SL (Steam locomotives)

[bill937ca]

Time for a thread like the freight operations thread where information on Japanese steam locomotives can be shared. To start here's a couple of You Tube videos.

 

 

 

 

Here are some links.

 

Steam Railways in Japan

 

http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Oliver.L.Mayer/japan/verkehr/steam.htm

 

 

JR and JNR Locomotives, Nonframe version

 

http://tekkenweb.sakura.ne.jp/loco/lsl001.html

 

 

JAPAN SL 'OTAKU' PAGE

 

http://webpages.charter.net/suzuya/JapanSL.html

 

 

Listing JNR steam locomotive types (posted by Mark Newton in the C56 thread)

 

http://www.kurogane-rail.jp/sl/esl-idx.html

[bill937ca]

On the turntable.

 

[bill937ca]

How about some steam in the snow?

 

[Railmind]

Thanks for the thread. The second snow steam video is especially remarkable for its sounds. Easy to imagine oneself on the trackside.

 

I wonder if someone could post info about steam servicing. I happen to own a small kit of a steam servicing facility, but other than the water tower assembly, I'm still not sure how to best use the supplied parts.

[bill937ca]

I wonder if someone could post info about steam servicing. I happen to own a small kit of a steam servicing facility, but other than the water tower assembly, I'm still not sure how to best use the supplied parts.

 

 

I don't have a link to prototype information, but there is a Japanese steam era model railroad called Don's Dream World that has an excellent series of engine facility photos.

 

http://ddwngauge.homestead.com/Page3.html'>http://ddwngauge.homestead.com/Page3.html

 

http://ddwngauge.homestead.com/

 

I believe most of the structures pictured are Kato.  Tomix offers turntable and roundhouses.

[Railmind]

Bill, thank you for the link, I really enjoyed looking through the photos and reading the supplied materials. Indeed, Kato seems to be making all the necessary buildings, the layout is very convincing.

The parts that trouble me from the above mentioned kit are roughly similar to those pictured on this photo:

http://ddwngauge.homestead.com/L05.JPG

As far as I understand, in front of the water tower there is a roofed coaling platform. This platform in turn is preceeded by an ash-filled basin, or so it seems. I have always thought the ash is removed from the steam locos via ash pits below the track level, and there are quite a few photos of such pits still existing on secondary-line stations. It would be great if someone could explain how the ash-cleaning process takes place.

By the way, the sun-light effect on the layout photos is quite astonishing.

[marknewton]

It would be great if someone could explain how the ash-cleaning process takes place.

 

Railmind, the process is fairly simple. All coal-fired steam locomotives have a container or receptacle under the firebox, called the ashpan. As the the loco is running, ash and clinker falls through the grates and collects in the ashpan, and also when the fire is cleaned at a stop, or at the end of a run when the whole fire may be dropped. Depending on the design of the loco, the ash is then removed from the ashpan in two ways.

 

Older locos, and those with narrow fireboxes between the frames, typically have doors in the front and rear of the pan, and someone needs to go under the loco when it's standing on the ashpit to rake out the ash and clinker. As you can imagine, it's a dirty and unpleasant job!

 

Modern locos, particularly those with wide fireboxes such as 4-6-2s, 2-8-2s and 4-6-4s, typically have a hopper ashpan with a bottom-opening door. When the pan needs emptying, the door is opened by a lever, and the ash mostly falls out by gravity, helped along by the ashpan flushers. These are supplied with water under pressure from the injector, and are a good thing to have fitted.

 

Cleaning the fire itself can be done two ways, as well. On locos with fixed grates, the fireman uses the fire irons to break up any clinker and push the ash through the airspaces between the grate bars. Again, it's hard, dirty work. On locos with rocking grates, the fireman simply attaches the rocking lever handle, and can either clean the fire by partially opening the grate sections, or drop it completely by fully opening the grates, allowing all of the ash and clinker to fall into the ashpan. On a really flash loco like a C62, the fireman has powered grate shakers to do the hard work for him.

 

If the loco doesn't have a self-cleaning smokebox, the smokebox door must be periodically opened and the cinders and char shovelled out. That's another "fun" job! Otherwise the spark arrester may become clogged, or the bottom rows of tubes will get blocked. Either way the engine will steam poorly if this isn't done.

 

I haven't seen the Kato models you mention, but I'd suggest a typical layout for a steam depot would include an ashpit, a separate inspection pit, and possibly a blowdown pit as well. From what I've seen of Japanese depots, many of the ashpits have small tubs or buckets in them, which are lifted out by a small crane once they are full, and them dumped. Otherwise, the pits must be shovelled out manually. Yet another fun job...

 

As you've noted, clean dry loco sand must be protected from the weather prior to use, but it's quite common to store the "green" sand in a shallow outdoor tub. That may be what the model part is intended to repesent.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Mark.

[Railmind]

Mark, I don't think I'm the only one who enjoyed this brilliant piece of prototype information. Thank you very much! Suddenly there's quite a lot of activity surrounding a steam loco even outside its normal train duties.

 

BTW, an interesting piece of SL operation is posted at Mr. Toshi Yoshioka's website. Mr. Yoshioka describes a special device used for controling the smoke flow in tunnels. This device (which he calls a smoke-diverter) lets engine drivers divert the steam from the cab during lengthy tunnel rides. I wonder if there is an official name for this device, and (of course) if there are models of steamers equipped with it available.

[marknewton]

Mark, I don't think I'm the only one who enjoyed this brilliant piece of prototype information. Thank you very much!

My pleasure. As you might have guessed, I've spent a fair bit of my railway career working on steam locos, so I'm in a good position to answer questions like this.

BTW, an interesting piece of SL operation is posted at Mr. Toshi Yoshioka's website. Mr. Yoshioka describes a special device used for controling the smoke flow in tunnels. This device (which he calls a smoke-diverter) lets engine drivers divert the steam from the cab during lengthy tunnel rides. I wonder if there is an official name for this device, and (of course) if there are models of steamers equipped with it available.

As far as I know, the JNR called these gadgets smoke diverters as well, so I suppose that's their official name. It's an interesting approach to the problem of smoke trailing that was used on a few railroads elsewhere in the world, but it would have been particularly useful on Japanese locos. Their combination of a soft exhaust and very smoky local coal would have made conditions very unpleasant for the crews when running in tunnels. I vaguely recall seeing models that had this feature, but since I'm not working in N scale, I can't say for certain what they were.

 

Another interesting fitting I've seen on Japanese steamers was an auxilliary spark arrester mounted inside the mouth of the funnel/smokestack, with a little steam turbine-driven fan included to compensate for the loss of draught. I wonder how well that actually worked... I'll find a photo and post it.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[C62]

Micro Ace model of a D51 with smoke diverter:

 

 

Thomas

[Railmind]

Micro Ace model of a D51 with smoke diverter:

 

 

Thomas

Thanks for the information. As far as I can see, the construction is similar to MicroAce's 9600, I wonder if it has the same weight issues when operating forward. 

[C62]

Weight issues?

 

Thomas

[Railmind]

Well, it seems to me that the nose section of MicroAce's 9600 is too light. The cab and tender have adequate weght, but the boiler is very light. The engine often hesitates when moving forward, easily stalls and its performance on slow speeds is not smooth. When it moves backwards, on the other hand, the performance is drastically improved both at slow and medium speeds. I don't know if it is the issue with this engine or whether I just want too much for N-scale, but I haven't been able to achieve smooth performance at low speeds either in DC, or in DCC.

[C62]

I think you have a bad one. Nowadays I only buy MicroAce steam locos because they perform better than all the Kato, Fleischmann, Minitrix, Arnold, LifeLike Proto steam locos I ever had. I now have 10 Micro Ace steam locos and each of them can run that slow that one hardly recognizes that its actually moving. No stalling over Tomix points. All the locos can easily pull trains with 15 or more passenger cars or 35 freight cars. Could pull more but I have not the space. And the locos run so smooth and silent. Until now I have been very lucky with my purchases and all Micro Ace locos run fine straight out of the box.

Maybe you should have a close look at your model or have it replaced when there is still warranty.

 

Thomas

[Railmind]

Thomas,

Thank you for this review of MicroAce quality steam locomotives. I cannot replace the model after having converted it to DCC, however it seems I'll need a closer look at my track for possible problems.

Besides, I have experimented with Peco 15-degree live-frog turnouts, and the front truck usually causes sparks at the frog. Do I understand it correct that there are no issues with these locos at Tomix points?

[C62]

I use Tomix r=451mm points and all works fine. I have not tried the r=280mm points and the curved points but will order some of them,too.

I like the Tomix points - no stalling of locos or derailments.

Thomas

[marknewton]

Well, it seems to me that the nose section of MicroAce's 9600 is too light. The cab and tender have adequate weght, but the boiler is very light. The engine often hesitates when moving forward, easily stalls and its performance on slow speeds is not smooth.

 

Is the leading truck sprung? I've encountered a models were the leading truck spring tension was too great, which tended to lift the driven wheels clear of the rails. That in turn caused problems much as you describe, so it's worth checking.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[bill937ca]

Let's bring this thread back to life with a couple of videos.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfP0JKQmRaQ&feature=PlayList&p=95FA6BAC7A27AA5A&index=30

 

 

 

[bill937ca]

[Claude_Dreyfus]

This is another very interesting website...

 

http://homepage3.nifty.com/EF57/index.html

[marknewton]

Good website Claude, thanks for posting it. I found this section of particular interest:

 

http://homepage3.nifty.com/EF57/tsubame/tsubame.htm

 

As a former steam engineman, I was very interested by the methods the JNR used to enable long, non-stop running with steam locos. Many railroads used track pans or troughs for taking water on the move, while others used water tanks such as that mentioned here. Relaying the engine crews while running was not as common, the best known example being the corridor tenders used by the LNER on the "Flying Scotsman". I don't know whether I'd fancy walking along the running boards of the water tank like the JNR blokes had to, though! 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Nick_Burman]

One thing I've always been wondering was how Japanese steam locos compared in efficiency and operating characteristics with their Western counterparts.

 

 

Cheers NB

[Martijn Meerts]

Quite interesting to see a C53-43 pulling a string of cars with a C11 on the end to assist. It would be an interesting sight on a layout.

 

MicroAce has a model of the C53-43, Kato has one of the C11 (and I just so happen to have both ;))

[angusmclean]

One thing I've always been wondering was how Japanese steam locos compared in efficiency and operating characteristics with their Western counterparts.

 

 

Cheers NB

 

I came  across a site some years ago with specifications and power outputs which was quite interesting. I will try and find the site, but may take some time to find the hard copies I made at the time. From memory, most did quite well in comparison to British steam locos.  Probably could have done better with high-class coal though.

 

Angus

[marknewton]

Angus, that'd be a site I'd find very interesting.

 

From my own experience I'd rate Japanese steam locos quite highly. The modern standardised designs had most of the sophisticated features found in the best Western designs. Semi-Belpaire fireboxes, arch tubes, generous superheat, large diameter, long-travel valves are all typical features of modern JNR steam. Particular attention was paid to the design of the front end, which is the key to good steaming and efficiency. The loco boilers had on-board water treatment and continous blowdown, both very useful features to help prolong the boiler's working life. About the only two modern features that the JNR never seemed to use across the entire steam fleet were front-end throttles and roller bearing axleboxes.

 

I think the Japanese engines would be superior to contemporary British designs in terms of maintenance and servicing. Modern JNR engines made extensive use of grease lubrication, floating bushes, adjustable driving box wedges, radial buffers, cast bar frames and disc driving wheels, all of which make life easier for the workshop/mechanical bloke. Likewise, rocking grates, hopper ashpans and self-cleaning smokeboxes are beneficial to the running shed blokes and engine crews. In general, the components requiring frequent attention are easily accesible, unlike the typical UK practice of tucking everything away out of site for aesthetic reasons.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.