or copper.
@@allangibson2408 They were using coal fired electricity to smelt aluminum and get electrode copper. They weren't using the coal directly. Switzerland had huge hydroelectricity but no fuel, which is why they were using electrically heated steam locomotives. They were also using electrically driven heat pumps for space heating using the same river water as the heat source.
A Swiss e3/3 is actually preserved in the Netherlands in the town Haaksbergen and Boekelo (wich is near the city of enschede)
The locomotive is painted in a Black paint with red lining ant the number 7853
This "Tigerli" locomotive was property of the "Werkbahn der Aluminium Industrie AG" in Chippis (VS). Its original number was 4 and was built in 1910.
I've read about these engine's before and it's natural for your channel to include a video about these unique steam locomotives! I think it's a shame most books don't cover these.
I Think Locomotive Are Amazing
I legitimately had the idea of Electric Steam Locomotives a year or two ago and thought, "Why has no one thought of this yet?", so I'm glad to see at least one country tried it and got some success out of it.
honestly one of the best less-than 1-mil subs channels
You made me spill my tea "Blitz-krieging the neighbours". Brilliant!
I, as a thought experiment, was thinking how I would do something like this in the modern day, for the last few months on a off.
I came to the conclusion that an A4 Pacific model, with the tender split between water and a battery unit was best. You would charge and heat the boiler in the shed or station, and have solar panels mounted on the rolling stock to extend the distance the locomotive could travel between charges. Of course, charging at water stops would be necessary, as on cloudy days the solar panels wouldn't do much, and they're limited anyway. It wouldn't be able to replace electrified passenger services, but could be run for goods traffic. I don't think pantograph's would work in Britain, due to the work needed to make all lines overhead, clearing trees, rebuilding tunnels and installing the lines themselves, would be a huge undertaking not even accounting for the monetary costs.
Nice to know I'm just behind the times not crazy.
I might be able to improve on that potential design. Perhaps the entire tender would be nothing but the battery supply with solar panels on top for additional charging, with the water tanks being on the main engine unit like a tank engine, likely having to be of a pannier tank design to maximize water storage
Interesting
Way less efficient than just using electric motors, not to mention steam locomotives are much costlier to maintain, but an interesting niche given the time and place in history. I've heard of similar electric-fired steam locomotives still in use - at a tiny scale. The smallest "live steam" models, possibly as small as HO scale, use electricity from the track same as their directly electric counterparts. Of course there efficiency and practicality doesn't matter, and it's a much more convenient way of generating steam than any sort of combustion-powered locomotive at that scale.
i approve of the tf2 soundtrack
The UP Big Boy used to run on coal. The UP 4014 specifically was restored and now it runs on oil
I think getting coal delivered to anywhere not a power plant is expensive and difficult as it just isn’t shipped anywhere else much anymore, except make coke refineries for making steel.
@@EarthenDam well I wasn’t really talking about transporting it. It was more about what locomotive used it. Lol.
@@raidlover6941 I was just understanding why they would want to convert from coal to oil from a logistics point of view, then I just remembered also how much more work is it to use coal over oil.
@@EarthenDam well, in today’s world, it’s cheaper to convert them and use oil as fuel when restoring instead of restoring and using coal.
So glad you made a video on this. I was researching about them a while ago
Tbh this is an incredible idea to make steam engines almost fossil fuel free. Steam engines are good for their high torque numbers compared to electric and even diesel combustion and this basically gets rid of their coal needs. Would’ve been neat to see how things would’ve gone if this got picked up more for some reason
I love how you said “Germany couldn’t import coal as they were busy Blitzkrieging their neighbours”
The problem was, Switzerland couldn't make more electric locomotives, because of the war.
In order to build an electric locomotive, not only steel but also copper was needed. And that was very poor in wartime. And since many shunting locomotives at train stations still ran on steam, they came up with this idea. The material used for building electric locomotives only went to important locomotives such as Krokodil (Ce 6/8³) or Ae 4/6 and Ae 8/14.
I wonder if they also had a shortage of telephone wires, because of the copper those required.
Now I know why Bridget asked: "Is it electric?"
That must've been quite the sight: a steamer steaming along but by taking in electricity to do so.
"The steam Locomotive is simple" **Shows picture of a wrecked one** lol
Why did Switzerland try to fuel steam locomotives with electricity?
Because they wanted to be carbon NEUTRAL, of course!
Henry is Swedish: CONFIRMED lol
At that point they would’ve just made regular electric engines.
This is one of those moments in history where new tech will be better then old tech, but is not yet.
So you have tostill use old tech for many things, and its worth it to still improve upon it.
Also, one of the engines numbered 8522 is preserved in a museum in Switzerland! Except it lost its electric heating system.
I'm glad this video showed up in my recommendations. Perfect video to watch while eating an Ovomaltine crunchy biscuit
You see, here in america and canada we just use sometimes use oil for fuel on the steam locomotives, it depends on which railroad and the state laws but it is a good way to not use coal.
Oil even more scarce than coal in war time Switzerland like many countries.
Yeah... because oil in ww2 switzerland was an abundant resource...
Finally HES BACK For another Info banger
First Video instantly sold me. I like you´re style, pal.
Another good video shedding light on an interesting side note of locomotives.
0:44 Literally the rest of the world: *engaged in the most widespread and horrible war of all time*
Switzerland: hmmm we need some different locomotives, this is such a problem
I imagine, if BR had committed to sticking with steam, that they would have trialled such technology themselves as a stop gap measure before full electrification. Cue, ambitious but rubbish!
I think you are missing the point... By the 1940s the swiss railway was almost 100% electrified. The only reason for these electric steam locomotives were the industrial shunting area where no overhead wire where possible.
Thats the only place the rest of the network used normal electric locomotives.
Today the swiss use battery electric shunting locomotives or diesel hybrid.
These electric steam locomotives where never meant to go on the mainlines.
I just search for Hybrid Steam-Electric locomotives a month ago, and you uploaded a video of that topic
Coincidence ?
"Because Germany was somewhat occupied blitzkrieging their neighbours at the time, the price of importing coal had become more expensive" is my favourite quote from this video
Reportedly, E 3/3 8522 has been preserved operational, although still missing its electric heater and pantograph: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric-steam_locomotive
I suggested this video a few weeks ago, thank you for doing this!
Just seeing the thumbnail basically made my universe crack.
This sounds like something that could've be done in Thomas the Tank Engine
Is it me or do I hear Archimedes in the background….?
those electric steam engines fit really well with the steampunk aesthetic
I love how one guy said "I'll start designing a new electric engine, then" and then another, while snorting a line of coke, said "ELECTRIC STEAM ENGINE" and for some reason everyone agreed with the second guy
Here in finland we even had a diesel engine changed into an electric one! The SV12 made out of a DV12
Switzerland did sort-of the same, by turning a Gas Turbine Locomotive into a multi-System Electric one, that can use the Swiss 15 kV 16 2/3 Hz System as well as the French 25 kV 50 Hz and 1.5 kV DC.
@@Genius_at_Workthese locos were likely diesel electric before, so you have to replace the engine with a transformer and some inverters plus a pantograph. You can still keep the rest of the drive train
Astounding! Never heard of this idea before - which is why I watch this channel. Excellent, keep it up!
How about one on British and Swiss gas and steam turbine locos?
Damn That Crazy science!
I used to to wonder about having clean green steam engines powered by electricity (generated by solar perhaps) and this story gave me some answers regarding how well it would work.
Weird but innovative: that's Switzerland.
I've always been interested in the applications of Electricity in the steam engine industry.
I think they could be really useful.
Especially more so nowadays, that we better understand steam and electricity than we did in those days.
In what regard do "we" understand them better?
@@b43xoit Look at all the tech using electricity then, and look at all of it now.
We must have a better understanding of electricity to have come so far.
I don't have any specific examples of steam, but surely our knowledge of steam usage has increased, as well.
Hey Model Railroaders! Please make 3d printed parts to make one! I'm interested.
I had an idea to convert trains to use eco friendly fuels like ethanol I thought to start with steam locos
I like how many times you circled Switzerland, its for the viewers that can't read maps I understand 😅
Well the americans bombed switzerland accidently because they thought it was germany, so as a swiss Im glad someone takes on the task to teach some people geography.
Had kniw idea this was done thanks for the vidioo
One of the two locomotives, 8522, is actually preserved and, converted back to coal, in service
Its nice that its preserved but it would have been cool if it still ran on electrcity
@@HenrikofEldenbright Yep, I'd go as far as suggesting it to be converted back to Electric.
Hey, I'm pretty sure that last pic of that 52 on the turntable is at the Bochum Dahlhausen museum in Northrhine Westphalia, Germany. It's the closest to where I live and we've been there many times with the kids. They let you ride on the footplate on special occasions.
sees title- this is stupid
sees video- THIS IS GENIUS, for their circumstance atleast
Throughout the War most of the trade was of necessity with Germany, Italy or occupied France. Inside Switzerland trains were usually but not always safe from air attacks. But trains travelling to and from Switzerland in Germany or France were often attacked. This included swiss trains, some of which took long journeys into France especially. So coal, steel and other materials were not always easily available. Also it was not a German priority to send much needed supplies to a neutral nation which sometimes shot down german aircraft that strayed across the border. To get the materials they needed the neutral swiss had to make things to trade with Germany. There were occasions when American aircraft 'accidentally' bombed factories, rail yards and towns in neutral Switzerland.
The problem is that any kind of steam engine requires a lot of maintenance, regadless of the fuel.
Funfact the last Picture in this video was made in Dresden Altstadt (Germany)
Henry the Green Engine is listening with extreme interest!
I was waiting until someone would cover these engines in depth.
I had that ob my List of potential Video Ideas but Train of Thought bet me to it. I might have done that Video already if I wasn't so bad at Voiceovers. Mind you, I wanted to Go a bit more in depth on how they work as Fireless Locomotives on unelectrified Track, and how the Purpose of these Locomotives mostly was shunting in Freight Yards, as all Main Lines and almost all Branch Lines were already electrified by 1943. Plus some more technical Informations how the Heaters worked in Detail. So might still make this Video some Time later to include these Facts.
And there are still many Locomotives preserved of the Type these Electrics were based on. Having one of these rebuilt with Electric Heaters would be amazing.
giant plug-in tea kettles, on rails
I was actually thinking about this Loco like two days ago and went "Wonder when Train Of Thought's gonna do a video on it"
Such a system sounds like it could be a decent way of adapting heritage units to run without needing combustion
@@Roman-po8yc I agree that ideally these artifacts would be kept in working order in the way originally intended, but I still think an electric steam locomotive would get a lot of the fun of steam (the whistle, the chugs of the steam engine, the plume of steam) at a fraction of the maintenance and expense in cases where maintaining a working-as-original engine isn’t feasible.
Briliant!
1:13 Blitz Kreiging their neighbours. Funny. But sad.
Tf2 music. Nice.
Nice vid as always Train of Thought.
Powering steam locomotives with electricity is a good idea for historical engines, though perhaps compressed charcoal might be even better for added authenticity. There are issues with using biomass as fuel, using too much just ends up completely counteracting the benefits, so using it for actual practical purposes is a bad idea. But for a small fleet of historical steam locomotives, it might just be a good solution after all.
There are pics on the net of bigger electric steam locomotives
Good idea because antique engine is most attractive😍 to people even today and forever😌😌😌😌😌😌
I'm daydreaming about a future where there's high demand for high speed electrified rail transport, like they have in Japan. However there's just one problem in this hypothetical future: a severe shortage of copper, making electrical motors uneconomical to meet the demand. With the situation desperate, engineers contemplate revisiting the designs of the streamliner era of steam, but of course it's out of the question due to emissions requirements. Then it hits them -- there was the answer, calling out to them from history -- the SFB E 3/3 8522! YEs! Electric power could be used to fire a steam boiler! The railway engineers hastily re-implemented the most effective designs from the peak of the steam streamliner era, retrofitted with electric boilers fed from pantographs grabbing overhead lines, just like on the fastest bullet trains....thus ushering in a new era of steam champions
I understand it's a story - however technically you can still use Aluminium for motor windings. It's not as good as copper for this purpose and you mainly find it in smaller, cheaper motors but it also works.
Wow 😯
The electric preheater is arguably NOT more efficient as claimed in the video. From an engineer's perspective, it is EXTREMELY inefficient to use electricity to heat steam. While the conversion from electricity energy to heat is 100% efficient, the conversion of coal/gas to GENERATE the electricity at the powerplant is 30-40% efficient at best. Steam locomotives on the other hand can harness around 90-95% efficiency when converting the coal energy to heat. So using electricty to keep a boiler warm overnight is a huge waste of energy. The only thing that it really saves is time. Hence why it can be argued how effective it was depending on how you define efficiency.
Switzerland uses mostly hydroelectricity for their needs.
Anyway, I think the point more was to heat it up quicker.
@@briannem.6787 they used hydroelectricity back in 1940s?
@@ecpcharles en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_Switzerland
Yes they did.
Btw. You said that coal/gas thermal efficiency is 30-40% but then somehow by magic steamlocomotives can harness 90-95%...doesnt make any sense.
Thats not how efficiency works.
If you say the thermal efficiency is almost 100% with electric heaters(which is correct) then electric steam locomotives would be more efficient then coal or gas. But the conversion from liquid to gas is in both cases a waste and electricity would be even more efficient by just using it with an electric motor. But that doesnt make coal/gas more efficient.
@@Slithermotion not all dams produce electricity, most dams simply retain and control water flow. And this is not a list of dams during 1940s. I said the production of ELECTRICITY using coal/gas is 30-40% efficient (in 1940s), but using the same coal to produce heat directly to power a steam locomotive, you can achieve 90-95% efficiency.
This of it this way. Coal > electricity > heat = 40% efficiency. coal > heat = 90% efficiency. In modern day tech its more like 45% and 98% but back in 1940s technology wasent nearly as developed.
Conversion of coal to electricity involves burning coal to heat water into steam which is passed through a turbine to generate electricity before finally passing through a condenser which drops the temperature until it returns to water (liquid form) before being reused. This is the standard rankine cycle, and understandably its not very efficient. I hope you can understand if same coal was used to just directly heat water into steam is more efficient than doing all that, THEN taking the electricity generate to then heat water, why its less efficient.
Its why in the US many areas with colder climates with households that need hear more consistently throughout the winter has gas heaters. Theyre more expensive than electric but are worth the investment. Electric heaters are more prominent in areas where heaters maybe only used for a few cold days in the winter, or where gas lines are unavailable (particularly west coast due to risk of earthquakes, and older homes)
As far as I know all of the dams mentioned produce electricity, and I dont think that we swiss would build dams in the mountains for a water reservoir...one of the worlds tallest(even in todays scale) was build in switzerland before 1940s.
You can sort the dams by date of building a lot were already built before 1940s
Nonono...this is so wrong what you wrote about efficiency that it hurts...
Coal power powerplants have about 30-40% efficiency by transform water into steam to turn a turbine. The electromechanical losses of a turbine are at max 5%.
A turbine itself is more efficient then the reciprocating cylinder steam locomotives used. A turbine spins always in the same direction the reciprocating cylinder motion always loses energy by changing direction.
This is also why rotary electric motors are about 5-10% more efficient then linear electric motor.
We can discuss this all they long, or we agree to disagree or you just google the efficiency of a steamlocomotive compared to a coal powerplant. Or their respective mechanic components.
Coal never gets directly transfered into electricity it always just transforms into heat....
Both with a powerplant and a locomotive.
But the power transformation in a steam locomotive is inferior to that of a steam power plant. Otherwise people would obviously use the mechanics of a steam locomotive to produce electricity...
Which they don't.
I'm pretty sure that music at the start isn't public domain... say goodbye to your ad revenue lol! (Also consider crediting the music, for those who don't know, it's Archimedes by the Valve Studio Orchestra, an unused song from the Team Fortress 2 promotional video Meet the Medic.)
"The basic premise of a steam locomotive is simple."
Shows picture of a wrecked steam engine*
XD
In other words, all the right unusual circumstances. *shrugs* That's the basis for experimentation. And while going straight to electric motors would be more practical, I could see electric heaters as a great way to speed the startup-time. (Which is was, because it was actually done.)
I love it, because it's much more safer for the environment rather than just releasing CO2 by burning coal. It should have been a good idea to stay with electric pre-heaters. Man I love Switzerland. ;)
solar modules and battery power can be used to pre heat the water in steam locomotives and that can get the loco steaming in no time!
I actually have this idea of a steam locomotive with electric battery inside its tender that can be recharged by either normal recharging or solar pannel recharging
I like that electric steam idea, but it was steam engineers way of knowing diesels were gonna take over but they were trying to avoid that fate as long as possible
I thought I was the first one was to think of this at one point
Is the tf2 song Archimedes playing in the background?
"Don't be such a baby, ribs grow back."
(Whisper) "No they don't..."
Im a big fan of the tf2 background music haha
What a brilliantly weird piece of history
"Is it electric?"
Virgin Sudrian Tram : THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAID-
Chad Swiss and German engines: *YES! I AM!*
Very interesting
That heat resistor would be perfect for my central heating boiler, no more cold winters
You can let them in the closed Garage and you don't have poisonous Exhaust from burning Coal
If anyone wants to know what a diesel/steam hybrid would look like, I direct you to Kitson Still (Which would make a good subject for one of these vids)
I've had this idea for years...when a steam engine refills its tender with water...what if that water was hot? It was kept in a water tower, right? What if you used solar panels (the black glass panels full of water, not photovoltaics) to warm the water in the tower, so that the tender is at least significantly above ambient temperature. Surely that would make injecting water more efficient since you're not injecting cold water?
Steam Locomotives usually use Injectors to pump the Feed Water into the Boiler, and these work best with cold Water. If the Boiler has an Economiser or other Preheater, it must be Places after the Injector. So you want the Water in the Tender to be as cold as possible.
@@Genius_at_Work Condenser locos in South Africa used a different kind of feedwater pump, because injectors would not work with the hot water.
It’s like an electric engine but with extra steps
I wonder if they whistled like a kettle when they got up to full pressure?
That would have been the cherry on top
Never knew about this until now.