Three Cylinder Train Engine 1925

THE THREE-CYLINDER LOCOMOTIVE

WHAT HE CHARACTERIZES as “perhaps the most significant of our modern locomotive advances” is described in The Scientific American (New York, February), by Albert C. Ingalls. It is the first successful development in America of the three-cylinder locomotive. There is nothing complicated about this new development, Mr. Ingalls assures us. Simply, instead of the two cylinders of the average locomotive there are three. These are all practically alike, they all use steam at the same pressure and there are three evenly spaced power-thrusts in each direction. He goes on:

“The three-cylinder locomotive is in no sense a compound engine. Two of its cylinders are placed identically as the cylinders are placed on the ordinary two-cylinder locomotive, but there is an additional cylinder in the center, its connecting rod attaching to a crank-bearing in the center of one of the drive-wheel axles.

“The advantages of the three-cylinder locomotive are: more power, steadier pull, greater economy in the use of steam, and more economical combustion of the fuel.

“Nearly every one is familiar with the reason for the advantage the six-cylinder automobile engine has over the four-cylinder motor.Â The over-lapping power strokes give a more uniform torque or twist to the crankshaft. The same principle applies to the three-cylinder locomotive. This even torque is especially valuable for starting heavy trains, as it takes more power to start a train than to keep it going. The addition of the third cylinder also permits an earlier cut-off which effects a saving in steam.

“The purring exhaust results in a much steadier draft on the fire than is the case where the more pulsating draft of the two-cylinder locomotive is used. This promotes fuel economy.

“At the time when this article is being written there is just one of these locomotives, designed and built as such, in operation in America; but so successful has been the operation of that one locomotive that the eyes of every railroad official in America have been on its performance, since it was put in use on the Lehigh Valley Railroad a little over a year ago.

Three Cylinder Train EnginesÂ continued here

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