[quote="Richard Glueck"] ... pulling park locomotives out for dissection is a fool's game. The candidates must be basket cases or inoperable due to some major problem. We no longer have the luxury of culling preserved steam locomotives at whim.[/quote]

Again, is this for 'moral and ethical reasons,' Richard?

Leaving aside the concept that every steam locomotive that currently exists is "preserved" (which is simply naive), who is this "we" who collectively no longer have the estwhile "luxury" you describe? I, for one, continue along under the premise that I may do what I like with what is mine. A museum has (or should have) a somewhat more complicated decision-making process in this regard, and a business such as a tourist railroad may be mainly concerned with monetary values in its property decisions, but these are just variations on the same theme, which is that if you object to what I want to do with my steam locomotive, you may purchase it for a mutually agreeable price and thenceforth be entitled to make your own decisions.

I believe, also, that your criteria for identifying 'candidates for dissection' is likewise illusory. Basket cases or otherwise inoperable locomotives are evidently OK, with no consideration of rarity or relative historic worth, as long as nobody touches something which could conceivably be made to operate (given a million or two bucks). Guess what: inasmuch as we haven't yet seen even one Union Pacific Big Boy operate "in preservation," it's a pretty sure bet the entire remaining fleet will not be overhauled one day.

Restoration to operational status of a "preserved" locomotive increasingly involves inflicting much of the same "dissection" you decry. For example, you have marvelled elsewhere in this forum at the boiler repairs currently underway on Long Island #39, which has required amputating perhaps half of the historic fabric of the firebox. Nowadays in steam locomotive restorations, we are seeing boiler courses replaced, all-new axles or other running gear components sometimes, and complete tender tank renewal is becoming routine. Creation of a sectioned display amounts to nothing more or less than stopping such processes of dissection at a particular given point.

-GJC

Amen, Bro. George. I move to call the question and close debate.

Wesley

LIRR 39 is being rebuilt for operation, not reduced by an irreversible process. Scrapping a Kanawha has simply destroyed the integrated fabric of a potentially serviceable steam locomotive. Obviously, age, design, construction materials, all enter into the arguments. And, I suppose you can destroy any piece of industrial design you own, assuming that fulfills your personal needs and goals. Why not section the 1361, since there is another K4s in existence as well? Stretching the analogy to burning any historical document or painting you own in order to stay warm comes to mind, but you already got that message and were fishing for a point.

I am merely stating that once the engine is gone, it is gone forever. No NYC Hudsons, no Pennsy Q2's; you get my point? They aren't coming back. I think it's clear enough.

The reason I asked why ideal sectioning candidates were not being sectioned is that I was wondering if widespread sectioning was being held up by a general philosophical objection by the fan base to the sacrifice of the integrity of artifacts.

I can certainly appreciate what you are saying about the cost of a sectioned display. That is why I think a graphic approach rather than sectioning would be preferable for educating the public. Not only would such an alternate approach cost less than sectioning, it would also have the potential to exceed the attraction and purpose of a sectioned locomotive.

I see two different scenarios of a sectioning process as follows:

1) A museum owns a sectioning candidate and has it located at their site.
2) A museum wants to section a locomotive, does not have a candidate, but knows of one that exists elsewhere.

With scenario #1, the museum would be faced with the challenge of the design, execution, and cost of the sectioned display.

With scenario #2, the challenge would not only include the design and execution, with their cost, but also; the cost of acquiring and transporting the locomotive from where it resides to the museum where it will be displayed. And the challenge would also include the need to convince the owner to sell the locomotive, which might be thwarted by intense irrational / emotional attachment to the locomotive by its owner, despite the fact that the locomotive is in dreadful condition and thus an excellent candidate for sectioning.

Also, the point has been made that operating a locomotive destroys fabric, and that restoration often compromises historical integrity with newer materials and construction techniques. I understand that point, but I do not see it as analogous to the transformation inherent in sectioning a locomotive.

Could not one have said the same about LNER A1 Peppercorn Pacifics before Tornado was put under steam?? If there's the will (and the money) there's the way.

Southern 401 at the Monticello Railroad Museum has a brand new boiler, and the original boiler is currently sitting on a flatcar, as seen here:

http://hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2008/ ... useum.html

I believe they have not decided what to do with it, and I would think anyone who had a serious plan to section it for display might have a chance. I am not associated with Monticello, so there's no money-back guarantee with this idea.

Randall

There was some mention of creating non-destructive full size cross section representations of steam locomotives in this string. I am just curious, has anyone ever seen this done as a painting, perhaps on the inside or outside wall of a building? If there are any of these in existence, who is the artist who does them? Has anyone got any photos of this kind of artwork to show us? The only art I recall seeing done in a comparable size are the paintings of whales on buildings.

PC

I have not seen full size illustrations done. I just tossed it out as an idea in this thread as an alternative to physical sectioning, and the more I think about it, the more I like it. Whether the sectioning is the actual locomotive or a graphic representation, the communication is visual. It is true that touch could be a part of the physical sectioning, but touch would be minor aspect. A lot of the touch potential would be precluded because much of the detail would be beyond reach. And there is always a stigma against touching anything in a museum. Besides, it does not really need to be touched in order to communicate.

The one benefit of physical sectioning over graphics is the sense of 3D viewing. However, this attribute could be achieved to a large extent in a 2D graphic representation as well, using shading, focus, and color temperature to create the illusion of depth. With care, the subject details could be made eye-poppingly clear.

One benefit of the graphic approach is that you are not limited by the constraints of physical sectioning. With graphics, auxiliary views can be thrown in to help show what may be beyond the section plane, for instance. Graphics also naturally provide the surface for captions and verbal information, whereas physical sectioning requires independent signage.

One of the most important characteristics of the graphics is that it be full size, 1:1 with the locomotive. Setting aside the issue of scale will greatly benefit the viewer to be able to understand the display. To a viewer, one of the most astounding characteristics of a displayed locomotive is its size. A full size graphic illustration would be equally astounding. I suggest the graphic be displayed right alongside the actual locomotive, perhaps twenty feet away. With that arrangement, viewers could achieve the optimum effect of switching their view back and forth between the locomotive and the illustration.

The actual display of the illustration should be as attractive as possible. It should have its own structure like a picture frame, and have built in lighting for optimum presentation. It could be supported by a wall, but a freestanding frame or one suspended from the ceiling would be more dramatic. Not only the graphics, but also everything related to the graphic display should be done as attractively as possible.

I can see two distinct approaches to creating the graphic:

1) Creating a direct painting on a surface.
2) Modeling the locomotive in SolidWorks, and making the graphic display from printer output.

With #1, a painter creates the graphic directly on the display surface, working from shop drawings, reference photos, and direct observation. With #2, a cad modeler creates all the parts and assemblies in cad files, working from measurements of all the parts; and then images are optimized through rendering software, and printed for the display.

Both method #1 and #2 require a major effort in design and planning for the appearance of the actual display. This is where the real artistic/design talent would be needed. This design and planning would be developed by hand sketching to pull together ideas to give the final display as much aesthetic and informational punch as possible. The arrangement of views, the color characteristics, and the language of the captions and callouts—all elements should be very well thought out and executed. All of this design work would be done at reduced scale for convenience.

Of the two approaches, I tend to favor the direct painting method over the cad modeling method. The measuring and modeling component of the cad approach would be formidable, and still it requires the additional effort of design and planning, just like the direct painting approach. So I would prefer direct painting, which would amount to making a large, technical mural.

However, to do it properly with the direct painting approach, more effort would go into the design and planning of both the image and the display structure than into the actual painting itself. So the actual painting would be executed according to a very thorough plan, and making that plan would be a bigger task than the actual painting.

Another variation would be to combine the two approaches, using the direct painting for the majority of the graphics, and cad modeling to make an animated presentation of the pistons, rods, drivers, and valve gear.

Maybe Wyland, the artist who does many of the whale paintings, could come up with an entire new career painting cutaway steam locomotives on the side of museum buildings.

PC

Here is an example of a graphic presentation of the inner workings of a steam locomotive. If you try the enlarging function as well as the function to change to black lines on white background, you can see how much clarity and insight that a simple line drawing can provide.

http://cprr.org/Museum/Science_of_Railw ... otive.html

This drawing does have a little line shading to help convey the shape of items such as those of cylinder configuration. But even as clear as this drawing is, the principle could be made vastly more clear by the tonal qualities and color temperature of painting, coupled with proper illumination at a 1:1 scale of the locomotive. Even more clarity could be provided by color keying of the mechanical details. Coal, fire, water, and steam could also be depicted. In addition to the number key to identify components, callout balloons could be provided to directly convey interesting and important points. And extra auxiliary details could be shown for clarity, such as a perspective view of the boiler to clarify how the tubes, tube sheets, and firebox walls are situated.

While painting this giant graphic display does resemble the painting of wall mural, I don’t see it as being done like fine art with an artist mixing pigments on a pallet and using his or her discrimination to apply the paint. Instead, this would be technical illustration of the highest order. The image would first be entirely designed, developed, and laid out at a smaller scale. From this layout, the line-work would be applied full size to the actual display surface. The actual painting process would resemble airbrush art with extensive use of stencils and masking. All stages of the painting process would follow a specific and critical sequence that is all planned out ahead of time.

Perhaps a full sized cinematic-style projection onto a wall would be an effective way of doing this, rather than a static painting. It would be possible to make an accurate interactive animated display that showed the movement of the water and coal from the tender to the boiler and firebox, and the steam going through the valves to the cylinders and so on. It would also be easy to swap it out for a diesel electric or whatever else might be of interest.

I think cross-sectioning seems like one of the least useful ways to show people how steam locomotives worked. A static graphic would be more functional; the fire goes here, the water goes here, this is steel, this is what the staybolts do, etc. An animated display, easier than ever to accomplish with computers, would help explain the engine mechanism and -- gasp! -- the valvegear!

But a more interesting subject yet, wholly unaddressed by a sectioning, is *why* use this particular type of boiler, i.e. fire-tube, when virtually all other boilers are something else.

Another interesting subject, still unaddressed, is the high level of maintenance required to support these leviathans, which leads to how that made sense in 1900 and not in 1970.

So many stories to tell...

Another thing that the cinematic approach can do (think video projector on backlit screen) is demonstrate when things go wrong. This would probably be better suited for use as a specific teaching tool, but a good way to explain why things like hollow staybolts, low water alarms and fusible plugs are valuable to overall boiler safety. With suitable narration, the display could provide a lot of useful information in a five minute program. And, if blatant showmanship is your game, you can have a catastrophic boiler failure (with plenty of bass surround sound) to close out the show : < ((.--(probably best displayed at a diesel or trolley museum!).

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

This all sounds so reasonable that I am surprised that I have not seen it done by any of the museums I have visited. But on the other hand, in 35 years of attending railroad enthusiast events, it seemed that there were very few times when programs or clinics on the technical aspects and functioning of steam locomotives were presented. In the few instances where they were offered, they were very well attended. Too bad most if not all of the US steam designers are gone now.

PC

Gentlemen:

All the discussions as to the capabilities of full-sized drawings/diagrams, etc. make a fair case for a substitute to the sectioned loco.

However, I would suggest that we discuss instead whether or not the sectioned locos at Steamtown, NRM York, etc. do their job or not.

We get into endless debates as to whether or not steam draws enough additional numbers to justify its expense. So someone study what works better: the educational video screen/projection (which has its own creation and maintenance costs, mind you) or the "gee gosh wow" of the real thing sectioned.

Anyone here from Steamtown or NRM with hard info?