Steam turbine locomotive
In 1925 the Swedish firm NOHAB built a turbine locomotive similar to Fredrik Ljungström's first design.
One effort, the Nord Turbine, resembled the LMS Turbomotive in both appearance and mechanical layout.
[1] The locomotive itself was little modified, the major changes being to the tender which was fitted with coupled driving wheels in a 2-4-4 layout, driven by separate forward and reverse turbines.
Belluzzo's US patent from that period shows the turbine driving a jackshaft through a gearbox in front of the locomotive's drivers.
Tests run were however a failure, as its performance proved to be well below that of a normal 685; the turbine soon broke up, and that signalled the end of the attempt.
[5] Swedish engineer Fredrik Ljungström designed a number of steam turbine locomotives, some of which were highly successful.
This avoided the complexity of building a fan that could withstand hot, corrosive gases, but introduced a new problem.
One of the more successful turbines operated in the United Kingdom, the LMS Turbomotive, built in 1935,[8] was a variation of the Princess Royal 4-6-2 large passenger express locomotive.
The high efficiency mainly resulted from the fact that there were six steam nozzles directed into the turbine which could be turned on and off individually.
The Turbomotive was converted to piston drive in 1952, renamed "Princess Anne" and shortly after entering service was withdrawn following the deadly Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash in 1952.
In the waning years of steam, the Baldwin Locomotive Works undertook several attempts at alternative technologies to diesel power.
It was originally designed as a 4-8-4, but due to shortages of lightweight materials during World War II, the S2 required additional leading and trailing wheels.
Numbered 6200 on the PRR roster, the S2 had a maximum power output of 6,900 HP (5.1 MW) and was capable of speeds over 100 mph (160 km/h).
While the gearing system was simpler than a generator, it had a fatal flaw: the turbine was inefficient at slow speeds.
The smooth turbine drive put far less stress on the track than a normal piston-driven locomotive.
The Reid-Ramsey turbine, built by the North British Locomotive Company in 1910, had a 2-B+B-2 (4-4-0+0-4-4) wheel arrangement.
General Electric built two steam turbine–electric locomotives with a 2+C-C+2 (4-6-6-4) wheel arrangement for the Union Pacific in 1938.
These locomotives essentially operated as mobile steam power plants and were correspondingly complex.
Union Pacific accepted the locomotives in 1939, but returned them later that year, citing unsatisfactory results.
The GE turbines were used during a motive power shortage on the Great Northern Railway in 1943, and appear to have performed quite well.
[10] In 1947–1948 Baldwin built three unusual coal-fired steam turbine–electric locomotives for passenger trains on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O).
The cab was in the center with a coal bunker ahead and a conventional boiler behind it, with the tender only carrying water.
In May 1954 Baldwin built a 4,500 horsepower (3,400 kW) steam turbine–electric locomotive for freight service on the Norfolk & Western Railway (N&W), nicknamed the Jawn Henry after the legend of John Henry, a rock driller who famously raced against a steam drill and won, only to die immediately after.
[12][13] The unit looked similar to the C&O turbines but differed mechanically; it was a C+C-C+C with a Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boiler with automatic controls.
