Author Topic: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive  (Read 2161 times)

Offline Dan Rowe

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The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« on: November 01, 2021, 02:07:44 AM »
The new Shay book came out and it has a lot of very good information no single book can cover the subject with any depth. I helped with the book as I was one of the original authors my work was on the mechanical database and checking early missing data with the drawing record. This gave me a very good working knowledge of the Lima Works drawing system. The research I did for the book was published in Steam in the Garden in a series of articles titled "The Nuts and Bolts of Shays".

Page 46 of the new Shay book has an error in the caption for S/N 909. This Shay did NOT have Allan link motion. It had Stephenson link motion and an Allen-Richardson balance slide valve.

On the same page the description of Gooch gear for S/N 2570 is not very accurate. The main difference between Stephenson valve gear and Gooch valve gear is the link is stationary in Gooch gear. To make this happen in the limited space the Gooch gear is folded and the link looks like a Stephenson link but it is stationary and the shifting link goes downward to the valve crosshead guide.

It also fails to mention that S/N 2570 had the largest steam engine used on a Shay locomotive 3 cylinders with 18" bore and 20" stroke. This was the most powerful Shay ever built and I had to research the engine. I have attached a reprint of the article I wrote about this Shay.

Cheers Dan

Edit fixed spelling Allan link motion not Allen link motion.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2021, 04:49:20 PM by Dan Rowe »
ShaylocoDan

Offline crueby

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2021, 02:28:01 AM »
Hi Dan,


That's very interesting!  I had never seen the Gooch gear before, let alone the folded version on that Shay. You are right, folding the valve's 'con rod' back down definitely shortens up the distance between the crankshaft and the cylinder.


Still getting my head around the nuances of the motions between the three gear setups, would be worth modelling up in CAD to animate it, with simple shapes to highlight the motions...


Very cool, thanks for sharing that!!


Chris

Offline Kim

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2021, 05:01:19 AM »
Thanks Dan,
That is facenating!  Thank you for taking the time to post this.
Kim

Online Jo

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2021, 07:38:22 AM »
Thanks for that Dan,

Very interesting, the drawings in it are good enough to build from  :thinking:

Jo
Enjoyment is more important than achievement.

Offline PJPickard

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2021, 10:00:17 AM »
Thanks Dan, I've been waiting for this book for a LONG time! It is an excellent companion for my copy of Titan of the Timber bout for $20 when I was a teen!

Offline Admiral_dk

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2021, 11:24:45 AM »
Thank you Dan for posting it here - very informative and great drawings  :praise2:

Offline crueby

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2021, 02:01:24 PM »
I dug out the folder where I had the old Dockstader valve gear animation programs, he included the Gooch linkage in that set. Very subtle differences in the final valve motion compared to the Stephenson version, but interesting to watch.

On the Marion steam shovel main hoist engine, they used a straight link version of the Stephenson, no curve at all in it, to keep the linkage very short to fit in the space available. In that use, they only ran the engine with the link all the way to one end or the other, they did not care about adjusting the lead since the engine only ran for short periods, and they wanted max power all the way through the run for lifting the bucket. The only time they put it in reverse was when the drive clutch down to the wheels/tracks was engaged for moving the shove a short distance backwards.

 :cheers:

Offline Dan Rowe

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2021, 02:32:07 PM »
Thanks, everyone for the kind words. If anyone wants to build this engine or the whole Shay let me know I can help locate the drawings. I used the correct Lima drawings for the article and assembled them in 2D cad which requires removing a lot of lines that are hidden.

Chris interesting I missed the straight link in the build. The type of link motion that uses a straight link instead of a radius link is Allen link motion, that is why I had to check the facts when I saw that in the new Shay book.

Cheers Dan
ShaylocoDan

Offline Dan Rowe

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2021, 04:37:04 PM »
Here is a link to an article on early locomotive valve gear which includes Stephenson Gooch and Allan. (note the spelling change to Allan I am an engineer so not good at spelling :Lol:)
https://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/valves1.html

Cheers Dan
ShaylocoDan

Offline crueby

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #9 on: November 01, 2021, 05:48:01 PM »
Here is a link to an article on early locomotive valve gear which includes Stephenson Gooch and Allan. (note the spelling change to Allan I am an engineer so not good at spelling :Lol: )
https://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/valves1.html

Cheers Dan
Keep typing - you'll get it - remember, Pertice Makes Prefect. Um, Practise Mekas Perfect..... well, you get it!!   :Lol:

Great article!!

Offline Dan Rowe

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2021, 09:45:57 PM »
Clicking links on the bottom of the last link hit the jackpot. There is a Shay article that gives a few more facts about S/N 2570.

https://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/shay-locomotive.html

Cheers Dan
ShaylocoDan

Offline Dan Rowe

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Re: The Worlds most powerful Shay locomotive
« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2021, 01:31:10 PM »
I fixed the error on page 46 of the new Shay book saying that S/N 909 has Allen valve gear, by printing this card for the Allen-Richardson balance slide valve. I wrote on it that both S/N 909 and S/N 1503 had Allen-Richardson balance slide valves and Stephenson valve gear. Now it is a bookmark reminder.

Cheers Dan
ShaylocoDan

 

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