https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_vDBjhOfUw

-Hudson

Hudson,

Thank you for posting. There are a series of restoration videos that led up to this final installment.

At the beginning of the video the piston rod packing leak seems pretty extreme....a question to the forum does the packing initially seat with steam pressure or is it an adjustment issue?

Their first public run is next weekend.

It will be interesting to see it do some main line performance leaving Cape Town.

Regards,

Ramdy

After I watch any South African steam at speed, I have to remind myself that it is narrow gauge!
Wonder if all the unrest over there will have any effect on the railroad?

To Frisco1522,

Yes, at 3'6" Cape gauge and at approx. 91' and 107' length for non-condensing and condensing versions, the Class 25's must have appeared to be enormous.

Built is the 1950's they incorporate many of the best practices of steam design.

It still amazes me they fielded 90 condenser locomotives which was significant undertaking. They gave the concept a serious effort before conversion to non-condensing. Keeping cylinder oil out of the feed water must have been a battle.

Looking at the multiple run-bys in the video, it's some beautiful country down there. With the raceway through the Karoo in the hay day, must have been quite the site.

Regards,

Randy

This whole promotional clip is worth watching, but for the most impressive bit, jump to about 3:29 (actually a bit earlier because of the rapid introduction) for a glimpse of that raceway with magnificent sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR8h03yShu8

Randy- if you can find a copy, Phil Girdlestone's book "Camels and Cadillacs: A History of the South African Railways 25 Class Condensers and 25NC 4-8-4’s" is an excellent book on these locomotives. It covers the technical development in depth.

Of course Wardale's whole premise behind the modifications to this locomotive was that the designers had NOT incorporated all the known advances into their construction in the 1950's. That he was able to take a relatively state-of-the-art locomotive from ~1950 and improve its power and efficiency so much was a testimony to his beliefs. Unfortunately, many of his modifications have been eliminated from this locomotive, but it is still somewhat better than a conventional 25NC.

To Frisco1522,

Yes by far the best clip of the RD on the web, notice the relatively clean stack.....simply amazing!

Hugh,

Agreed, "relatively state of the art" is better way to state it. Likewise Wardale didn't go as far as he wanted either but the changes permitted were significant regardless. As I recall from his book, Wardale had to force the crews to operate out of their comfort zone....an example was welding stops so the fire doors could not completely close....this may have been an effort to optimize the combustion for the gas producer scheme.

As for a purely superficial opinion, it would be interesting to see them fit a converted condenser tender to the 3450....it never was a 25.....but the 25NC tenders seemed incorrectly proportioned....pure asthetics! ;-)

The bark from the 3450's stack seems much sharper than typical 25NC's. certainly the video audio quality doesn't give a sense of the actual impact of the way it truly sounds.

Very good all the same, it's good it's been saved and running again.

Ceres seems to be targeting mid to upper range riders, Rovos, if they still operating, was targeting very high level premium service.

Hopefully they can make a good go of it.

Regards,

Randy

Randy, I noticed in one group of photos on Facebook taken just prior to this restoration that the Lempor exhaust nozzles, which consisted of a group of 4 round nozzles for each stack, appeared to have been replaced with a single round nozzle for each stack with a very wide cross-type bridge bar for each. I'm not sure if it was put back together that way, but that might explain the sharp exhaust as 3450 was reported to have a relatively soft exhaust blast when all of Wardale's modifications were in place.

Hugh,

Thank you for the post.

The cross bar installation sounds similar to the design in the NYC Niagaras.

Here is a cross section drawing from the web that appears to be the 3450's modified front end.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jj ... 3_Q320.jpg

The lempor nozzles would have taken some effort to recreate, possibly the originals were detoriorated too far to be used. The other challenge is to find the drawing Wardale created to set the length of the nozzles versus the distance to the petticoat pipes etc. Many years ago I was fortunate to get the drawing set from the SAR Steam web site and don't recall the class 26 modification drawings being included.

Regards,

Randy

I absolutely love seeing the Red Devil is moving again under it's own power. I was working in South Africa for bit of time last year and wanted to make a trip to see it but was unable to make it happen. Now I see I need to figure out how to get back out there to see it under steam. I also wonder how different the boiler regs are there to allow them to bring it back to life so quickly.

Randy, the text on that .jpg is illegible. Is there a larger or better-resolution image on the Koopmans book resource page? I do not remember a front end drawing like this in the Red Devil book, or at legible scale in The Fire Burns Much Brighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99MADUckaQQ is a view of the arrangement as it existed in 2002; you can hear the exhaust characteristics and in a few of the shots see the visible exhaust.

It was. Get "Steel Kyalami." https://www.stenvalls.com/jarnvagar-rai ... -the-karoo

The image in my book p. 152 is a copy of the one in Wardale's "The Red Devil" also page 152 curiously enough!
If they changed the Lempor orifices for a plain one the lack of understanding is appalling!
Kind regards
Jos Koopmans

Hello Jos,

Based on your research would you consider the configuration David Wardale developed for the 3450 to be state-of-the-art or are there additional performance advances which could be gained?

Perhaps another book order to Camden MSS is in order!

Thank you.

Randy

Hi,
I would regard it as state of the art for 1982. I am not so sure whether it still is. Since that time no systematic tests have been made and Wardale himself published very little in his book. The four orifices are ok, they produce separate jets in the chimney resulting is a system that acts as a very long chimney. The orifice inclination is a question mark, Porta/Wardale adapted this from the original Lemaitre patent application. Wardale shows in his book, fig 125, that a 12 degree included angle performed better than the 18 degree. I myself use inclinations based on the inscribed circles of entry and exit diameter as I regard such a system as a quadruple one within a common outside stack. As for the position of the orifices, there is some research showing that for long chimneys the orifice position close to the entry is indifferent for its performance. I have this idea that a simpler system could be arranged for. So I have some mixed feelings and frankly hope that sometime in the future an eager MSc student finds this a proper subject for his thesis!
Kind regards
Jos