5 Train Concepts That Are Just Really Bad Ideas | History in the Dark

honestly all i can think about with the whole battery mess with engines, is remembering the fact that every time I wanted to use my cyclops in subnautica i needed to keep an eye on the fliping battery levels, and then drag all 6 of them inside my base when they needed a recharge. honestly it was one of the things i hated in that game

The Mason bogies issues with steam leakage were largely due to the limitations of the time they were built. The engines worked well as light flexible engines finding success with many railroads like the Denver South Park & Pacific (One of the last railroads to retire their Bogies) or suburban railways like the New York & Manhattan Beach and Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn (The BRB&L continued ordering engines to the Mason Bogie design well after the Mason Machine works stopped producing locomotives) And once you dig into what crews thought of these engines you quickly find that crews loved Mason Bogies and the issues of steam leakage could be mitigated by good maintenance. So no I don't think the Manson Bogie design was bad in fact I think it's a very underrated design that could've been successful if they found their way into modern steam.

The Mason Bogies really excelled on the Narrow Gauge in mountainous territories with curving and weaving track. The most famous one would probably be from the DSP&P, having a large amount of them. Also, I believe Wabtec's battery locomotives work differently. From what I heard, they recharge using power wasted during braking, more commonly known as regenerative braking.

They use battery locomotives on the London Underground to run maintenance trains without turning on the electric third rails and zapping the workers - that's the kind of use where they really come into their own, as you say. Strange little engines as well and I wish I could share pics here! I agree it's hard to imagine this working over long-distances though.

Gilderfluke's Perfected engine is basically the 1930's version of the Turbo Encabulator

With the battery concept I needed to watch you to the very end, before I hit into the keys. Glad you pointed out the option of bridging a gap without a power line running over the track, I think in Germany is a concept like that already in production. Usually taking the power from the grid, but where the lines aren't electrified, they can go up to 150km at their regular speed of 120km/h on battery, and as soon as they have power over them again, they run on grid and recharge their batteries. Until they manage to close the gaps in the grid, I think that is quite the best solution one can have. The battery concept has one really big flaw overall, no matter which type of battery you use: energy density is limited. If you want to go further on battery, you need more batteries, which weigh a lot, and the more weight you have to haul, the more power you need. And capacity is only one thing. Current is another limiting factor. Drawing 600A at 15kV from a copper wire, yeah, sure, just make the wire thick enough. Drawing that much power from a battery, not so much.

I'm sorry Darkness, but I've already gotta stop you on the Mason Bogie. For what they were designed to do, highly flexible locomotives for lightly laid track, especially in mountainous regions with tight curves, they were an excellent option. They even included some clever engineering features, like a slotted bottom to the smokebox that allowed the exhaust pipe from the power bogie to move side to side as the bogie swiveled. The only real bad things about the Mason Bogies were 1. flexible steam piping was not at its best in the Late 19th Century, so without proper maintenance the power bogie could be prone to steam leaking that reduced their power, and 2. they were a blatant attempt to subvert Robert Fairlie's patent and keep him out of the American market; Fairlie did attempt to sell both single and double-ended versions of his own locomotives in the US and Canada to varying degrees of success, even partnering with the Mason Machine Works. However, Mason continued manufacturing their own modified form of Fairlie-like locomotives after their license to the Fairlie patent expired. Point is, for their intended purpose, the Mason Bogies were excellent engines and do not deserve to be on this list.

I’ve ridden behind the mason bogie. She’s at greenfield village in Dearborn Michigan. It’s a smooth ride and fun

I remember putting the "Perfected Locomotive" on a cursed train series on my own channel. I truly had no idea it was a joke, I just thought he was on something strong.

@HistoryintheDark 13:03 You 99% nailed the battery powered vehicles and why there a terrible idea in general. P.S. The 1% that you missed (kinda surprised you did), is the horrific fire hazard lithium ion is if it happens to ignite.

I'm a huge fan of Torh Lake, she's one of my favorite steam locomotives, especially as i live so close to it and have ridden on Torch Lake multiple times I was not ready for Torch Lake and the Masson Bogies to be in a list like this 😭

I'd imagine a triplex or even quadroplex could exist in a fantasy universe where steam could be generated in massive amounts and pressure from a smaller space. Like an atomic reactor or other advanced thermal reaction introduced to a primitive civilization. Like the inexplicable "Steam Ball" from the animated film, Steamboy created by Katsurhiro Otomoto.

The battery electric locomotive discussion is actually interesting because it raises an important question: is it cheaper to fully electrify or just use battery locomotives

"The Gilderfluke's design was meant to be a *joke*." ...Well that's Steampunk for you!

Here in the Netherlands we have a battery powered train that is used for maintenance work, they can still drive electricaly when the overhead wires are cut off, they still pull the power to charge them from the overhead wires and is a locomotive with a battery car behind it

The Battery 🔋 Road Locomotives by Wabtec to me, seem to be sort of like a SLUG that is packed with batteries and can be conrolled/charged from the connected Locomotives.... the batteries are also charged by dynamic brakes which to me makes sense. I just hope they don't end up being an expensive non-solution

The Mason Bogie itself wasn't a bad locomotive. However, the problem that companies which used them discovered, was that while the Single Fairlie design worked well in the UK, it didn't do so in the US. The problem was not, as you might think, down to the steam line connections. It was down to speed. In the UK, a single fairlie locomotive only would reach about 10mph. In the US, though, they'd often reach three and four times that speed. Companies discovered that the faster the locomotives ran, the more susceptible to hunting oscillation they became. Meaning they were very rough riding locomotives. This rough riding, in turn, meant that the locomotives were very prone to derailing, even on perfectly straight and level track. Another problem the design had, was the overall lack of braking on the power truck. Due to the way the braking system worked, and how busy things were on that power truck, it meant that the only bogey that could be braked, was the rear truck under the bunker. Because of this, the trains were very difficult to stop. Lastly, their braking system was a rather complicated vacuum brake, which was completely incompatible with the Westinghouse air brake system. This wasn't an issue at first, when the engines started being sold, as most rolling stock wasn't even braked to begin with at the time. However, over time, when the Westinghouse system became standard, it required some serious rebuilds to allow the mason bogies to operate with other rolling stock. The game Railroads Online actually has one modeled, which you the player can drive. It's accurately modeled down to the finer details, including only having brakes on the rear bogey. Really interesting engine, to say the least, though you can see why railroads hated them. They are prone to derail in game, just like the real ones were.

Another problem with battery powered vehicles is that if a battery were shot or damaged or anything happened where a spark would be caused well.... kaboom, and a big, immediate one at that, no chance to see it coming, let alone escape. So no, batteries are not good idea. But since we're talking about electric trains..... Darkness! It's that time again when I remind you of some awesome Italian trains to look at! Two electric ones you really should cover are the E.428 (An old workhorse) And the ETR 300 "Settebello" (Literally "Seven of Golds", a luxury train, precursor to modern high speed trains). Anyway, great video as always!

1. Maglev>hyperloob In all countries, including America 2. I want all Class-1’s to electrify their lines with overhead wires, even if they need government assistance and partial (temporary)nationalization like Conrail did early on. Overhead electrification is what will make North America look smarter for its wealth in the eyes of the rest of the world, both financially, and economically.

The biggest factor against electrification is the grid. The power grid is outdated and already strung out to the max. Maybe just maybe we should build a grid that can handle the added electrical power before we jump off of internal combustion entirely.