Union Pacific FEF-3 4-8-4 Northern type steam locomotive, by Smokebox

[thecanadianrail]

Man you will raise the bar so high RSC wouldn't be able to top you for a while.

they still haven't topped the connie, nevermind this!

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

UP never fitted lightweight roller bearing rods to its FEF's?

Rods themselves are of the I section design which provides the most favorable strength to weight ratio. The side rods have no knuckle joints on the front and rear sections. The front side rod joined the intermediate rod between the latter's jaws. A brass bushing on the front rod operated on a steel unit of the intermediate rod. The back rod was the same as the front and were all channeled to reduce weight, the sections being narrower. The rod design of this engine was one of the most noted advancements in design, considering these engines were mostly designed in 1936.

Thanks for this elaboration, 4-8-4. It just occured to me that while many RR later fitted their high speed premium express passenger engines with lightweight roller bearing rods when the materials' situation eased up after WW II, UP apparently did not, and I am interested to know why.
Was the 1936 design lacking the required tolerances in axle boxes, equalizing and spring rigging and return mechanisms and such? Or was UP not convinced of their advantages, economics? Or were the Diesels already too close on the heels of the FEF's to even consider the conversion?

So the 844's tapered rods were of the forked joint type, not articulated like in the WP GS64 drawing. Those lightweight roller bearing rods were jointless and stacked over each other on those massive pins on the 2929, which are the actual roller bearings (?), kept in place and apart by those bushings/rings visible in the photos from Albuquerque.

One final question: what steel are those rods made from? Chromium/nickel alloy, stainless, as there never seemed to be any oxidation?

Anyways, Mike's FEF is going to be a superb model most of us will be happy to own.

[ozinoz]

Man you will raise the bar so high RSC wouldn't be able to top you for a while.

they still haven't topped the connie, nevermind this!

Amen to this. There is also just so much individual knowledge floating in this thread now; it is great to see.

MR -

[FourEightFour]

Thanks for this elaboration, 4-8-4. It just occured to me that while many RR later fitted their high speed premium express passenger engines with lightweight roller bearing rods when the materials' situation eased up after WW II, UP apparently did not, and I am interested to know why.

The FEF's did have Timken bearings for the driver boxes, and SKF on the engine and trailing truck. The only modification I know of to the FEF rods were a spring loaded first side rod bearing, copied from a Canadian road. This allowed better curving.

One final question: what steel are those rods made from? Chromium/nickel alloy, stainless, as there never seemed to be any oxidation?

The main,side rods, and crank pins were low carbon nickel steel, quenched and tempered. The crosshead pin was medium carbon steel ground. The piston and piston rods were of the same material as the side rods. The crosshead and guides were surfaced in tin. I do not know the exact materials used on the FEF-3 series, as I am sure the WPB would not allow for such materials. I do know the UP came up with entire new drawings for substitute side rods for the FEF-3's if the war materials did not pan out, but there were never any recorded rod failures on them.

[mrennie]

One more before I go to bed ...

2013-05-03_00005.jpg

[FourEightFour]

My first thought:

[mrennie]

My first thought:

Nice one

[UP3985]

I think the crew forgot someting...

[bpetit]

It's the middle of the right side of the trailing truck. There's still a lot more to do, like adding the brakes (and the cylinder). bearings, radius bar, front pivot, piping, ...
-Smokebox

[mrennie]

It's the middle of the right side of the trailing truck. There's still a lot more to do, like adding the brakes (and the cylinder). bearings, radius bar, front pivot, piping, ...
-Smokebox

I'm going all out for the most detailed model ever.
(even though there are quite a lot of parts missing from my scale drawings)

[bpetit]

This will probably No. 1 on everyone's dlc list for a long time.

[mrennie]

This will probably No. 1 on everyone's dlc list for a long time.

I certainly hope so

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Äny idea of the poly count so far? It must not bring TS2013's rendering engine down to its knees. Otherwise a lot of your detail work is wasted.

[mrennie]

Äny idea of the poly count so far? It must not bring TS2013's rendering engine down to its knees. Otherwise a lot of your detail work is wasted.

Don't worry, I had the same comment from someone a year ago when I showed the first pictures of the Consolidation ... a driving wheel and the link ... but I'm pretty good at making a lot of detail efficiently. I'm doing the FEF-3 using the same techniques but improving the texturing to give a better level of detail without necessarily increasing the poly count with respect to the Connie. I pay a lot of attention to cleaning up each part when it's nearly finished, making sure there are no hidden faces, duplicate points, etc. left in the model, and optimising (manually) the lines and vertices. Also, I often make parts that include all the details, and then when they're put together into the model, I delete bits of them that can't be seen. It might seem like wasted time deleting things, but I find it easier that way.

Something else I discovered when doing the Consolidation is that TS2013 is much more efficient than previous versions. It can handle far more detail. It would be a pity to limit the detail in models to what was the norm a few years ago, because that would be a false limitation. I deliberately made the Connie with far more detail than any other model I know of, to push the limits. That applied not only to the visual model but also the simulation of the operation of the locomotive.

EDIT: To give you an idea of the detail that can be handled by TS2013, here's a comparison of geometry file (GeoPxDx) sizes (in KB) between the Connie and the K4:

Connie K4
Loco 13,740 2,794
Tender 2,036 642

The model of the Connie is about 4.6 times the size of the K4 model, but the simulator can handle it.

[mrennie]

I don't know...the K4 lags on my end a bit and the Connie does a bit too with the graphics up...I think with the K4 though it was mostly the crappy particles and ridiculous large round plumes of smoke
I like this so far!
Do you still have that little polygon trick you told me about a while back installed on the final release? This may help my frame rates when i get back up and going and some others

yes, it's in the final model. Ctrl-Shift-1. You can also turn off the shadows cast by the lights in the cab, using Ctrl-Shift-S.