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Description
This is going to serve as the introduction to the world I've slowly been building over the past several years.

So, a bit of context. The engine I've drawn is very much inspired by a highly interesting locomotive that came out of France in the 1880s. It was built by a Monsieur Estrade, and his idea was essentially to create a very nimble, light weight engine that had virtually all of its weight on the driving wheels. In this, he succeeded. The engine was indeed nimble and allowed for plenty of side play in the leading and trailing sets of driving wheels so that it could take curves at high speeds. The thing was designed to run at 80 mph, but it apparently ran out breath when trying to attain this speed due to its small boiler. I don't know how true this is, because I have only found one source, written by a French historian claiming to be an authority on the subject of railways, that mentions this. Either way, the engine was not considered a success, and no more were built, which I think is very unfortunate. All too often, it seems, innovative and interesting things aren't given a fair chance.

Anyway, on to my machine.

I have decided to include a good many engineers that existed in our world in this one that I've created. Among them are Monsieur Estrade and Mr. Brunel. He'll be important in just a moment. Anyway, in this universe, Estrade continues his adventures in designing locomotives. He eventually remedies the issues his original machine had and soon sets up a factory. He quickly finds customers for his 0-6-0, and many more are built. Naturally he designs more types of passenger engines and goods engines to fit the needs of his customers. Eventually, one company from a particular nation approaches Estrade for a heavily modified version of his famous 0-6-0. The company is the National Railway of Cielif, one of the nations I have created for this world. Their network, and indeed the networks of their neighbors, has been built to Brunel gauge, 7ft. I told you Brunel would be important! Estrade gets right to work and builds a number of machines and exports them to Cielif, where they perform well for many, many years.

One of these engines is now in the hands of one of the many private companies that operate their own trains across the national network, and I'll talk more about them in a later post! Stay tuned!

I've long been inspired by Brunel and his broad gauge Great Western, and I think it is such a shame that there is no place in the world where 7-foot gauge is used. One can only speculate what beautiful, gigantic locomotives would have been built for it had the Western broad gauge continued to exist. So, I thought I would rectify this in my world, and thus I created a whole country where Brunel Gauge is the national standard.

This engine was one of the first that I envisioned for it. Riding on a wider gauge would certainly allow the issue of running out of breath to be fixed, and indeed I've given this engine a high mounted, 5ft 6in diameter boiler operating at 170 psi and feeding 20x24 inch cylinders, which is the same as a GNR C1. The drivers are 8 feet in diameter, and the chimney sits 15 feet above the ground. As for the valve gear, I thought I was being clever when I decided to fit it with Gooch after seeing it fitted to another French 0-6-0 which was built for the Ouest Company for goods work, but upon closer inspection, it seems that Estrade's engine was, in reality, fitted with this gear as well! So, it's now more of ripoff than I thought haha. Well, it's not really a ripoff, more of a tribute to a great man and a theoretical improvement to an interesting machine.

I should not as well, I modified the Gooch valve gear slightly. I changed the eccentrics so that the forward eccentric is connected to the bottom of the expansion link. I was very shocked to discover that forward gear on Gooch is engaged when the valve rod is at the top of the expansion link, which goes against later practice of having forward be at the bottom of the expansion link. This is the case with Walschaerts, and the for this was, if ever your valve rod hanger were to break while the engine was in normal operation, i.e. going forward, then it would be slammed into full forward gear and no damage to the valves would occur. If it goes into reverse when it is traveling forward, the valves can be badly damaged.

That's about it for now, really. There will be many, many more drawings with things from my universe in the future.

Description
This is going to serve as the introduction to the world I've slowly been building over the past several years.

So, a bit of context. The engine I've drawn is very much inspired by a highly interesting locomotive that came out of France in the 1880s. It was built by a Monsieur Estrade, and his idea was essentially to create a very nimble, light weight engine that had virtually all of its weight on the driving wheels. In this, he succeeded. The engine was indeed nimble and allowed for plenty of side play in the leading and trailing sets of driving wheels so that it could take curves at high speeds. The thing was designed to run at 80 mph, but it apparently ran out breath when trying to attain this speed due to its small boiler. I don't know how true this is, because I have only found one source, written by a French historian claiming to be an authority on the subject of railways, that mentions this. Either way, the engine was not considered a success, and no more were built, which I think is very unfortunate. All too often, it seems, innovative and interesting things aren't given a fair chance.

Anyway, on to my machine.

I have decided to include a good many engineers that existed in our world in this one that I've created. Among them are Monsieur Estrade and Mr. Brunel. He'll be important in just a moment. Anyway, in this universe, Estrade continues his adventures in designing locomotives. He eventually remedies the issues his original machine had and soon sets up a factory. He quickly finds customers for his 0-6-0, and many more are built. Naturally he designs more types of passenger engines and goods engines to fit the needs of his customers. Eventually, one company from a particular nation approaches Estrade for a heavily modified version of his famous 0-6-0. The company is the National Railway of Cielif, one of the nations I have created for this world. Their network, and indeed the networks of their neighbors, has been built to Brunel gauge, 7ft. I told you Brunel would be important! Estrade gets right to work and builds a number of machines and exports them to Cielif, where they perform well for many, many years.

One of these engines is now in the hands of one of the many private companies that operate their own trains across the national network, and I'll talk more about them in a later post! Stay tuned!

I've long been inspired by Brunel and his broad gauge Great Western, and I think it is such a shame that there is no place in the world where 7-foot gauge is used. One can only speculate what beautiful, gigantic locomotives would have been built for it had the Western broad gauge continued to exist. So, I thought I would rectify this in my world, and thus I created a whole country where Brunel Gauge is the national standard.

This engine was one of the first that I envisioned for it. Riding on a wider gauge would certainly allow the issue of running out of breath to be fixed, and indeed I've given this engine a high mounted, 5ft 6in diameter boiler operating at 170 psi and feeding 20x24 inch cylinders, which is the same as a GNR C1. The drivers are 8 feet in diameter, and the chimney sits 15 feet above the ground. As for the valve gear, I thought I was being clever when I decided to fit it with Gooch after seeing it fitted to another French 0-6-0 which was built for the Ouest Company for goods work, but upon closer inspection, it seems that Estrade's engine was, in reality, fitted with this gear as well! So, it's now more of ripoff than I thought haha. Well, it's not really a ripoff, more of a tribute to a great man and a theoretical improvement to an interesting machine.

I should not as well, I modified the Gooch valve gear slightly. I changed the eccentrics so that the forward eccentric is connected to the bottom of the expansion link. I was very shocked to discover that forward gear on Gooch is engaged when the valve rod is at the top of the expansion link, which goes against later practice of having forward be at the bottom of the expansion link. This is the case with Walschaerts, and the for this was, if ever your valve rod hanger were to break while the engine was in normal operation, i.e. going forward, then it would be slammed into full forward gear and no damage to the valves would occur. If it goes into reverse when it is traveling forward, the valves can be badly damaged.

That's about it for now, really. There will be many, many more drawings with things from my universe in the future.