Morris Minor Owners Club

Ballymena S1 Composite...

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Sadly I'll never get to see one in real life as they were all scrapped before I was born

I just came across this very nice thread. Interesting to see that there are many Móggie owners who are - like me - also interested in railways and steam locomotives.

I'd like to show you two pictures of my favourite locomotive, the German Class 50:


The one in the background is 50 2740, one of a number of preserved engines of this class. She is owned by a society called Ulmer Eisenbahnfreunde. http://www.uef-dampf.de/-ettlingen/ This society owns several steam and diesel locomotives most of which are passed to run on the national network. 50 2740 is unfortunately no longer in working order as the boiler certificate ran out in October 2011. The society has restored 2-10-0 No. 58 311 and is finishing 2-8-2T No. 86 346, then it will be the turn of the 50 to be brought back to working order again.

Here is another shot of her during her last month in active service:



The class 50 was originally designed in the late 1930s as a freight engine, but due to a speed of 80 km/h (50 mph) working chimney or tender first and an axle load of only 15 tons they were often used as mixed traffic engines on lines with light track. 3164 engines have been built, and the last ones were only withdrawn in 1977 (West Germany) and 1988 (East Germany).

By the way, I also love British steam. In the 1980s I used to spend my holidays working at Bridgnorth, Severn Valley Railway, this is why I prefer ex-GWR locos, my favourite being the Manor Class. This was highlited during my holiday in Wales last summer, when I had the chance to drive 7822 "Foxcote Manor" during an experience course on the Llangollen Railway.

Cheers

Hubert

love the picture ,thank you

jagnut66 wrote:Very nice to see German / continental steam in action.
I must admit to my ignorance on this, as I thought that continental railways were modernised / expunged of steam postwar, due to so much being destroyed by allied bombing and later the desire to totally renew the shattered continental network.
And long live the GWR!
Best wishes,
Mike.

Hello Mike,
in theory you are completely right. Most railway systems on the continent were in need of a modernisation after WW II, so were the railways in Germany. Therefore, after the worst effects of the war had been overcome in Germany, the modernisation began in earnest. But as our network is comparatively large and there was an incredible increase of traffic in the 1950s and 1970s due to a boost in the economy, it took much longer to get rid of steam traction than anticipated. One more reason for steam to last so long was that until the late 1970s there were not sufficient diesel locomotives available which were as strong as some of the steam classes.

First plans saw the end of steam in West Germany 1965, but luckily (for the steam enthusiasts) it lasted until October 1977, so I was happy to see the last five years of steam in our country.

Like Britain we have quite a railway preservation movement in our country, although we started much later than the British and our railways are far from being as perfect as most of the British lines.

For those who are interested in railway preservation in Germany, here are a few links to the best and biggest museums (there are much more, too much to be listed here):

Nördlingen Railway Museum
http://www.bayerisches-eisenbahnmuseum.de/
Heilbronn Railway Museum
http://www.eisenbahnmuseum-heilbronn.de/
Neuenmarkt-Wirsberg Railway Museum
http://www.dampflokmuseum.de/cms/
Chemnitz Railway Museum
http://www.sem-chemnitz.de/
Stassfurt Railway Museum
http://www.eisenbahnfreunde-stassfurt.de/
Bochum-Dahlhausen Railway Museum
http://www.eisenbahnmuseum-bochum.de/
Deutscher Eisenbahn Verein (narrow gauge)
http://www.museumseisenbahn.de/index.php/de/

And there are a number of private narrow gauge lines (not preserved railways!) which include steam trains in their daily timetables, some of them are:

Harzer Schmalspurbahn
http://www.hsb-wr.de/
Molli Bäderbahn
http://www.molli-bahn.de/
Fichtelbergbahn Cranzahl - Oberwiesenthal
http://www.fichtelbergbahn.de/

See you in Cornbury Park next June.

Regards
Hubert

Here's mine




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Trickydicky wrote:A couple of years ago a friend of mine invited me up to Darlington to a museum where a group were fixing up a class 57 loco. It was a freezing cold day and they started it up, the locos are designed to run all day none stop and have no pre heaters on the glo plugs. This thing started from cold not on all cylinders, we were stood at the side of it and it was spewing unburnt diesel from the exausts and sounded like a bag of spanners, then as it warmed up it was fireing on all cylinders and sounded great. I think the engine was built by GEC. The engine pic was taken from the cab end of the train.

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How do you start something like this? Presumably a big battery and a starter motor but do you just turn a key or push a big red button or is it more a mission control sequence of levers and checklists?

The early diesels were arguably more filthy than the steam locomotives they were meant to replace.

Thats a Class 37. It has a 12 cylinder English Electric diesel engine. This drives a generator which powers the traction motors, one on each axle, via various control equipment. Class 37s are a very well regarded locomotive and there are still a number of them in main line service.

I travelled to secondary school by train (Errol to Perth) for 3 years - 66 to 69 when steam was rapidly disappearing. The number of times I was an hour late coming home due to failed diesels was shocking. Several times a Black 5 pulled the diesel to Dundee and beyond.
One day I actually saw Blue Peter rolling through Perth in absolutely shocking condition.

Pete

Trickydicky wrote:How do you start something like this? Presumably a big battery and a starter motor but do you just turn a key or push a big red button or is it more a mission control sequence of levers and checklists?

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There are different methods of starting these massive diesel engines, which you can find in diesel locomotives or ships. First of all the coolant has to be pre-heated, which can be done by an electric core in the cooling system, with the steam heating equipment or (on some older Geman diesel locos) even with a coal-fired stove.

Before you actually start the engine the oil pump has to run until a certain pressure is built up. The oil pump is driven by an electric motor.

Finally you start the engine. With modern diesels this is done with an electric starter motor, running from 48 V batteries, similar to those in a car, but considerably bigger. Older engines were started by letting compressed air from big flasks into the cylinders to give them the first revolutions. The flasks were filled by static compressors, but you could also use the exhaust fumes. When the engine was running you could deviate them with a valve into the flasks. And finally some very old engines were started by applying cartridges with explosives into places in the engine block and letting them explode.

Starting a diesel locomotive is done much quicker than raising pressure on a steam loco. However it still takes a lot more time than pulling the choke and turning the key on a Moggie.

Cheers

Hubert

In the Uk - most railway Sulzer diesels are started by running a 'triple pump' which circulates lub oil/fuel/cooling water for a few minutes to build up pressure. Then a green button (one in each cab - also one in the engine compartment which is the one I always use) is pressed, and contactors engage to apply 110 v DC to the main generator coils - rotating the diesel engine until it catches and fires. The button must be held in until enough pressure (oil 12psi and water 6psi) has built up to close the contactors and maintain the fuel supply. No real need for pre-heating, the compression of the air makes for 800/900 degrees in the combustion chamber - and then the fuel is injected with obvious results...

For a short time from the early 60s into the 70s we were blessed with several classes of diesel locomotives which had German Maybach engines and hydraulic transmissions. The finest of these locos were the D1000 Western class. These had two Maybach MD series V12 engines and were a pleasure to see and hear. The hydraulic classes did have engine pre heaters to warm the coolant jackets prior to starting. The starting tractive effort of a Western was something like 72000 pounds at the rail.

Awesome machines, seven are preserved out of the seventy-four built.

33, 37 or Deltic

Quite a fan of Industial and light Railways myself ........and tend to build models of the same [frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame]

Wonder whether any class 85,86 or 87 survive in preservation?

Is Duchess of Hamilton now a streamline?

What lovely trains, vehicles and layouts Rippers - do you take them to shows?

Which are the real railways and which are the models?