Proceedings Institution of Mechanical Engineers: 1950 on
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Volume 166 (1952)

Graff-Baker, W.S.
Considerations on bogie design, with particular reference to electric railways. 217-27. Disc. 227-36. 27 figs.
An examination was made of the dynamic characteristics of wheel sets and bogies, and of the various forces which act upon a bogie under service conditions. The fundamentals of bogie design are considered, and particular mention is made of recent developments in methods of body suspension. Problems of frame construction, braking, and power transmission are also considered. The paper concludes with a survey of the development of bogie design on the railways of London Transport Executive and elsewhere, and a restatement of the basic problems in the relation of bogie to track. At that time a set of bogies was running experimentally on London Transport in which the bolster springs, spring plank, and hangers were replaced by a pair of rubber springs in shear, disposed at appropriate angles between an extended bolster and the outside of the bogie frame. These springs were proportioned to give the same characteristics as their more normal predecessor and the riding is the same. The springs deflect vertically to correspond with the bolster springs, and horizontally to correspond with the effects of the bolster hangers with their normal centring action. The advantages are the elimination of all wearing parts and a saving in weight at a capital and maintenance cost certainly not higher than normal.
Sir William Stanier (227) opened the discussion, said that at the time of his first association with the railways, the rolling stock had four or six wheels; but soon afterwards Dean had introduced the bogie, Fig. 3, with the suspension bolts at the corner of the bogie frame, and had then developed the suspension bolts between the wheels. That bogie had given the best riding vehicles that had ever been known at that time; it was so good that a man from the Great Western Railway had made a big reputation in India by introducing the bogie that gave the best riding ever known there. Fig. 3b did not show the more usual form, which had two suspension bolts at each end on the suspension bar, so that the bogie frame had a suspension bolt on each side of it, which prevented it from twisting. That bogie was of very light construction, and with up to 48 feet stock certainly gave better riding than any other bogie. Unfortunately, traffic conditions had necessitated the building of coaches of 60 feet or over, and the angling of the suspension bolts with the longer vehicles made very uncomfortable riding. Ever since, the railways had been in trouble with bogie design.
He knew that one design had pneumatic tyres under the centre. For the main line, it was important to prevent the wheels from developing a double flange; carriage wheels, with more than 1/16-inch hollow, always led to bad riding. To make two wheels of exactly the same diameter of a cylindrical form was precision work which was not usually obtainable in a wheel shop, and it had been found, after making a number of experiments on the Liverpool and Southport line, when a rapid cinematographic camera had been used to photograph the movement of wheels on the rail, that the cylindrical wheel had the disadvantage that if the flange got against the rail it stopped there until it struck points. The solution was to alter the wheel to a 1 in 100 cone instead of the 1 in 20 cone, which was usual. That gave exceedingly good riding. It had not the same tolerance for wear as the 1 in 20 cone, but it had sufficient tolerance for carriage stock. There was a movement on the railways to build lighter stock. He believed that with lighter stock it would be increasingly necessary to reduce the coning of the wheels, because the sinusoidal movement with a 1 in 20 cone could react seriously on the carriage body. With a light stock the 1 in 100 cone might be a solution.
The equalizer body gave a nice riding bogie when it was new, but it was very apt, because there was no control on the bogie frame except in the middle, for it to rise up and down, which meant very heavy wear and tear on the parts.
He asked whether the author had found a composition brake block which would maintain its characteristic for braking wheels running in wet weather.
J.S. Tritton said that the photographs showed twenty-four ways of making a bogie, and the text showed that there were many more. The author had said that vertical irregularities on the track must be absorbed by the bogie without being transmitted to the body. Ideally, what was wanted in dealing with vertical irregularities (by which was meant rail-joint shocks) was to absorb them where they occurred, i.e., at the point of contact between the tyre and the rail. The best practical method so far evolved for doing that was the pneumatic tyre, with its swallowing action, but its application to railway practice was limited.
There was, however, a compromise-the resilient wheel. Many of those present would have had an opportunity of riding in the American PCC. car, streetcars fitted with resilient wheels in which the tyre carried a thin inner steel flange on either side of which was mounted a pair of heavy rubber rings. The rubber rings were bonded to the inner flange, and the tyre was held in position by through bolts and dowels on to the wheel centre, but was completely insulated from it. The effectiveness of the resilient wheel in damping the rail-joint shocks was extraordinary–cars could not be heard coming until they were within 80 or 100 yards. There had, indeed, been complaints that the cars were dangerous on that account, but the complaints were an effective proof of the efficiency of the resilient wheel. Another resilient wheel, developed some twenty-five years previously by the Sentinel company, had been fitted to light rail cars run in the Channel Islands. So far as he knew, that type of wheel had been very effective, and he believed that some of them were still running. That wheel was of a different type, in which the rubber was in compression and not in shear and bonded. He realized that the resilient wheel had severe limitations. The PCC cars had an axle load of 6 tons and a tare weight of 16 tons, but they carried up to sixty seated passengers, and had very easy springing–so much so, that one passenger stepping off the car was sufficient to sway the whole car to an extent noticed by other passengers.
So far, the wheels had not been developed beyond that stage, but he thought limitation to a 6-ton axle load could not be contemplated. Sufficient volume of rubber could be incorporated in the resilient type of wheel to give, in due course, an axle load up to railway requirements.
In regard to the transverse oscillations and shocks a bogie had to withstand, he agreed with the author's assessment of the amount of the transverse forces; but he had not brought out the fact that if the forces were of a cyclic nature their peaks were usually of momentary duration. He had himself examined many diagrams of flange forces on bogies in the previous few years, and all were characterized by very sharp peaks rising a long way above the normal maximum stresses of the flange forces which occurred. The view was now being taken that the peaks, because they were only of a momentary duration, did not impose nearly such severe stresses as had at first been thought.

Volume 167 (1953)

Riddles, R.A.
Development of the engineer in railway practice. 141-5 + 6 plates. 24 illus., 3 diagrs., table.

Volume 173 (1959)

Gent, A.N. and Lindley, P.B.
The compression of bonded rubber blocks. 111-22.

Volume 174 (1960)

Carter, H. Desmond
Presidential Address: the engineer, life and diesel engines. 1-14. 7 figs. (illus. and diagrs.).
Chairman and Managing Director of Crossley Brothers Ltd, Manchester. Address included the application of the Crossley diesel engine to railway locomotives.

Schmidt, Ekhart
The high-speed heavy-duty diesel engine, its development, design and application (James Clayton Lecture). 1007-22.
22 figs.
Author was with Daimler-Benz A.G., and application to railway locomotive traction was considered.

Volume 175 (1961)

Brown, H.F.
Economic results of diesel electric motive power on the railways of the United States of America. 257-75. Discussion: 275-317.
In his concluding summary, following the discussion, Brown noted that the railways of the United States must think for themselves about more economic motive power as manufacturers had no incentive or obligation to think for them: they were in business to make profits, and had been far cleverer than the railways during the past quarter century. For every millon ton-miles the railways lost to automotive traffic on the highways (and that was where most of it had gone and was still going), the automotive industry made possibly fewer diesel locomotives, but a great many more automotive highway vehicles. They could not lose, nor was it really necessary for them to change the status quo, unless some of the railways started to wake up and decide they really did require some more economic, longer life, single-units with higher capacity ar all speeds, that cost much less to maintain and much less in first cost. Motive power was not sold to the railways in Europe. They studied their needs, specified their desires, and bought their motive power. There was a large difference. The same was true in the United States until there was no further demand for steam. The American railways could, if they really wanted to, put themselves back into that position again.

Volume 176 (1962)

Barwell, F.T.
Some speculations on the future of railway mechanical engineering. 61-106.

Volume 177 (1963)

Cox, E.S.
The diesel engine on rail. (Summer Meeting 1963: Symposium on Prime Movers). 1025-32.
Conclusions:
(1) Power rating of traction diesel engines is far from being an exact science especially when related as it must be to most economical maintenance in service. Judgement rather than exact engineering determination is so far the only yardstick.
(2) Whatever the level of defects and casualties be it good or bad, strict interpretation of the meaning of these terms is essential before statistics can be used comparatively and conclusions drawn.
(3) As every railway must for policy-making purposes use available experience for assessment of relative worth of different power units both in ownership and prospective use, the effects of load factor, maintenance standards, time, supervision and development have to be carefully weighed, before true comparisons become available.
(4) Many non-engineering considerations have a bearing on diesel reliability and repair costs. Of these, organization of responsibility and supervision is the principal with financial provision for sufficient and efficient maintenance facilities as a close second.
(5) The engine itself is not the least reliable of all the components of diesel traction, and accounts for only one-fifth of total defects in service. As with other types of prime mover, any given diesel engine on rail calls for painstaking development and ‘trouble shooting’ before it levels out with time at the full reliability of which it is inherently capable. As in most other diesel traction aspects, the difference between the best and the worst in this respect is wide.
(6) Sensible and practical standardization is the aim of both railways and manufacturers, here and abroad. The obstacles to its achievement are formidable, however, largely because of the dynamic upsurge of technique and development in all aspects of engineering associated with diesel traction. One form of this is the proliferation of different makes of equipment for the same purpose.

Volume 178 (1963-4)

Chamberlin, R.H.
The Napier Deltic diesel engine in main-line locomotives. 53-73. 30 diagrs.
Chief Engineer, Deltic Division, D. Napier & Son Limited. Details of operating experience with the Deltic engine in railway service, the troubles and defects encountered, and the design changes introduced to overcome them, together with details of subsequent service experience

Volume 179 (1964)

Morris, R.B.
The application of an analogue computer to a problem of pantograph and overhead line dynamics. 782-808

Andrews, H.I.
Calculating the behaviour of an overhead catenary system for railway electrification. 809-46.

Volume 187 (1973)

Atwell, J.W. Presidential address. Matching technology to the market. 601-13.
Unlike some of my predecessors, I had no special desire during schooldays to become an engineer. It happened, however, that straight from school I joined Yarrow & Co. at Scotstoun as an apprentice engineer and remained with them for eight years. The first three years were spent in the workshops and on sea trials; for the remainder of my apprenticeship and for a further three years, I trained in the Engine Drawing Office. Yarrow were, and still are, shipbuilders of high repute specializing in warships and shallow-draught vessels. On the engineering side, they built water-tube boilers for ships and power stations and steam turbines for ship propulsion. The company had a fine reputation for standards of workmanship and performance and it is hard to imagine a better environment in which to serve an apprenticeship. Yarrow were always active in trying out new ideas. I recall, for example, a development programme lasting several years devoted to pulverized-coal burning. As a member of the small team involved in that work, I learned a lot about boiler operation, apart altogether from the problems of using pulverized coal. Another interesting project in the 1930s was a high-pressure water-tube bailer (Fig. 1) designed in collaboration with a former President of this Institution, Sir Nigel Gresley, who at that time was Chief Engineer of the LNER. The object of the exercise was to develop a water-tube boiler capable of operating under the special conditions of railway service and I recall being a member of the trials squad when the boiler was steam-tested on the locomotive outside the boiler shop at Scotstoun. I look back on my apprenticeship as a period of great interest, both in the workshops and the drawing office. There was always something new happening, and although I doubt whether Yarrow would have claimed they were running a highly geared training scheme, they certainly knew how to handle young men. The time spent with Yarrow gave me a good start to my career and I continue to be grateful for the experience I gained. During these years, I attended evening classes at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, gained a Higher National Certificate in Mechanical Engineering, and had my first introduction to the Institution through the Scottish Branch, which this year is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It so happened that the Branch Chairman and the Branch Secretary were members of the College staff, and since the Chairman was also the Professor of Mechanical Engineering evening meetings of the Branch, which were held in the College, were well attended. This was achieved by the simple device of cancelling some of the evening lectures to enable students to attend the Institution meetings. These meetings were my first introduction to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the early 1930s. In 1935 I made the somewhat unusual decision, at least for those days, to leave Yarrow and, with the support of scholarships, go off to the Royal Technical College for full-time studies leading to the College Associateship. In 1937 I was accepted as a research student at the University of Cambridge where I had the good fortune to work under Professor Sir Charles Inglis, studying railtrack behaviour, which was one of his many interests. I like to think that the research work, done at Cambridge just before the war, made a significant contribution to the improved track now in use on our main-line railways

Volume 189 (1975)

Bond. R.C. and Nock, O.S.
150 years of uninterrupted progress in railway engineering. 589-622.
Interesting juxtaposition of authors. Landmarks in mechanical engineering were judged to include Markham's innovation of the brick arch in association with the deflector plate. Typical express locomotives of "100 years ago" were the 2-4-0 designs introduced by Kirtley, Webb and Fletcher, and Stirling's 4-2-2. The use of steel was increasing, especially at Crewe where the Bessemer process was introduced in 1864 and the Siemens-Martin system followed in 1868. The quest for higher speeds is noted in the 1895 race from London to Aberdeen and in the exploits of City of Truro. The introduction of larger boilers was pursued by J.F. McIntosh, Ivatt in his Atlantics. The development of superheating was pursued by Hughes and by Bowen Cooke where the superheated King George V showed a fuel economy of 27%. Compounding is considered. Electrification; centralised signalling systems; stsationary locomotive testing; automatic train control.

Volume 196 (1982)

Boocock, D. and B.L. King. The development of the Prototype Advanced Passenger Train. 35-46. Disc. 821-34. 11 diagrs.
The development and performance of British Railways’ three prototype Advanced Passenger Trains (APT-Ps) were discussed. The progression from design concept to construction, commissioning and testing prior to entry into passenger service was described. Performance aspects of the train an4 its sub-systems were assessed in relation to technical objectives. The commissioning programme and highlights of the track proving trials were described. Important test results were discussed, including those relating to body tilt systems, ride quality, lateral track forces, braking performance, current collection, and thyristor interference. Account was given of various development problems which arose during commissioning trials and endurance running. Concluded with a brief description of the design of the production train (APT-S), which was planned for fleet operation on BR’s electrified West Coast routes.

2009-04-27