Steam Locomotive facts
While investigating facts about Steam Locomotive Diagram and Steam Locomotive Inventor, I found out little known, but curios details like:
One of the last types of steam locomotive was maintained while the boiler was still in steam, by men in asbestos clothes entering the 220°F firebox and repairing the engine, while it was still under pressure. This was done to reduce downtime and allow a 6-day-a-week schedule.
how steam locomotives work?
About Union Pacific's restoration of UP 4014 "Big Boy". When completed in 2019, it will be the largest, heaviest, and most powerful operating steam locomotive in the world.
What was the largest steam locomotive ever built?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what was one advantage of using steam-powered locomotives in the 1800s. Here are 28 of the best facts about Steam Locomotive Big Boy and Steam Locomotive Explosion I managed to collect.
what's steam locomotive?
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When coal became too expensive during WWII, the Swiss decided to just convert their steam locomotives to electric by installing huge heating elements that ran off existing overhead lines. They ended up using hydropower to replace the coal.
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Soda locomotive, a fireless locomotive that ran on sodium hydroxide. When steam came in contact with the sodium hydroxide, it would generate enough heat to actually run the boiler and generate more steam and propel the locomotive forward.
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The first steam locomotive in the United States lost a race to a horse when a belt broke. The race managed to convince executives of B&O to convert to steam.
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In the 1940s and 1950s there were a series of steam locomotives that would routinely haul 160 rail cars, each individually weighing 60 tons, over the mountains between West Virginia and Virginia. The locomotive itself weighed 771,000lbs, and was 125 feet long
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Some steam locomotives replenished their water without stopping by scooping from long troughs between the rails.
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In 1938 the mallard steam locomotive set the world speed record for a steam locomotive at 126mph (203kph). It still stands today.
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The South African Class 25 Steam Locomotive, designed to save as much water as possible in the arid Kalahari region, they could use the same water 8 times in a row, with savings of 90% and a range of 500 miles, they also didn't chuff, the whined
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Bosnia features some of the last commercially-operating steam locomotives in Europe, including Class 33 "Kriegsloks" built by slave labour for the Nazis during WW2 (Last confirmed operation - May 2016).
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The first locomotives in Britain were powered by coal. Coal was burned to heat water that would create steam, which would power the pistons that caused the wheels to turn.
Why steam locomotives?
You can easily fact check why was the steam locomotive invented by examining the linked well-known sources.
About Elijah McCoy, a Canadian born inventor and engineer who created an oil lubricator for steam engines. The term "the real McCoy" was coined as railroad engineers wanted to avoid inferior copies of the lubricator and would ask if the locomotive was fitted with "the real McCoy".
The steam locomotive, the Sierra No. 3, was both the Hooterville Cannonball and the steam engine that pushed the DeLorean to 88 mph in Back to the Future III, and has appeared in more movies than any other locomotive. - source
Before the advent of the steam locomotive, rail cars were pulled by horses. - source
The first underground train system started operations in London and was pulled by a steam locomotive where the crew operated the locomotive by standing in an open area right behind the firebox and the polluted tunnels posed a grave health hazard to passengers and railway workers
The latest Steam Locomotive built in UK was named after a jet airplane and was completed in 2008 - source
When was the steam locomotive invented?
One steam locomotive has dominated Hollywood with dozens of film & TV credits
How steam locomotives really work?
Jehovah's Witnesses once believed that a monster steam locomotive would destroy people.
Ten and a quarter inch gauge (or X scale) (10 1⁄4 in/260 mm) is a large scale, generally only used for ridable miniature railways. Model railways at this scale normally confine the scale modelling aspects to the reproduction of the locomotive and with steam locomotives the accompanying tender.
There is a collection of withdrawn steam locomotives which were kept in working order for possible use in a national emergency.
It was a Cornishman named Richard Trevithick who invented the worlds first sucessful Steam Locomotive, not George Stephenson.
Some steam locomotives are kept for national security reasons; those might be useful in a nuclear attack
