Icosahedron

I was only using the as examples of microcontrollers. Plus, an RCX can fit into a tender if it is rear-facing and turned 90°, or placed into the well of a condensing tender.

That space crisis can be alleviated if one were to replace the receiver and battery box with an RCX, NXT, or Scout hotwired to an IEEE 802.11n-compatible transceiver and then have the motors and compressor hidden in the tender. One must remember that the only thing the motor powers is the compressor, and not necessarily the cylinders. Regarding efficiency, the total amount of air compressed would depend on the gearing of the compressor, not so much the size or output torque of the motor.

kyphur, What you said is true. However, if one were to replace the existing magnets in the couplers with neodymiums that have some ridiculously huge strength, then overall the length of the trains would increase dramatically because you can afford to stack more cars on and not worry about the magnetic fields that bind the cars together. Frankly, I think that your statement on the amount of traction that the locomotive has is irrelevant. That is because this thread only covers the method of locomotion, not the locomotives themselves. The issue of traction on the locomotive would have to be dealt with by the builder of the locomotive, just like any other power system, whether it be 9v or PF.

Most of you out there hate how 9v track always drops voltage at the far end of the track. Also, I'm sure that most of you hate the ludicrous cost associated with fully motorizing a PF-powered train. The cost of these methods, the hard-to-find 9v track and the expensive PFs, is too high. In concert with the recent rising in the amount of steam locomotive MOCs, why not install a computer-controlled air compressor in the tender of the locomotive, then run the hose through to the cylinders? In other words, why not make pneumatic locomotives? Right now, pneumatic components aren't particularly expensive, and economic prudence would tell locomotive builders to at least try this method of construction. Not to mention that there is insane pulling power that can be yielded from these cylinders. Using the equation -----c P (d)^2 s TE = ----------- ----------D Please note that these figures are calculated for the 64mm pneumatic cylinders and BBB large driver wheels. This also assumes that your compressor is operating at at least 20 psi. c = 0.85, P = 20psi, d = 2(0.5), s = ~2.52, D = ~1.2, we find that -----0.85 20 2(0.5)e2 2.52 TE = --------------------- = ~35.7 lbs. --------------1.2 That's an insane amount of power for a LEGO locomotive; however, if you use different drivers and air pressures, your figures might be different. Even if it is slightly financially unwieldy to have a pneumatic train, just look at the benefits! Your locomotives would be able to pull far longer trains than any 9v or PF locomotive!

In this situation it would be helpful to have a tag on each car so that they can be sorted accordingly in "smart yards." This would cause switch engines, with a smaller microcontroller, to go into that particular area of the yard and retrieve the car, then assemble the outgoing train automatically, and finally send the train with its own microcontroller on its way. That'd be pretty cool, no?

HENRIK You should make a stupidly long train that contains all the locomotives and rolling stock made by TLG in the last 10 years. That'd be amusing to see Super Chief, EN, Red Cargo, Yellow Cargo, etc. all in one train!

I think that making intelligent layouts with Atmel or Freescale 68k-based microcontrollers is entirely possible. If one were to have a microcontroller embedded into the train's locomotive, a central microcontroller with more storage could store what each locomotive is pulling. When the station knows that a particular train has passed by a reader at some point on the track, it can switch the direction of the points accordingly to match where that particular train must go. I think what you're doing is very cool, and that this should be looked into by the majority of the community.

this locomotive is a giant bucket of EPIC WIN

Blocked in the eastern US. FFFFFFFF-

It shouldn't make a difference in speed since it's already powered, but if you pull long trains you'll need a powered coach somewhere along the line. LEGO's magnetic couplers only hold so much.

Well there are only two things that you can aim for with train gearing, speed or torque; not both. If the driving gear were an 8T and the driven gear were a 24T, then the torque would tend to be about 3x more than that generated by the motor but wouldn't go fast. If the driving gear were a 24T and the driven gear were an 8T, then the speed would tend to be about 3x more than that generated by the motor but you would have difficulties acquiring momentum.

Looks cool.

The stuff that you guys mentioned is coming with the next part of the essay.

Let's take this steam locomotive... ...and push it... ...somewhere else!

roamingstudio, If this carbon tax is what you are saying it is, then the tax would be variable to the purity of the coal, and thus its carbon content. Is that not what you are saying, or is the tax imposed on coal in general? In that case, I used bituminous coal in the example because it was commonly used in steam trains. I agree that there is a certain "golden spot" where fuel efficiency and loading weight meet at an optimum, before which or after which the locomotive becomes too encumbered with either variable. Should the train have too high or too low loading weights on each axle, then fuel efficiency will inevitably drop. Regarding your statement on nuclear fusion I am skeptical. This seems to contradict your earlier statement on locomotive weight in that you need very heavy lead shielding to protect the fireman from ionizing radiation.

Overview Steam locomotives in our time are a bit of an anachronism - one rarely sees a true, coal-fired locomotive from the very late 1800s or very early 1900s. That's for good reason; the things spewed coal dust everywhere, they aren't thermally efficient at all, they're expensive to maintain, and they are really bad for the environment. However, the steam-powered locomotives do have some very desirable redeeming qualities, some of which are to be discussed in this paper. Also to be discussed are the possibilities of alternate fuels, such as bunker oil, wood chips and even nuclear fusion. Merits of Steam-Powered Locomotives Economics of Obtaining the Necessary Components for Locomotion of Steam Trains Diesel-electric locomotives, as we all know, technologically replaced steam locomotives in the very late 1940s to very early 1950s. With the coming of these new locomotives came defamation of the steam locomotives as unhealthy and bad for surrounding environments. However, diesel-electrics have serious drawbacks, one of them being that the fuel is expensive. As of July 30, 2012, one gallon of diesel fuel costs about ($ 3,50, € 2,84, £ 2,23). If a typical diesel-electric locomotive, let's say maybe an EMD GP60, can hold (3.700 US GAL, 14.000 L, 3.100 IM GAL) of diesel, the money adds up real quick. To obtain that amount of fuel for just one time, the railroad would have to spend, at the very least, in excess of ($ 49.000, € 39.760, £ 31.220) on just ONE locomotive. Big railroads like BNSF can afford to pay that much to fuel their locomotives, but for smaller lines like TM, that's practically running the company into the ground! Steam locomotives' fuel, however, is plenty cheap. You can get (1 sh. ton, 907 Kg, 0.89 ln. ton) of high-grade bituminous coal for ($ 60,88, € 49,56, £ 38,81). If a typical coal-fired steam locomotive, let's say a PRR Q2, could hold about (40 sh. ton, 36.280 Kg, 35.6 ln. ton) of that high-grade bituminous coal. Therefore, the total cost to fuel one steam locomotive with coal is about ($ 2435,20, € 1982,41, £ 1552,56), which, compared to diesel-electrics, is a savings of 96,4%. I know what you're thinking. "Icosahedron, you didn't account for the water in the boiler that is necessary for operation of steam locomotives!" In North America, water is a bargain. It only costs about ($ 1,50, € 1,22, £ 0,96) to get (1.000 US GAL, 3.785 L, 833 IM GAL) of the stuff from a municipal grid. If a PRR Q2's boiler can contain (19.020 US GAL, 71.998 L, 15.837 IM GAL), then the total cost of the water is ($ 28.530, € 23.231, £ 18.189,35). Even with the water costs accounted for, the railroad would only have to spend ($ 30.965,20, € 25.213,90, £ 19.741,92) on one locomotive - that's still a savings of 36,81%. Economic prudence would tell the railroad operators to go with steam because of these financial reasons. Flexible Fuel Capabilities of Steam Trains, of which Modern Diesel-Electric Locomotives do not Possess Diesel-Electric Locomotives have to run on very specific ultra-low-sulphur diesel fuels, and if foreign imports of that specific fuel are cut off, then how are the diesels going to get any fuel whatsoever to keep running? It is this kind of non-flexibility that makes operating diesel-electric locomotives financially unwieldy. Steam locomotives can accommodate anything that burns into their fireboxes with proper modification, if necessary - wood, coal, vodka, JP-4, gasoline, you name it. Because it can run on all of those different fuels with varying degrees of thermal efficiency, the railroad is not constrained to one fuel source, and therefore can weather a fuel shortage far better than diesel-electric operator could ever dream of. Exploration of the Possibilities of Alternatively-Fueled Locomotives, some of which are Most Peculiar We can all wonder about the future of trains after the diesel-electrics have passed their prime, but what of the steamers? What other fuels, besides coal, can be used in steam locomotives that is both financially inexpensive and yet environmentally acceptable and thermally efficient? It is one of the most peculiar topics in steam railroading. Our first exhibit in this rather queer topic is fuel oil. According to Wikipedia, fuel oil is Stretching that definition to the utmost extent, that means that even fuels like Diesel are fuel oils. More specific fuel oils are discussed below. (credit to Wikipedia for the descriptions of the fuel oils) No. 1 fuel oil is a volatile distillate oil intended for vaporizing pot-type burners. It is the kerosene refinery cut that boils off right after the heavy naphtha cut used for gasoline. Older names include coal oil, stove oil and range oil. + Relatively easy to refine - Highly volatile No. 2 fuel oil is a distillate home heating oil. Trucks and some cars use similar diesel fuel with a cetane number limit describing the ignition quality of the fuel. Both are typically obtained from the light gas oil cut. Gas oil refers to the original use of this fraction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - the gas oil cut was used as an enriching agent for carburetted water gas manufacture. + Relatively easy to refine - Widely used and, depending on the markets, can be very expensive No. 3 fuel oil was a distillate oil for burners requiring low-viscosity fuel. ASTM merged this grade into the No. 2 specification, and the term has been rarely used since the mid-20th century. No. 4 fuel oil is a commercial heating oil for burner installations not equipped with preheaters. It may be obtained from the heavy gas oil cut. + Easy to burn in most boilers - Widely used and, depending on the markets, can be very expensive No. 5 fuel oil is a residual-type industrial heating oil requiring preheating to 170 – 220 °F (77 – 104 °C) for proper atomization at the burners. This fuel is sometimes known as Bunker B. It may be obtained from the heavy gas oil cut, or it may be a blend of residual oil with enough number 2 oil to adjust viscosity until it can be pumped without preheating. + Can be obtained from inexpensive heavy gas cuts - Requires preheating to be pumped into the boiler - Requires mixing with No. 2 fuel oil to circumvent this issue No. 6 fuel oil is a high-viscosity residual oil requiring preheating to 220 – 260 °F (104 – 127 °C). Residual means the material remaining after the more valuable cuts of crude oil have boiled off. The residue may contain various undesirable impurities including 2 percent water and one-half percent mineral soil. This fuel may be known as residual fuel oil (RFO), by the Navy specification of Bunker C, or by the Pacific Specification of PS-400. + Can be obtained from inexpensive heavy gas cuts - Requires preheating to be pumped into the boiler - Lots of nasty impurities Please notice that this Most Gratuitous Essay is currently a Work in Progress.

Lego Trains 12 Volts, I applaud your work here. However, I have an inquiry about this locomotive regarding articulation. Does this locomotive, when traveling around sharp turns, swing the front end about like a Mallet-style articulated locomotive as on the real X4023?

I can't imagine how many hours you'd have to spend re-assembling the track after it is moved to its new location. Safe travels, kyphur.

snip

As far as new sets for 2013 I'd like to see some sort of electrified 9v-like rail so that draisines can operate concurrently with battery-powered trains or vice-versa. Because let's face it: no draisine, no matter how big or small, will be able to host its own motor and battery pack. I think it'd be nice if they introduced some huge duplex and triplex-steamers with tons of detail that can mount a bunch of M-motors or even a few XLs, and maybe a LEGO PF "smoke" generator. That'd be pretty cool. Counterbalancing the huge steamer idea, why not have some smaller switch engines sold at a deliberately lower price point with a few cars? Not a whole lot of people can spend $500+ in one shot on a huge steam loco. Better yet, why not sell individual cars like coal and grain hoppers or liquid containers for an even lower price? Then we wouldn't have to invest in an entire new locomotive just to get our hands on some new cars. Going back to locomotives, why not have articulated ones like Garratt, Mallet, or even Meyer articulations so that the triplexes I mentioned earlier could run around standard-size flexi-track pieces? I would also love to see cog-rail pieces so that the trains could travel up really steep grades (7%+ where adhesion-based locomotives slip a lot).

Kyphur's right. You really should tack one of the engines at the back so that it doesn't decouple; those little magnets can only hold so much.

For the longest time, I was curious about how the huge steam trains - UP Challengers and ATSF 3000 Class anyone? - worked, because it seemed like magic to me that simple water could make 900 tons of steel move at 85 mph. Even though I myself had never purchased a model train, LEGO or not, one time I went to my friend's house and he had that big green steam train (i think it was Emerald Night) running around. I was immediately jealous and went to the drawing board. I downloaded a copy of LDD, and after several failed attempts, made a pretty decent locomotive. I've yet to figure out Mallet and Meyer-type articulations in my designs, though. However, our old computer's hard drive which had my locos on it finally kicked the bucket, and I was devastated. Even then, my love for those massive trains thundering down the tracks had never ceased. That's why I'm here, now. The appreciation and construction of those trains in my favorite building material is something that seems so technical yet so fun. It's unparalleled.

I guess the best way to introduce the cat to your train is to do the same concept with hardening off plants for transplanting. Maybe for two weeks you should have the train running near the cat for an hour, the next two weeks for two hours and so on until you can get the cat to understand that it's not food or a threat or a big ol' piece of catnip. By then, the cat should be pretty neutral to your trains zooming by and won't disrupt them.