Power produced on both sides of the piston?

Yes.

Yes.

Rusty

Reciprocation motion.   Wikipedia.  Click on the underlined phrase to link.   The force on the connecting rod side of the piston has to be less than the face/no rod side.  Less square inches to apply pressure.  IMO. So it is double action, but one side is less than the other??? 

Yep. It's a double-acting piston--unlike what's in your car.

That's what all the fun moving rods and linkages on the side of a steam locomotive are for, to direct the steam to the correct side of the piston at the correct time.

Technically, this is true.

A similar point is that valves can be adjusted to admit a bit of steam before a piston reaches the end of its stroke. That provides a "cushion" of steam and a "spring" when a piston reverses direction.

This is a good visual from Wikipedia...if it works.  

Hello guys and gals...

So this like a 2 cycle engine like in dirt bikes ? 

The woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678,2003

Tiffany

I'm the last person to talk about internal combustion engines, but a two-cycle engine still only has power applied to one side of the piston--not both. Without looking it up, as I recall the "cycles" (two or four) refer to the sequence of fuel injection, compression,  ignition and exhaust.

Steve is correct.

Internal combustion engines burn fuel only at the TOP of their cylinders. Power is applied in only one direction. Fairbanks-Morse made opposed-cylinder engines (one set of cylinders atop another) but they worked the same way. Fuel was injected at the tops of both sets of cylinders.

Each piston is attached to a connecting rod. The rod is attached to the crankshaft. There is no practical way to burn fuel there.

EMD prefers 2-cycle engines; GE, 4-cycle.

In smaller motors (dirt bikes, lawn mowers), oil is mixed with gasoline instead of filling the crankcase. That is a small savings, at least in theory.

Isn't that backwards?  The valve opens and lets the steam in from the steam dome, and the piston compresses it?  Sure doesn't look right to me.

Isn't the color pink the steam?

The illustration is correct.  Steam is admitted from the center of the valve chamber, the exhausts are at the ends of the valve chamber.

Rusty

No, the hot steam (pink) EXPANDS pushing the piston as the exhaust (blue) escapes up the stack.

Now I've always wondered how the Opposed Piston Diesel Engine works?

Although unrelated to this thread, the Fairbanks Morris opposed piston diesel engine of U.S. Navy Submarine fame, has two pistons within one common cylinder. However the engine block has a crankshaft at the six-O-clock position, and another crankshaft at the twelve-O-clock position. Obviously the two crankshafts are connected by a gear train, and the resulting output goes into a gear box/gear reduction, to the propeller shaft (or electric generator in the case of a diesel electric locomotive). 

Maybe this will help.

And there is always the wonderful 'Deltic' valveless opposed-piston diesel engine used in Britain. 

Nicole,

Watching that gives a new meaning to "Monkey Motion"!

I am surprised BR went with this "tri OP".  Why not something SIMPLE, like EMD?

And I thought within a CYCLE there are either TWO STROKES (EMD) or FOUR STROKES (GE) in an internal combustion engine.

I figured it out after I posted, I couldn't believe it was really posted incorrectly, and it turns out it wasn't.  I wasn't picking up on the meaning of the colors.

Both OP engines are two strokes.