Railroading Freak Show

Hey, everyone, if you find a picture of anything in the railroading world that strikes you as odd, weird, disturbing, or just outright wrong, including railroad FAIL moments, post it here!

Here are some...uh...novel locomotive designs I found in A Locomotive Engineer's Album by George B. Abdill, including a 4-4-0/4-8-0/4-12-0 (depending on what level you count), an 1800's monorail, a pipe stack, and...well...I can't really explain the last one...

 

The last one almost looks to be modeled after some of the early steam tractor designs......(?)

 

Steam monorail in India - an 0-3-0 wheel arrangement, double flanged, with an outrigger wheel for stability (training wheels? arghh. Rumor has it that it didn't fare very well...

 

I noticed it only has an outrigger on its right side. What happens if it tips over to its left?
:tb-ooh:rollover?

 

Maybe they rode it hanging over the side, like on some small sailboats... laugh:

 

That first picture actually looks like some company tried to get more milage out of a narrow gauge/smaler than normal steam locomotive than re doing the entire drivewheel system.

 

This is one of my favorites - cut your cost for roadbed in half!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyro_monorail

George V.

 

I think any image showing the front of a GE U50B fits all four parameters.

 

Thoz Amerikan showoffz zhink they so clever with Unions Pazifik 4-12-2. We build 4-14-4 and show Mothzer Ruzzia have most superior locomotivz teknologiez.

(trakage problimz only minor setbak):ru-confused:

 

LOL i crack up on that one, nice

 

With their opposed-piston steam engines, it looks like they had spies infiltrated at Fairbanks-Morse... unfortunately, they neglected to report that FM did it on diesels!!!

To supplement friscobob's NASA twist, maybe they should have heeded flight director Chris Kraft's energetic interjection during the "Four Inch Flight" incident:

"If you don't know what to do, don't do anything!"

It not just rocket science, it's common sense! It's better to leave well enough alone than to try some outrageously crazy stunt just to be able to brag, as Star Trek's Chekov, about their track-wrecking 4-14-4, "It was inwented in Russia".

For that, the tracks on this side of the Iron Curtain will be forever grateful...laugh:

 

Can somebody please explain these Deleware & Hudson high pressure 2-8-0's?
They're starting to get a little unnerving to look at.

http://www.llarson.com/steam/schenzinger/images/NA80.jpg

 

Trevithick's worst nightmare

I think I know how the USSR could've won the cold war: they could've sent their 4-14-4 to the U.S. and run it on all our track to destroy our transportation networks. Then launch full invasion.:ru-wink:

 

Cool!!

On the Electirc steam loco: I wonder why not just go electric, but seems like a not too bad a way to do it is you have constant water available and it might well require less parts, I don't know.

 

During the waning years of steam, there were a lot of experiments to try to keep some form of steam locomotive in use. Steam turbines, both direct drive and via traction motors, improvements in efficiency, etc. Even as late as the 1980s there was the COALS (Coal Oriented Advanced Locomotive Systems) ACE-3000 locomotive project (http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ult.html).

That electric-steam locomotive looks like some attempt to compensate for a shortage of fuel - probably a post-WWII cobbling together (the file names suggest Switzerland - which makes sense - Europe electrified their railroads much more and much earlier than in North America) of something just to get moving. Those first couple of years after the war were rough, and people did a lot of improvising until the destroyed infrastructures were rebuilt.

I must admit that this one would also cause me some concern about my beverage selection...tongue: