Pennsylvania #6200 6-8-6 Steam Turbine

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modern Lionel (LTI) built a massive, incredibly detailed scale model of the Turbine (catalog #18010, cab #6200) in '91 & '92; it's 32" long & dwarfs the postwar & MPC versions.

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Originally posted by BASEMENTBILL:
I bought the magazine especially for the Preston Cook article on this awesome engine. When I was staring at the picture on the front cover, I noticed that the trainline air brake hoses on the front were on the engineer's side of the drop coupler. I wondered if their was some particular reason for the reversal. The glad hand connections were facing the right way. I went to the magazines web site and downloaded the patent drawings and text for the engine and it's controls. Fantastic reading! Fantastic technology, for the time.

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Originally posted by prrhorseshoecurve:

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modern Lionel (LTI) built a massive, incredibly detailed scale model of the Turbine (catalog #18010, cab #6200) in '91 & '92; it's 32" long & dwarfs the postwar & MPC versions.

Then Lionel LLC did a reissue of the scale one with TMCC back in 2002 with the "In Service" Black color and elephant ears. I hope this model is reissued in Legacy.

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Originally posted by prrhorseshoecurve:

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modern Lionel (LTI) built a massive, incredibly detailed scale model of the Turbine (catalog #18010, cab #6200) in '91 & '92; it's 32" long & dwarfs the postwar & MPC versions.

Then Lionel LLC did a reissue of the scale one with TMCC back in 2002 with the "In Service" Black color and elephant ears. I hope this model is reissued in Legacy.

I buy Classic Trains at my LHS if the content interests me.....this is a great issue!  The S2 article is excellent!

Peter

I was re-reading the article and looking at the photos of this engine again and saw something that to me was confusing. On the fireman's side was a reach rod and bell crank going to approximately the same spot on the boiler as the one on the engineer's side. I had to think for a minute as to why there would be two throttle linkages. DOH! Of course, the one on the engineer's side was for the foreward turbine and the other must control the reverse.

And all this controlled hydraulically from one lever. Curious as to whether this was picked up on the models, I rooted thru some old Lionel catalogs from the early 90's and in number two was what I was looking for. There in all it's glory was the huge Collector's Line model of the S-2 and it also had the fireman's side reach rod. Out of sheer curiousity, I'm going to do an internet search and see if I can find one of these bad boy's for sale.

My wife brought the magazine home 2day.  What is the condensing equipment above the pilot beam?  Was some of the exhaust steam turned back into water and re-used?

Concerning the Lionel Turbine, I have always wished the "selective compression" had not been quite that compressed.  Just another inch or so of length would have made for a better looking loco. 

I would think the exhaust to be loud enough to cover up the gear noise, but there was surely some gear noise present when starting.  The real question is whether it was loud enough to be heard.

Tom

From the photos of the S-2 geared drive in that article, the turbine input shaft pinions were angle cut left and right handed, to drive the intermediate/idler gears. The drawing of that set up on page 26 is incorrect as it has the pinion gears all cut the same way.

As such, the initial gearing of the S-2 was done the way turbines were geared in ships, with a herringbone pattern gear drive which when correctly adjusted was rather quiet. If anything, it has a kind of low pitched, moderate hum at speed.

However the final drive in the S-2 transmission was made with straight cut gears to the bull gear on the axles. This type gearing tends to growl and howl, especially as it wears. Sort of the sound old pre-PCC era trolleys and pre- 1950s subway cars made. That growling and howling increases in volume and rises in pitch as speed increases.

The S-2 exhaust would be a steady, rushing sound from spent steam. Turbine powered ships have condensers to reuse the water from spent steam, so they don't make exhuast noises. The S-2 did not have a condenser, so spent steam was exhausted into the atmosphere. That rushing noise would increase in volume, becoming ever louder and deeper as speed increased. It would no doubt be cut back as steam for the turbine was reduced enough to maintain a certain speed. 

Ed Bommer

The reason I asked about condensing is that, in the article, the big box on the pilot beam is shown as containing "condensing apparatus for exhaust steam."  With so little steam pressure left to propel the exhaust out the stacks, would there have been much exhaust noise at all, esp. at speed?

Conerning the gear and exhaust noises the Turbine put out, has any of the toy versions ever attempted to make some sort of sound effects?  I know MTH put out a Bantam version with chugging, which was really inappropriate.

Jim I have an MTH Railking that is larger than the bantam - sorry dont know the number - to my eyes it is a pretty good representation of the real thing though still not scale size (25 inches though!) Mine has PS1 and makes a great "Whooshing" sound along with huge amounts of smoke/steam from it 4 stacks. Its great fun to run.

CHEERS MIKE

Hey Ed, are you sure about that condenser. It show's it on the full side view with descriptions. And imagine my surprize to see the rubber tipped "quill drive apparatus" inside the axle's bull gears. Shades of the GG-1.

Yes, I saw that indicated condenser as well on the front end.  It looks rather small to me, and it's air cooled? To me, that box with the grille on the front of the S-2

looked more like a housing for the dual cross-compound air compressors' cooling manifolds. 

In marine use, steam turbine condensers are much larger and they are sea water cooled. Boiler draft as needed on ships was provided with blowers. 

I am wondering why the article mentions much about the exhaust steam noise. If the loco used a closed steam circuit with a condenser to feed water back to the tender, there should be no exhaust steam. All steam would be fully contained within the plumbing. Any noise from exhausting steam would also be minimal.

It seems from the article that the S-2 depended somewhat on exhaust steam to create draft for the fire. It was found insufficient to do so. No mention either, as to how the loco's condenser was used.  Nor anything said about the possibilities of a blower to maintain or increase draft for the fire when needed. 

It would seem that if exchaust steam had insufficient pressure for maintaining a suitable draft, something other than multiple, progressively linked stack butterflys and elephant ears would be required.

The more we look into this magnificient hunk of machinery, the more questions we seem to discover about it!

Ed Bommer

Ed, I should have guessed.  You were there.

You are an invaluable source of good, unbiased information to this forum, and I want to personally thank you for the many informed and accurate postings.  We can always take anything you say as factual.

Tom

I've wondered if the performance of the S2 would have been better if they had put a heavy duty booster engine on the trailing truck and used that to start the train moving.  Once the train was moving then start the turbine so the steam wouldn't just blow through the turbine.

Stuart

Hey Stuart - didn't some of the UP turbines have a small diesel unit for yard movements? I assume that was for the same reason?

MIKE

I always wonder that myself.

But the S2 was doomed by a fatal design flaw that was the major cause  of the cronic failure of the staybolts in the firebox.

 The article revealed that observation and tested disclosed that a boiler design defect was in fact the most significant contributor. Baldwin engineers determined that there was an area of high thermal gradient caused by flow problems around the circulators in the firebox