HO scale live steamer

[johnny]

This should be of interest to you folks. Two of these locos are for sale on eBay:
Item number: 5914715707
Johnny

[Al_Messer]

Man!! That is tiny!!

[FredR]

Man!! That is tiny!!

Yeah, a neat idea to use electricity to generate steam. Never thought about doing that.

Fred

[mrb37211]

[quoteYeah, a neat idea to use electricity to generate steam. Never thought about doing that.

Fred [/quote]

At one time the Swiss did that on some of their mountain railroads . . . possibly during WWII when coal and oil were hard to come by. Most interesting to see a relatively small steamer with a big pantagraph(sp?) on the cab roof. Wonder what size "burner" and cat wire one would need if the loco was a Big Boy?

Charles

[FredR]

Wonder what size "burner" and cat wire one would need if the loco was a Big Boy?

Charles

I don't think they make a conductor other than like a 3rd rail that would carry enough current. But *IF* it were possible, probably along the lines of what it takes for a furnace for a steel smelter.

Fred

[CMBY RY]

Hmmm.... A wee bit of calculation...

1 Horsepower (mech) = 745.7 Watts

1 Big Boy = 6,200 Hp
(according to a web site I just consulted and
I assume they meant Mechanical HP, not Boiler HP.
If it were Boiler Hp then 1 Hp (boiler) = 9809.5 Watts.)

6,200 times 745.7 = 4,623,340 Watts = 4.6 MegaWatts
(6,200 times 9809.5 = 60,818,900 = 60.8 MegaWatts)

--

Current = Watts / Volts

Assume 3,000 volt supply (?)

4,623,340 / 3,000 = 1,541 Amps
(60,818,900 / 3,000 = 29,273 Amps)

I gots some 22 gauge bell wire... would that work???? :-]

Probably not, huh?

Semper Vaporo,
Charles T. McCullough
CMBY RY

P.S. Note to our "English" members, per how I grew up... I used commas as the thousands separators and a period as the radix point... I believe you are used to the opposite of that.

[Pennsy fan]

Well isn't that cool, now I guess I should not have spent all that money on my shop
and just waited for this. I guess I could buy 4 or 5 and lay out tracks next to each other
and hook them up and make a riding car and see if I could get a ride......

[dampfwilli]

Look here and You can find this Swiss Loco.

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/L ... coloco.htm

[mrb37211]

Would be an interesting challenge . . . Think of the excitement of getting equal power and speed from all! Charles