Steam Locomotive Slipping The Wheels

I suspect that's just plain bad engineering.

OPERATOR ERROR!!!!!   

I was beginning to wonder when the "Driver" was going to close the regulator (throttle).

Must have been Scrappy's British cousin at the throttle! 

He must have been finishing that mouth full of grub he had there!

(or that's their version of rail grinding)!

Ed

Totally incompetent engineer.

He should have been relieved of his duties right there.

When it just kept going, I was waiting for the tires to heat up and fall off.

Were these folks possibly doing a "Lidgerwood" process, truing up flanges and tread?

You're kidding...right? I sure hope so.

No, quite serious. But all my railroading has been done in an armchair. Please share your imperial wisdom on why that would not be the case......I do note that the sparks are at the railhead and a Lidgerwood tool is mounted in the brake shoe holders.

Oh boy....good times there. 

Mark,

Come on! First there would have been no way that they would have been using a Lidgerwood tool right there in a passenger station. Second, use of the Lidgerwood required VERY SLOW speed, and no sparks/fire  dissipated or thrown off during the process, and that is why the locomotive or diesel unit having the flanges cut would normally have been pulled/pushed by another locomotive anyway. Third, you are correct in that the Lidgerwood tool assembly is mounted into a break head, and adjusted by a Machinist.

My heart goes out to the fireman.

Ahhh, my illumination continues! The pictures I have seen (that's all a naive such as I has to go on!) of the Lidgerwood process depicts cables pulling a locomotive, and, yes, slowly makes sense. I slowly emerge from my benighted condition!

So that's progress then?

Looks to me like a crew change and it also looks like no one is operating the engine for a few seconds.. Which side of the engine is the driver? on anyway ?

Now isn't a Lidgerwood a winch? As a young brake man ( about 1965)  I was assigned to a work train unloading ballast using a lidgerwood and about 25 hart cars.  The train would consist of 2 GP9 or RS-11s  A steam generator car, Lidgerwood (big steam  winch) 25 or 30  harts cars and our caboose.

 A plow (right or left hand) was placed  in the car ahead of the caboose and a cable was stretched from the Lidgerwood to the plow using the engine. The Section forum  or Roadmaster would give signals to the Lidgerwood operator with 2 flags   Green to  wind up the cable and red for stop. The whole crew was keep busy especially in train order territory  I was either flagging or switching out the left or right plow. Each had their own car.  Unloading was done on the move sometimes. ( a hart car was similar to a gon except the sides opened up and the plow forced the ballast out )

   After being away from home all week  and wanted to get an early cut out  on Sat  we would wave our own  green flag  frantically . Lets gets this  load off and get out of here..

Just so we're all on the same switch list here...

This had nothing to do with using a tool to turn the wheels. It has everything to with a slip that momentarily got out of control.

I don't know anything about this particular locomotive, however, if it has a dome throttle (as opposed to a "front end" throttle) it is possible that this could happen. If the engine "pulled water" when starting, water would have been drawn past the throttle valve and into the dry pipe. The water would then have been drawn into the superheaters. They would have acted like a secondary boiler, boiling the water drawn past the throttle. And since this all happens AFTER the throttle valve, the engineer could not directly control it. But he should have at least opened the cylinder cocks...

Reminds me of Blue Peter.

Bob, now now now.....    This was not a derailment.......    Let's give Eliot another chance before we label him MURPHY

Rich, are there emergency pressure relief valves in this instance? 

Emergency pressure relief valves?

Yes in a sense Rich.  I was also thinking there would be other valves inline of the dried pipe that would be cracked and then closed as pressure built to allow for easing into the throttle up. 

NOW.......
I ask this as someone who has absolutely NO knowledge on the the topic of steam engines in any way shape or form.  so please have pity on the neophyte

Nothing was over-pressured in this scenario. The engine driver opened the throttle, the drivers started to slip and he either did nothing to correct it or could not correct it because the engine had pulled water. The engine was simply running at a moderate speed, slipping the wheels and going nowhere.

There is no "automatic" protection that would correct this situation, which is why the engineer has to pay attention 100% of the time. HE controls the "pressure relief valve" (the throttle) that would fix this.

Just so we're all on the same switch list here...

Funny expression! Well done!

Maybe the guy thought he was tiring a PRR T1!

Ok Cool Thank you Rich!

Hey

Mr. Melvin  was that a mini episode of what happened to that British Locomotive that stripped the running gear and destroyed itself a few years ago?

Yes, I guess you could say that.

60532 a.k.a. Blue Peter, the locomotive involved in the episode you referenced, didn't exactly "destroy itself." It was repaired and placed back in service in 1996 and remained in operation until 2002. Its mainline certificate has expired and the locomotive is in need of a complete overhaul before it can run again. In the meantime, 60532 is a very popular exhibit at Barrow Hill Roundhouse:

 When surfing theses slip videos it "appears" that its a bigger issue with these European steamers. They "look" lighter in weight than their American counter parts.

Is it a tractive force issue?, difference in locomotive design? It "seems" American locos can "reel back in" a wheelspin before it becomes excessive. Or is it solely on the engineers skills?  

I could post these all day:

Unbelievable! In my wildest dreams I cannot imagine allowing a slip to get that badly out of control.

Over the years that the 765 has been in excursion service (1982 to the present) there have probably been somewhere around 20 engineers that have had the opportunity to run her. With only one exception, none of them ever allowed a slip to get that far out of control.

The one exception to that was an engineer (who shall remain nameless) that let a slip get going and did not properly react to it. When it happened, I was standing in the gangway watching him run. When the slip began I waited one second to see if the engineer was going to react. When he did not, I stepped forward, grabbed the throttle and slammed it shut. By that time the 765 was bouncing so badly that I thought we were on the ground. As I shut the throttle I glanced at the speedometer and saw the indicator coming DOWN going past 95 mph!

Thankfully we were not derailed, but an inspection at the servicing location revealed three broken spokes in the drive wheels...one on each of three different wheels. According to the rules we were still legal to run the rest of the trip because only a single spoke was broken in each wheel. But the repairs made the following week were very time-consuming and expensive. Thousands of running miles were ground off the driver tires in those few seconds.

These kind of high-speed slips are SERIOUS BUSINESS! There is a danger of derailment and certainly a danger of severely damaging the locomotive and injuring people, as happened in the Blue Peter incident.

Rich, is this incident you are referring too?
I always assumed this was the result of inexperience on the part of the trainee and not intentual.

I seriously doubt that is the slip that Rich was referring to, since the slip in your posted video really isn't much of a slip. Besides, in the video the engine is light and operating on their own "shop track", and is most likely part of one their "Engineer for an Hour" events (or how ever long it was for).

No, Brian, that was not it. That was a very easy slip...nowhere near 100 mph! The rails were greased a little to ease the stresses on the track at the shop. Note that the drivers actually slide a little as the engine stops.

The slip I am referring to took place at about 50 mph, working a heavy throttle with a big train on a slight grade. It sounded more like the slip in the 6201 video posted above.

Holly crap!!!!!    Their tires sure must not last very long over there.

On a more technical note, was that sort of problem very common during the "regular steam days"? Maybe that/this sort of "throttle sticking open" issues is more prominent with restored locomotives, which might not operate very often, thus the throttle mechanism doesn't get exercised much?

Also, it looks as though that steam is being squirted onto the rail head in front of the first two drive wheels; why would that be?

This is a case where the engineer never stopped the initial slip! When the 80080's drivers started to slip, the engineer (sorry...engine driver) closed the throttle part way and the wheels slowed down. But he opened the throttle again before the wheels had stopped slipping! You will never regain traction that way. That's why the train stalled.

The locomotive obviously had enough tractive effort to move the train because he did successfully re-start the train on the grade. And after the restart, he recovered nicely from a few small slips as the locomotive went by the camera. But those first two slips as the loco is approaching the camera are eye-openers.

I would think that they have run out of sand, as the steam appears to be coming out of the sand pipes. This might explain the excessive slipping too.