Contents Listing - Articles & Features in this issue
"SECOND GENERATION" IN TRACTION
NEWS AND COMMENT
HILLMAN IMPS GO BY RAIL
GENERAL ELECTRIC 5,000 H.P. DIESEL
BRITISH ACHIEVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC TRACTION
RE-SIGNALLING FOR THE L.M.R. ELECTRIFICATION
LONG-DISTANCE PASSENGER PROBLEMS IN FRANCE
THE IRISH SCENE
THE TWO FACES OF HOLBORN VIADUCT
BRITISH RAILWAYS WINTER TIME-TABLES
MILLERHILL MARSHALLING YARD OF THE SCOTTISH REGION
NEW BRITISH RAILWAYS WAGON CONTROL SYSTEM
LOCOMOTIVE RUNNING PAST AND PRESENT
BEYOND THE CHANNEL
THE HUNSLET TWIN HYDRAULIC TRANSMISSION
MOTIVE POWER MISCELLANY
LETTERS
Front Cover: The Birmingham-A.E.I.-Sulzer diesel prototype No. D0260 Lion passes Sandal, near Wakefield, with the up "Yorkshire Pullman".
Article Snippets
A "Second Generation" in traction:
THE details given by Mr. S. B. Warder in his 1 presidential address to the Institution of Locomotive Engineers (summarised on page 308) of new electric motive power and future plans for traction on British Railways, herald a "second generation" of locomotives no less interesting than the more discussed "second generations" now coming into being in aviation and elsewhere. While nothing startl'ng has been attempted in the latest series of 3,300 h.p. locomotives for the Euston main line, a very practical approach to existing techniques has enabled equipment to be simplified in some directions. We believe these to be the first main-line a.c. rectifier locomotives to be controlled by transformer tappings alone, the motors being designed to provide the desired performance without field-weakening. In this way a significant reduction in control equipment is achieved. Weak-field control found its way into a.c. practice with the rectifier locomotive, but its place is logically with the resistance-controlled d.e. locomotive, in order to provide an adequate range of economic running speeds. When motor voltage can be freely varied without resistance losses by means of a tap-changing transformer, it seems a move in the right direction to design the machines for control by this method alone. The abandonment of flexible drives in new B.R. electric locomotives has been forecast several times. It is now known that some resilience will be provided between the axle suspension bearings and the motor frame, and that it will be possible to increase this if necessary. The decision to proceed in this way follows tests with a locomotive equipped with axle-hung motors in one bogie, and a flexible drive in the other, from which no evidence to justify the cost of a flexible transmission could be found. Mr. Warder has expressed doubt, however, whether B.R. will find itself in the van of a world-wide move towards axle-hung motors in high-speed locomotives, for the flexible drive concept seems to have become as deep-rooted in some countries as once was the idea that the best ocean liners must have more than one funnel.
Mr. Warder also feels that stepless control schemes will allow tractive efforts to be used as high as those obtainable with single-motor bogies and axles coupled through the gearing.
THE details given by Mr. S. B. Warder in his 1 presidential address to the Institution of Locomotive Engineers (summarised on page 308) of new electric motive power and future plans for traction on British Railways, herald a "second generation" of locomotives no less interesting than the more discussed "second generations" now coming into being in aviation and elsewhere. While nothing startl'ng has been attempted in the latest series of 3,300 h.p. locomotives for the Euston main line, a very practical approach to existing techniques has enabled equipment to be simplified in some directions. We believe these to be the first main-line a.c. rectifier locomotives to be controlled by transformer tappings alone, the motors being designed to provide the desired performance without field-weakening. In this way a significant reduction in control equipment is achieved. Weak-field control found its way into a.c. practice with the rectifier locomotive, but its place is logically with the resistance-controlled d.e. locomotive, in order to provide an adequate range of economic running speeds. When motor voltage can be freely varied without resistance losses by means of a tap-changing transformer, it seems a move in the right direction to design the machines for control by this method alone. The abandonment of flexible drives in new B.R. electric locomotives has been forecast several times. It is now known that some resilience will be provided between the axle suspension bearings and the motor frame, and that it will be possible to increase this if necessary. The decision to proceed in this way follows tests with a locomotive equipped with axle-hung motors in one bogie, and a flexible drive in the other, from which no evidence to justify the cost of a flexible transmission could be found. Mr. Warder has expressed doubt, however, whether B.R. will find itself in the van of a world-wide move towards axle-hung motors in high-speed locomotives, for the flexible drive concept seems to have become as deep-rooted in some countries as once was the idea that the best ocean liners must have more than one funnel.
Mr. Warder also feels that stepless control schemes will allow tractive efforts to be used as high as those obtainable with single-motor bogies and axles coupled through the gearing.
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