Talk:British steam railcars

Pulling power

Why did rai,intros have very limited pulling power? I'm asking because, well, I'm writing a series about an ex-Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Hughes railmotor replica and she's been designed to be able to pull a maximum of 9 to 12 trucks or coaches, unlike her prototype. However, I'd like to know why they weren't so strong before I can think of a reason why. 17:03, 8 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dinoboyaz (talk • contribs)

My simple mind would say, for the same technology, the bigger the engine the greater the power. For example, Hughes bought two Kerr, Stuart railcars, was dissatisfied with the performance and designed his own power cars. According to the L&YR railmotors article the Kerr, Stuart railcars added 13 ft to the train, Hughes' more powerful design 22 ft. Is this replica a copy, or a redesign? You could ask at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains for another opinion. Edgepedia (talk) 18:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, she's a new member of the class. She's number 19 and was built to overcome problems her original prototype had, like the insufficient to handle attached vehicles for parcels or additional coaches at times of exceptional demand such as public holidays, which is why she is stronger, and uncomfortable riding. Also, she has four crew members: two drivers, one at the front, and one at the rear, a fireman, and a guard.Dinoboyaz (talk) 22:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Technically, for two reasons. They had limited power according to the design of the engine and the boiler size - although boilers wouldn't limit brief tractive effort for starting. More seriously though, their limited weight would limit adhesion, so that even if quite powerful, they wouldn't have been able to apply this without slipping. What we notice though is that many of them didn't have coupled wheels and were of 0-2-2 or 2-2-0 arrangement. This would have further limited their adhesion, and could have been remedied fairly easily by coupling the wheels; so we see that their designer obviously wasn't concerned about tractive effort. Although we might note that Hughes did do just this, when designing his 0-4-0 railmotors instead of the 0-2-2 Kerr Stuarts.

In practice, it was more for economic reasons more than technical. These were railmotors, not freight locomotives. Their load was at most a trailer, and sometimes a milk van. They just didn't need much tractive effort. If built deliberately small and light with lower power, they could offer lower running costs. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:52, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see. So, what would make my railmotor replica stronger? Dinoboyaz (talk) 22:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Why two drivers? They only go one way at a time.

If you want to look at what 1930s railmotors might have achieved (rather than 1900 designs), then look at Sentinel (try steam motor and following the links). This multiple motor approach was a solution to gaining higher tractive effort from light bogies. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

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LNWR Steam Railcar

Hugh Longworths: BR Steam Locomotives Complete Allocations 1948-1968 says, that the Last LNWR Whale Steam Railcar (BR 29988) was withdrawn in November 1948. 2001:9E8:961B:2800:92B:7AD7:40A4:669B (talk) 19:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)