On 21/04/2011 14:09, Andy Breen wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:49:14 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:

On 21/04/2011 11:32, Andy Breen wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:25:50 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:

On 21/04/2011 11:04, Andy Breen wrote:

Steam motor actually makes sense in the context I was using as it is
an external combustion engine, as is an electric motor. An analogy
that breaks down as soon as you introduce hydro/wind/tidal power into
the equation :-)

Isn't a water turbine a hydraulic engine? ;-)

Told you the analogy broke down when you introduced water, it stops the
combustion...

Not always. You can get a significant power boost by injecting a fine
mist of water into the air intake of an otto-cycle engine (it cools the
fuel/air mix, increasing its density and thus the amount of mix delivered
to the cylinder). Water injection was a hardy perrennial in aero-engines
in the piston-engined days, either for emergency power boost or for take-
off. Also used by the drag-racing boys, of course..

Actually, on reflection, you can use it with diesels too, as a way of
cooling the air charge (after, I think , compression by the supercharger)
and allowing more fuel to be injected per stroke. The Napier Nomad used
water injection for power boost..

;-)


Didn't someone try spraying a fine mist of water into steam engine
cylinders to condense the steam quicker?

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

As a tube driver, and knowing what was what and background information to
many things (as any tube staff would), I soon came to realise that most
stuff reported about the tube / strikes / whatever was at best misleading
or inadequate or at worse, downright lies. As a consequence, I normally
treat any newspaper as a comic on the basis that most of what is printed
is irrelevant or rubbish!

Roger

*From:* Bruce
*Date:* Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:14:08 +0100

"Jack Taylor" wrote:
The standard of railway-related writing has, for some while, been
plummeting steadily lower and we often lambast the BBC for their
reporting but today's efforts in the London "Evening Standard" by
their Transport Correspondent, Dick Murray, are spectacularly
dismal.

Whilst appreciating that there's a need not to baffle the general
public with too much technobabble, there really is no excuse for
the following load of tosh, from his article about Tuesday night's
shambles on the Jubilee line:

"Instead of using traffic lights trains are linked by radio waves
which 'talk' to trackside responders. These in turn send a signal
to a computer in the train engine to speed up or stop."

"One cut was to remove the reverse facility for trains. This means
they cannot circumvent any stranded carriages as they cannot be
switched at points to travel on the opposite track."

"Last night's problem appears to be more straightforward, with a
piece of signal box falling off a carriage and on to the track,
short-circuiting the power."

Traffic lights, train engines (on the Underground!), pieces of
signal *box* falling off? What has the man been on?


I share your concern about the plummeting standards of journalism.
However, there have always been problems when non-technical
journalists - whose education and training has mostly excluded any
mention of technology - write about technical matters.

The Evening Standard article you quoted is certainly no worse than
many other articles about technology by non-technical journalists.

However, some of the worst standards of "journalism" are to be found
on this newsgroup when contributors post messages about technology
(other than rail) that they know less than nothing about.

On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:51:24 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:

On 21/04/2011 14:09, Andy Breen wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:49:14 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:

On 21/04/2011 11:32, Andy Breen wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:25:50 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:

On 21/04/2011 11:04, Andy Breen wrote:

Steam motor actually makes sense in the context I was using as it is
an external combustion engine, as is an electric motor. An analogy
that breaks down as soon as you introduce hydro/wind/tidal power
into the equation :-)

Isn't a water turbine a hydraulic engine? ;-)

Told you the analogy broke down when you introduced water, it stops
the combustion...

Not always. You can get a significant power boost by injecting a fine
mist of water into the air intake of an otto-cycle engine (it cools the
fuel/air mix, increasing its density and thus the amount of mix
delivered to the cylinder). Water injection was a hardy perrennial in
aero-engines in the piston-engined days, either for emergency power
boost or for take- off. Also used by the drag-racing boys, of course..


Didn't someone try spraying a fine mist of water into steam engine
cylinders to condense the steam quicker?

Someone did. Actually, several someones did, starting with an ancient
Alexandrine (so far as we know..), but it's usually associated with
Newcomen who was the first to do it with a significant number of engines.

Before Newcomen, Savery had been spraying a fine mist of water into the
boiler to condense the steam to provide the vacuum needed for pumping.
Newcomen combined Savery's condenser with Papin's piston-in-cylinder and
- well, here we are today, arguing about the definition of
"engine" (with, no doubt, some of us looking it up via a search *ng*n*..)

--
Andy Breen, not speaking on behalf of Aberystwyth University "The
internet, that wonderful tool for bringing us into contact with things
that make us wish we could scrub our brains out with dental
floss.." (Charlie Stross)

On 21 Apr, 09:58, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:33:41 +0100

Graeme Wall wrote:
Pedantically they have motors, not engines. *The latter being those
nasty infernal combustion thingies. *Motors run on nice clean electrickery.

Tell that to Arthur Daley!

B2003

To be even more pedantic, an engine generates power, while a motor
consumes power.

so a diesel engine generates power which goes to the traction motor.

But it doesn't have to be an electric motor. You can have hydraulic
motors to drive wheels.

And I've got a CO2 motor in a model plane somewhere as well as model
diesel engines.

What's the difference ? The CO2 motor is powered by a cylinder of
compressed gas and consumes external energy, while the diesel engines
are internal combustion.

While we're OT let's have a test of other interests. The diesel
engines include two Oliver Tigers. Does that mean anything to anyone
in this NG? No remarks about sad gits going in circles, please.

On 21/04/2011 15:58, Capt. Deltic wrote:
While we're OT let's have a test of other interests. The diesel
engines include two Oliver Tigers. Does that mean anything to anyone
in this NG? No remarks about sad gits going in circles, please.

Dredging my memory, isn't that a very old model aircraft engine?

From another sad git.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

On Apr 20, 10:40*pm, "Jack Taylor" wrote:
The standard of railway-related writing has, for some while, been plummeting
steadily lower and we often lambast the BBC for their reporting but today's
efforts in the London "Evening Standard" by their Transport Correspondent,
Dick Murray, are spectacularly dismal.

Whilst appreciating that there's a need not to baffle the general public
with too much technobabble, there really is no excuse for the following load
of tosh, from his article about Tuesday night's shambles on the Jubilee
line:

"Instead of using traffic lights trains are linked by radio waves which
'talk' to trackside responders. These in turn send a signal to a computer in
the train engine to speed up or stop."

"One cut was to remove the reverse facility for trains. This means they
cannot circumvent any stranded carriages as they cannot be switched at
points to travel on the opposite track."

"Last night's problem appears to be more straightforward, with a piece of
signal box falling off a carriage and on to the track, short-circuiting the
power."

Traffic lights, train engines (on the Underground!), pieces of signal *box*
falling off? What has the man been on?

What does it take to be a Transport Correspondent? Not being able to
get a job as a doorman in a brothel, to paraphrase Norman St John-
Stevas, describing Royal correspondents

Not to be confused with Norma St John-Scott, for Peter Cook fans out
there.

Patrick

On Thu, 21 Apr 2011, Peter Fox wrote:

Mark Robinson wrote:
On 21/04/2011 09:33, Graeme Wall wrote:

Pedantically they have motors, not engines. The latter being those nasty
infernal combustion thingies. Motors run on nice clean electrickery.

Doubly pedantically, a motor *is* an engine (an engine isn't always
a motor, though, cf siege engine, difference engine, database engine...)

No.
The use of "engine" for electric motor is unheard of.

It is undoubtedly incorrect in rail use. I would agree it's uncommon in
general use. But it is simply absurd to suggest that it is unheard of in
general use. The article that sparked this thread is one quite clear
example of that use. There is a use of "electric engine" in the British
National Corpus:

The electric engine is extremely efficient at converting electrical
energy into movement, far more efficient than petrol, diesel or steam
engines. -- New Scientist. London: IPC Magazines Ltd, 1991, pp. ??.

It's an elementary matter to find more uses like this with the aid of your
preferred search engine.

tom

--
Eight-bit is forever

On Thu, 21 Apr 2011, Capt. Deltic wrote:

On 21 Apr, 09:58, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:33:41 +0100

Graeme Wall wrote:
Pedantically they have motors, not engines. *The latter being those
nasty infernal combustion thingies. *Motors run on nice clean electrickery.

Tell that to Arthur Daley!

To be even more pedantic, an engine generates power, while a motor
consumes power.

What? *What*?

'Generates' power? 'Consumes' power? Has that small matter called the
first law of thermodynamics passed you by?

All any of these devices do is convert energy from one form to another.
They might be coupled to devices capable of storing energy. But whenever
they are in operation, the flows of energy in and out are equal; not all
of the energy coming out will be useful, but it's there. A flow of energy
is power, and so all these devices do is convert power from one form to
another.

An electric motor converts electrical power to mechanical power. An
internal combustion engine converts chemical power - a flow of constant
mass in which the output has a lower chemical potential than the input -
into mechanical power. An external combustion engine - if you were
inclined to exclude the boiler - converts pressure power (which can't be
the right name - aerostatic power?) into mechanical power. They're all
just power converters.

Calling one an engine and one a motor is a matter of convention. It's
preposterous to ascribe a fundamental meaning to the distinction.

tom

--
Eight-bit is forever

I can see this thread running for ever.

Seems to be bobbin along nicely as it is!

Envo

wrote:
As a tube driver, and knowing what was what and background information to
many things (as any tube staff would), I soon came to realise that most
stuff reported about the tube / strikes / whatever was at best misleading
or inadequate or at worse, downright lies. As a consequence, I normally
treat any newspaper as a comic on the basis that most of what is printed
is irrelevant or rubbish!


I agree. Writing good articles about the railway needs a strong grasp
of a wide variety of technologies that are constantly being changed,
improved and developed.

It is asking an awful lot of a non-technical journalist for them to
possess the specialist knowledge that would be need to keep abreast of
all these changes. The days of newspapers, TV and other media
employing specialist journalists to write about specialist technical
subjects is long gone, if it ever happened at all.