Meyer (locomotive)
A Meyer locomotive is a steam locomotive with two separate bogies arranged as bogies .
The first locomotive of this type was the Neustadt built in 1851 by the Austrian engineer Wenzel Günther for the Semmering competition ; However, the name Meyer was not used until 1861, when the Alsatian Jean Jacques Meyer patented this design.
Meyer
In contrast to Neustadt , most Meyer locomotives use the compound principle , i.e. they have high and low pressure cylinders, the latter mostly being arranged in the front bogie for reasons of space. In contrast to the Mallet locomotives , however, both bogies can be swiveled, which has the disadvantage of moving high-pressure steam lines. Another disadvantage of the Meyer compared to the Mallet is that the standing boiler has to be arranged above one of the bogies, which limits the depth of the fire box and the volume of the ashtray.
In Meyer locomotives, the cylinders are usually arranged on the inside of the bogies, so that the connecting line between the high and low pressure cylinders can be very short. The steam pipe has ball joints made of cast half-shells, in the joints of which graphite cords ensure tightness.
The best-known Meyer locomotives in Germany are those from the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz for the Kgl. Saxon State Railways built locomotives of the classes IV K and I TV .
The two self-propelled Bernina steam snow throwers BB R 1051 + 1052 , later used by the Rhaetian Railway , in which the Bernina Railway was incorporated, are also based on the Meyer principle, the X rot d 9213 is still operational in 2011.
Kitson-Meyer
The Kitson company in Leeds removed the main disadvantage of Meyer locomotives, the space restrictions on the fire box and ash box, by moving the bogies further apart so that the standing kettle and ash box could fit between them. This design was called Kitson-Meyer . Experiments were carried out with the arrangement of the cylinders, which were initially arranged at the rear ends of the bogies - with the exhaust steam from the rear cylinders in some locomotives being led directly into the open (see pictures) so that it was not available to fan the fire - and finally at the respective outer ends of the bogies. In this last form, the Kitson-Meyer was the forerunner of the Garratt locomotives .
In total, fewer than 100 locomotives of this type were built before the Garratt type was displaced, most of them for South American railways . The last Meyer locomotives built were built by Orenstein & Koppel for the Chilean military railroad in 1939 . After the start of the war, however , the three vehicles came to the Deutsche Reichsbahn and were classified as 99,164 .
Of the Kitson-Meyer locomotives of the Chilean type Z procured by the Transandenbahn , two have been preserved in Chile (Los Andes and Santiago de Chile) and one in Argentina (Tafi Viejo). There are combined adhesion and gear locomotives with the wheel order D '(3zz) n4, the gear drive independent of the adhesion drive is built into the rear bogie.
In 1998, the Kirklees Light Railway in England put a (newly built) Kitson-Meyer for 381 mm gauge into operation, which is possibly the largest locomotive in the world ever built for this gauge.
You Bousquet
In 1905 Gaston Du Bousquet (1839–1910) developed articulated locomotives with standard gauge for the French Northern Railway , which in principle corresponded to the Meyer type, but had some special features. The machines had the axis order (C1 ') (1'C); the cylinders on the inside of the bogies were supported by wheel sets. The arrangement of the front water tanks, which were not attached to the main frame, but to the bogie, was also unusual. This reduced the load on the pivot pins and increased the mass of the bogie, which in turn reduced its tendency to roll. Unlike most other Meyer locomotives, the buffer beams and couplings were attached to the main frame.
Although the locomotives met the expectations placed on them, the design remained limited to one type of locomotive, which was also procured by other French railways and also exported to China and - adapted to the broad gauge there - to Spain.
Modified Fairlie
The South African Railways procured a total of 16 locomotives from 1925 with the classes FC , FD (manufacturer North British ) and HF (manufacturer Henschel ), which were called Modified Fairlie , but had little in common with a Fairlie . Basically it was Kitson-Meyers with a water box in front of the smoke chamber. At first glance the locomotives therefore looked like Garratts; However, fuel and water tanks were built on the bridge frame and not on the bogies. Disadvantages of this design compared to the Garratt were the large overhangs and the tendency of the bogies to sway due to the large proportion of moving masses in relation to the bogie mass and the resulting significantly poorer running properties.
The reason for the emergence of these locomotives at a time when the Garratt design was already established were the patents with which Beyer-Peacock had protected them, so that other manufacturers were forced to deviate from this design.
Web links
- The Kitson-Meyers of the Transand Railway (English)
- The Du-Bousquet locomotives (English)
- The Modified Fairlies of SAR (English)