I’ve been a train geek all my life. It’s in my blood. One of my earliest memories involves standing at a window and watching a steam locomotive shunt cars in Urbana, IL in about 1955 or 56. My family was involved with the railroad, my grandfather worked his entire life there. My father was involved with model railroads, as was I for a while. I also worked on the railroad at one point in my life, and and spent a few years as a volunteer locomotive engineer at a railroad museum running a steam locomotive. This one, as a matter of fact:
An old friend sent me some pictures she took at the Delhi National Train Museum in India, including the front-page picture for this post. (Thanks, Sandy!) She asked me if Indian locomotives were different from American locomotives. She should have known better – this is what I ended up sending her:
Yes. Indian locomotive design was largely influenced by British and European locomotive design, primarily for reasons of geography and political rule. The difference is not so much technical as it is in design philosophy. In America, where there were large open spaces, locomotives tended to be larger, with longer wheelbases and more connected driving wheels since there were fewer restrictions to curve radius and what is called “loading gauge” (basically, the largest profile allowed for a piece of railway rolling stock: it influences such things as how close double tracks may be to each other and the opening required for a tunnel, etc.)
In Europe things were more crowded at the beginning of the Industrial revolution- space limitations forced more compact dimensions onto the railroads. In addition, European machinery exhibited more of a design aesthetic than American railroads tended to adopt, much of it hidden. (As an example, the use of copper vs. steel for the firebox of a locomotive; American practice used steel, because it was cheaper, and longer lasting, even though it did not transfer heat to the boiler nearly as well as copper. American locomotives made up for the difference in that case by sheer size.)
European locomotives also tended to be more streamlined than American locomotives; again the brute-force concept applied: Since European locomotives were less powerful than American locomotives because of their smaller size, they paid more attention to streamlining for efficiency: this gave tended to give their locomotives more visual appeal.
In many of the pictures you sent me the locomotives have a crude “cowcatcher” applied- this came directly from the practice of the American western railroads, where they were originally applied to sweep obstacles and loose livestock off to the side of the right-of-way, rather than allowing it to go under the wheels. In most of Europe at the time, the railroads had a generally separated, fenced or walled-off right of way- stray cows or persons on the track were not much of a problem. India, on the other hand, was analogous to the American West in some ways (at that time)- there were loose animals, obstacles, and the track was not often separated that well from the surrounding countryside, so that particular American practice migrated there.
In India, in particular; there was a tendency to paint the locos in brighter colors, and the narrow boilers on smaller locomotives combines with the rounded tops of taller (in relation) appliance and steam/sand domes gave the locomotives a different aesthetic that I and others found pleasing.
So that’s the answer and a lot of the reasoning in nutshell. I know you weren’t looking for a thesis, but once I got started, well…
Maybe that’s why I don’t get a lot of train questions from people: I tend to go on and on.
The real point of my post is that people of the world have many of the same fascinations: the fact that there is a train musem in Delhi underscores it- there are train geeks there, as well. You don’t have museums without subject-geeks who care passionately about whatever it is they love, be it trains, airplanes, old cars, or obscure South American artifacts. “Geeks” tend to preserve the parts of our culture that are the objects of their affections. The world as whole is better for it, I think.
Thank you for directing me here from our email transaction of earlier today! Although I got too late a start for steam, I remember standing transfixed at any and every thing with flanged wheels from my earliest recollections. Being somewhat disabled, I often get the chance to sit and watch trains for hours at a time, providing something far better than the pain medication I take, though certainly no less addicting. I drive once a week or so in the nice weather to see the Valley Railroad of Connecticut where they have Chinese steam under power there and run on the ex-New Haven. Thank you again for spurring my visions and so graphically describing for me what I’ve longed to know for so long. Yes, trains are the love of my life! God bless you richly,
Regards,
John Payne
Milford Connecticut
Thank you again for your kind words.
When my son was small (1-3 years old), he was obsessed with trains and we had to go to Griffith Park here in LA at least twice a week to ride the train there. Great times–Thanks for the post.
I just wanted to tell you that my husband, Michael is a “train geek” too. Something the two of you have in common. :)
Thank you for “How to boot a Steam Locomotive”. It answers a ton of my questions. Any idea on the differences with coal? Do they start with a bunch of burning coal shoveled in? Without a fan and no steam for the blower, can you still get a draft?