after learning what “military-grade” really means in another of simon’s vids, hearing him call surfshark’s vpn security “military-grade” is simply hilarious 😆😆😆
I'd wager that a 4-14-4 would have made for a great steam locomotive for the Trans-Australian railway back when that was Steam operated...478km (297mi) of perfectly straight track between Ooldea and just before Nurina, with most of the other 1,200km of track being fairly straight too. Most of the trains through there have always been long-ass freight trains taking cargo to/from Perth to the rest of the country as well.
No, at a bare minimum it would still destroy every set of point it went across due to the rigid wheelbase, let alone water capacity. Even the Americans didnt bother with many 4-12-2's as they were approaching the limits of being a useable locomotive format. People forget there used to be all these small towns across the Nullarboar that the trains would switch off the mainline, let alone the crossing loops. And as soon as diesels became avaliable they brought them to use across there.
@@speedemon81 and the American big boys are really, really hard on tracks. When UP decided to start touring it, they had to reinforce the tracks in a number of areas
@@goldenhate6649 didn’t stop Australia from making tonnes of Beyer Garretts lol. Maybe not as big as a Boy Boy but they are absolutely massive and the majority are still in use I believe
The legend is several USSR engineers came to the US and saw the Union Pacific 9000 class (4-12-2) in operation. A relatively successful locomotive, the soviet engineers thought they could make it bigger and better. Obviously, it fell flat on it's face.
At the time of steam before diseals, it was all about paying multiple crews on 1 train. The train of thought was 1 big engine to pull 1 train rather than multiple engines on 1 or separate trains. It was all about reducing cost.
One note from first minutes of view: AA locomotive wasn't known in USSR as "Stalins engine" it never was nicknamed this way. AA letter's in it's model means name Andrey Andreev (one of some heads of ministry of something) and this locomotive was nicknamed "Выпрямитель кривых" (Curves straightener) because of it's ability to break rails in tight turns and derail itself whenever possible.
It’s like if Big Bertha (stupidly powerful banking locomotive) and Big Boy (legendary powerful locomotive) had adopted a Decapod (a 10 wheeled tank engine built for absolute traction meant to compete against electric trains) that was fed on pure whey.
7:28 For steam locomotives horsepower does not equal speed. To get the theoretical top speed you would multiply the diameter of the drive wheels by 1.25 - so in this case 63 x 1.25 = 78.75 . Not a horrible number but this isnt accounting for weigh of the locomotive itself, or the piston stroke, or if its superheated / saturated steam, hand fired or has a mechanical stoker.
That top speed thing seemed a bit absurd to me as well - the locomotive wasn't built for speed, it was a freight locomotive. I would guess it to have a top speed of around 60 mph/100 km/hr, maybe 80 mph/130km/hr at most, as there just isn't need for higher speeds in that context. And most freight wagons/cars are limited to speeds in that range as well, so a locomotive that can go faster is pointless. There are a lot of tradeoffs for speed, typically a tradeoff between top speed (and efficiency at speed) and pulling power at low speed, and for this they would have wanted pulling power at low speed. For reference, the Big Boy had a top speed of 80 mph.
@@quillmaurer6563 oh absolutely. Its just that the video specifically said 156mph which assuming is for the locomotive by it's lonesome is still absolutely ridiculous.
@@HaddaClu Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Regardless of it's power, it wouldn't be able to go as fast as he mentioned, probably couldn't move steam quickly enough through the large cylinders, and everything would fly apart at that speed. Just like my car (classic VW Beetle with added turbo) can't go faster than about 85 miles per hour, it has more horsepower to give but the highest gear has the engine at redline at that speed. I find it surprising he said that, as everything else in the video feels very well informed. Unless, perhaps, the engineers really did design it to be capable of going that fast, perhaps for publicity ("We build big strong locomotive. It also fast.") even if it wouldn't be expected to do so in service. But that doesn't feel plausible, I could see 100mph in that case but not 156, way faster than Mallard's official steam speed record - some are thought to have gone faster, but still nothing remotely near 156.
@@HaddaClu it is ridiculous because that speed was never applied to the AA20, the wiki said its top speed is 43 mph, a far more believable number considering the loco was meant to pull freight. the 156 mph figure came from the s1 duplex, ditto the 7200 hp figure.
@7:23 "7200 horsepower?" I just used the formulas and tables to calculate boiler horsepower provided by the Baldwin Locomotive Works along with the fairly limited information available to me on the boiler's direct and indirect heating surfaces and came up with a figure far less than 7000 HP. More like 2054 boiler horsepower. And we know boiler horsepower is always higher than drawbar horsepower. I believe this locomotive, while not American would be better known and researched if it truly was a 7000 horsepower machine. A figure like that would have been comparable to the Norfolk and Western Class A, C&O's Allegheny and the Union Pacific's Big Boy. But this locomotive, strictly from outward appearance did not fully embrace boiler technology at the time with a shallow firebox over the rear set of drivers (to accommodate additional driving axles for tractive force desired). Just something to consider, nowhere near the same class as the American locomotives I mentioned above AND nowhere near 7000 boiler horsepower. 🤷🏾♂️
You think that's bad; then look at what theoretical top speed he gave - 156mph. If we use the simplified driver diameter x 1.25 equation; then we get something around 78mph.
@@HaddaClu Agreed. The small drivers (62 inches) used in order to clear the boiler and firebox and to maintain a "workable" fixed wheelbase, I would say realistically, 40-50 mph. And even at that speed, the dynamic augment from the long main rod (aka unbalanced reciprocating parts) would do some serious track damage. But then again, I did just watch a video where the narrator continued to refer to a locomotive as a "train engine" so I guess I can't expect too much. 🤷🏾♂️🤷🏾♂️
1:30 - Chapter 1 - The 5 year plan 4:45 - Mid roll ads 6:15 - Chapter 2 - Off the rails 8:30 - Chapter 3 - Back to the drawing board 10:00 - Chapter 4 - Out of the game
Too bad they scrapped it. It could have been a great museum exhibit! It was a curiosity. It might have been an engineering failure but the sheer size and power was impressive!
Unfortunately the first railroad museum exhibition in USSR was found in 1991, the last year of ussr :( Only several historic locomotives was preserved before immovable on posts.
Or, the New Zealand NZR G class locomotives (garratt types (two sets of driving gear with a shared boiler/firebox)). As far as I know it's the only time that a set of steam locomotives were split in two, becoming double the number of smaller engines. They did this because new carriages meant lighter train weights, so the purpose the double engines served no longer existed, and the type had issues - such as the cabin overheating in small tunnels. After the splitting, they were apparently still bad but for different reasons; they would leak a lot of steam, and did not weigh enough to grip the track very well.
Pointless to mention it for such an old video, but I just can't help myself. That "Russian" broad gauge track noted at 0:30 was not developed in Russia at all. The technology was actually imported from... wait for it... you'll never guess... The United States of America!! This is courtesy of American railroad engineer George Washington Whistler, who convinced the Tsar to use American broad gauge. You're welcome!
This reminds me of Strelnikov's train in the 1965 original version of "Doctor Zhivago" starring Omar Sharif. But it wasn't an AA20 locomotive used in the film. I just now checked ... since those scenes were filmed in Spain, the locomotive used in the film was a Spanish RENFE Class 2-8-2 Mikado. Though the Spanish 2-8-2 locomotive was nearly half the size of the AA20 4-14-4, it still left quite the impression on me when I first saw the film while the Iron Curtain was still firmly in place and we didn't have a lot of visibility into the USSR. So if Strelnikov's heavily armored black-and-red train in the film was meant to take advantage of western fears and imaginations back then, it certainly achieved that purpose. And that stayed with me as I served in the U.S. military from the late 80s up until the Iron Curtain fell in the early 90s ... and my respect for the former Soviet Union fell with it. Because that was about the time that they also opened the first McDonald's in Moscow and started selling Coke and Pepsi there And here we are, thirty years later ... once again ... no McDonald's in Moscow.
How 'bout instead they focus on the common mass produced types of Soviet steam locos that not only were key to winning WW2 but also enabled the Soviets to do all their other stuff including the nastier things like Gulags as the Soviet Union was from beginning to end a Railway dependent empire
Soon as you said 4-14-4 ridged frame I thought well that’s derailing all the time that’s why Union Pacific Big Boy’s are a Mallet design so they can take curves at speed!
Same problem happened with some of the PRR's Duplex locomotives. The 6-4-4-6 Class S1 was particularly notorious for that, couldn't handle anything but the shallowest of curves and as such was restricted to a very specific stretch in Ohio.
Technically they’re aren’t a Mallet, they’re classified as a simple articulated. Mallets have two sets of differently sized cylinders that use the same steam twice, high pressure in the front pair, and the exhausted low pressure in the rear pair for example. A Union Pacific 4000 class, along with both the 3800 and 3900 classes have two pairs of identical cylinders that only use that steam once before it’s exhausted into the open air
You should cover the more modern freight locomotives that have been in service across the world like the workhorses EMD GP-7 & 9, GP-40, GE Dash 7, 8 & 9 and the newest GE Evolution series.
to be entirely honest, the AA20 was less like the Union pacifics big boys, challengers or any sort of articulate, but much, much more similar to the actually semi comparable Union Pacific 9000 class, which was one of UP's first parts to their, at the time growing super power addiction.
*The U.S. had and has the world's heaviest loading guage.* So the USSR trying to keep up with the U.S. in locomotive size, weight and power would always prove to be pointless as their tracks, bridges, turntables, curves, etc.. couldn't handle such massive railroad equipment like U.S. tracks could. The U.S. adapted and upgraded it's tracks and infrastructure continually along with bigger and bigger steam locomotives. And while the U.S. had massive ridged locomotives. It could handle them. But even the U.S. Railroads realized that going articulated was the only way to go once you got to a certain size. The U.S. hence went on to have the world's largest and heaviest steam locomotives like the Challenger class and 4000 class, as well as the Yellowstone's and Allegheny locomotives. 🙂
I love trains, so I'm loving the technical detail. Although I'm depressed that I can point to some of the locations mentioned on a world map due to current events.
I know the UK's BR standard 9F was several years late to the party but having a 2-10-0 wheel arrangement, even this was too much for the infrastructure. It couldn't negotiate tight turns so the middle driving wheel wasnt attached to the chassis, it was 'floating'. A similar solution the Russians tried to implement by shaving off the flanges of the middle driving wheels as stated in the video. If a 2-10-0 Design was having problems, then a 4-14-4 design would have no hope! In this case, bigger certainly is not better! Just ridiculous!
A 4-14-4 steam loco - - - 110 feet and it's a rigid frame !!! What were they thinking, how did thing it could round a curve ?? The Union Pacific "Big Boy" was long also but it articulated for curves. OH, Simon has a great video on the Union Pacific "Big Boy"
Logically speaking it would have been better to use two of their preexisting trains and simply "linking" them up back to back. Likewise could the use of a second locomotive further back help as well. But communication becomes more important in this case. But wiring some signal lamps in the second cab wouldn't be too hard to communicate the basics of speed changes and general pauses etc... Not like ships engine rooms have been controlled by wire for decades prior.
It's odd that they chose to one-up the Union Pacific 4-12-2 instead of the genuine UP "Big Boy" 4-8-8-4 or even the Virginian "Triplex" 4-8-8-8-2 (which actually had a lot of the same problems as the AA20). The difficulties with a long, rigid frame should have been obvious, not to mention that an articulated frame is cast in shorter, more managable sections.
It's part of the reason why in the US railroads tend to team up conventional locomotives for more power. You get more use, thus more cost effective and they're more flexible around turns because they're hitched as opposed to one big engine.
They called it "Stalin's Locomotive?" Attaching a despotic leader's name to something is pretty risky business, especially if it fails. The designers were probably sent to a gulag for 'reeducation' for that blunder.
7:30 - There is no way this had a "maximum speed of 156 Miles per hour". The record for a steam engine is only 126Mi/hr, and it damaged the engine. Maybe you mean 156 Km/Hr.
Aside from using the wrong locomotive in the thumbnail, this video was alright. It's a rare case of Simon doing a railway video that isn't riddled with obvious hints of insufficient research.
Love your videos (over a hundred), but 7,200hp for an engine developing 242 psi boiler pressure with two cylinders of 29.13 in × 31.89 in does not pass the physics test. You may have read that wrong.
Oh goodie! It's the Russian Rail Straightener! Never found a turnout it couldn't break, a curve it couldn't straighten and straight track it couldn't crush. It's a wonder of engineering!
Wonder if they could have used it to destroy railroads to prevent their use by the advancing Germans? It would probably get itself stuck on the tracks it's destroying, or derail, but that blocking a critical bit of line would be very effective. Could deliberately derail and damage the locomotive so it can't be moved in a critical spot that it would be difficult to move from or be built around, such as in a narrow cut or tunnel. An otherwise useless gigantic locomotive could be good for when you need a large object in the enemy's way.
They tried to fix it. I miss that about engineering today. If it doesn’t make it past computer testing they just scrap the whole idea. Most of the time.
Simon, you sparked some thought here with the first 5 year plan. Would the collectivization of the Soviet Union be a Megaproject? It would certainty be morbid though.
Hello Simon, I like your video's very much. And most of the time, the details are spot on. However, in this video is an error: The size of the Soviet-Union was not 22 milion square kilometers, but 32 million square km. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the country has 'shrunk' to "just" 17 million square kilometers.
aw damn I thought you were talking about the Russian P38 locomotive. The only mallet style locomotive ever built by russia and the actual russian equivalent to the big boy.
Can anyone tell what the boiler size of the locomotive is for I have been asking for years and would like to know all the details of the aa-20 if anyone can I’ll appreciate every bit of information I can get my hands on.
You are aware that the USSR, in the search of powerful locos, bought several locos from various american loco builders. That's why a lot of classes of Soviet locos look like American steam, they were knock offs.
Well it's not the biggest locomotive in the world, take it from the American diesels like the unoin Pacific gas turbines(Not really diesels or not diesel at all but they have designs as one) And the DDA40X Were Very big giants, theres more aside from those in America They are still some preserved too
Why didn't they just double up on locomotives? That would spread the load more evenly on the track and spare the couplers by spreading traction load along the length of the train. Or was that one of the ideas that got you sent to the gulag?
Small by North American standard. US 4-10-2's, 4-12-2 and 2-10-4;s wwre much larger. It only looks big because you have nothing to compare it to in the photos
The weird thing that I always keep trying to figure out is why the Soviets never tried any of the articulated designs of the overseas powers. They were more than willing to steal Weaponry design but never railroad designs. If they had done something similar to the United States, they might have popped out something a little better.
Maybe that was their plan, but than Hitler invaded them, and by the time war ended and they had some time to recover , diesel was all the rage. They did have some articulated diesel locomotives though.
Basically, Soviet steam era was extremely small, and coincided with great demand on rail traffic and drastic shortage of resources, production capacity and qualified personel. In 1920s they tried to restore locomotive works to pre-WWI state, and in 1930-40s it was refining that style of engines, while experimenting with diesel and electric traction. Basically, they prioritised producing many, MANY "smaller" engines over creating complex effecient designs
AA20 steam locomotive has straightened ALL railroad curves from Luhansk to Moscow. This project was cancelled with 2 main reasons: excessive axial load and frequently derailments in curves.
USSR entered World War II on 17th of September 1939 , when they attacked Poland which was already attacked by Nazi Germany, following terms of Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. In 1941 they merely change alliances. Get your facts straight Simon.
Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals/mega - Enter promo code MEGA for 83% off and 3 extra months for free!
Hey, could you do an episode on the SPRINT missile, which went so fast it became incandescent?
Its 14 drive wheels not axles and the thumbnail isn't the AA20 either.
☝️the megaprojects in the comments is scamming people.
its less their "big boy" and more their "9000 class"
I wonder if they thought about adding width (inside and outside) to the tread of at LEAST drive wheels #1 and #7 ??
after learning what “military-grade” really means in another of simon’s vids, hearing him call surfshark’s vpn security “military-grade” is simply hilarious 😆😆😆
Ask him about the time they got locked out of their RUclips channels.
To be fair, military network security is really good.
@@goldenhate6649 Depends on which military network we are talking about..... there are many types of networks, even digital communication networks ...
Least it's not Squarespace
I'd wager that a 4-14-4 would have made for a great steam locomotive for the Trans-Australian railway back when that was Steam operated...478km (297mi) of perfectly straight track between Ooldea and just before Nurina, with most of the other 1,200km of track being fairly straight too. Most of the trains through there have always been long-ass freight trains taking cargo to/from Perth to the rest of the country as well.
No, at a bare minimum it would still destroy every set of point it went across due to the rigid wheelbase, let alone water capacity. Even the Americans didnt bother with many 4-12-2's as they were approaching the limits of being a useable locomotive format.
People forget there used to be all these small towns across the Nullarboar that the trains would switch off the mainline, let alone the crossing loops. And as soon as diesels became avaliable they brought them to use across there.
@@speedemon81 and the American big boys are really, really hard on tracks. When UP decided to start touring it, they had to reinforce the tracks in a number of areas
@@goldenhate6649 didn’t stop Australia from making tonnes of Beyer Garretts lol. Maybe not as big as a Boy Boy but they are absolutely massive and the majority are still in use I believe
4294
Larger locomotives need more water to help them, due to that area being more remote more water stops would be needed.
I love when Simon and Co. cover trains, boats, and planes lol
The legend is several USSR engineers came to the US and saw the Union Pacific 9000 class (4-12-2) in operation. A relatively successful locomotive, the soviet engineers thought they could make it bigger and better. Obviously, it fell flat on it's face.
Thing about legends is, they are usually BS.
@@timothyhouse1622 Legend has it, Timothy House is Batman. Dunno about you, but I’ve never seen Timothy House and Batman in the same room… Just sayin’
@@timothyhouse1622 thing about legends is that they are what people want to belive
Why bother building one huge locomotive when two standard size locos get the job done? Oh silly me every despot wants the biggest of everything.
At the time of steam before diseals, it was all about paying multiple crews on 1 train. The train of thought was 1 big engine to pull 1 train rather than multiple engines on 1 or separate trains. It was all about reducing cost.
One note from first minutes of view: AA locomotive wasn't known in USSR as "Stalins engine" it never was nicknamed this way. AA letter's in it's model means name Andrey Andreev (one of some heads of ministry of something) and this locomotive was nicknamed "Выпрямитель кривых" (Curves straightener) because of it's ability to break rails in tight turns and derail itself whenever possible.
It’s like if Big Bertha (stupidly powerful banking locomotive) and Big Boy (legendary powerful locomotive) had adopted a Decapod (a 10 wheeled tank engine built for absolute traction meant to compete against electric trains) that was fed on pure whey.
7:28 For steam locomotives horsepower does not equal speed. To get the theoretical top speed you would multiply the diameter of the drive wheels by 1.25 - so in this case 63 x 1.25 = 78.75 . Not a horrible number but this isnt accounting for weigh of the locomotive itself, or the piston stroke, or if its superheated / saturated steam, hand fired or has a mechanical stoker.
That top speed thing seemed a bit absurd to me as well - the locomotive wasn't built for speed, it was a freight locomotive. I would guess it to have a top speed of around 60 mph/100 km/hr, maybe 80 mph/130km/hr at most, as there just isn't need for higher speeds in that context. And most freight wagons/cars are limited to speeds in that range as well, so a locomotive that can go faster is pointless. There are a lot of tradeoffs for speed, typically a tradeoff between top speed (and efficiency at speed) and pulling power at low speed, and for this they would have wanted pulling power at low speed. For reference, the Big Boy had a top speed of 80 mph.
@@quillmaurer6563 oh absolutely. Its just that the video specifically said 156mph which assuming is for the locomotive by it's lonesome is still absolutely ridiculous.
@@HaddaClu Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Regardless of it's power, it wouldn't be able to go as fast as he mentioned, probably couldn't move steam quickly enough through the large cylinders, and everything would fly apart at that speed. Just like my car (classic VW Beetle with added turbo) can't go faster than about 85 miles per hour, it has more horsepower to give but the highest gear has the engine at redline at that speed. I find it surprising he said that, as everything else in the video feels very well informed. Unless, perhaps, the engineers really did design it to be capable of going that fast, perhaps for publicity ("We build big strong locomotive. It also fast.") even if it wouldn't be expected to do so in service. But that doesn't feel plausible, I could see 100mph in that case but not 156, way faster than Mallard's official steam speed record - some are thought to have gone faster, but still nothing remotely near 156.
@@HaddaClu it is ridiculous because that speed was never applied to the AA20, the wiki said its top speed is 43 mph, a far more believable number considering the loco was meant to pull freight. the 156 mph figure came from the s1 duplex, ditto the 7200 hp figure.
True that's why A4 pasific has very big wheels
@7:23 "7200 horsepower?" I just used the formulas and tables to calculate boiler horsepower provided by the Baldwin Locomotive Works along with the fairly limited information available to me on the boiler's direct and indirect heating surfaces and came up with a figure far less than 7000 HP. More like 2054 boiler horsepower. And we know boiler horsepower is always higher than drawbar horsepower.
I believe this locomotive, while not American would be better known and researched if it truly was a 7000 horsepower machine. A figure like that would have been comparable to the Norfolk and Western Class A, C&O's Allegheny and the Union Pacific's Big Boy.
But this locomotive, strictly from outward appearance did not fully embrace boiler technology at the time with a shallow firebox over the rear set of drivers (to accommodate additional driving axles for tractive force desired).
Just something to consider, nowhere near the same class as the American locomotives I mentioned above AND nowhere near 7000 boiler horsepower. 🤷🏾♂️
You think that's bad; then look at what theoretical top speed he gave - 156mph. If we use the simplified driver diameter x 1.25 equation; then we get something around 78mph.
@@HaddaClu Agreed. The small drivers (62 inches) used in order to clear the boiler and firebox and to maintain a "workable" fixed wheelbase, I would say realistically, 40-50 mph. And even at that speed, the dynamic augment from the long main rod (aka unbalanced reciprocating parts) would do some serious track damage.
But then again, I did just watch a video where the narrator continued to refer to a locomotive as a "train engine" so I guess I can't expect too much. 🤷🏾♂️🤷🏾♂️
1:30 - Chapter 1 - The 5 year plan
4:45 - Mid roll ads
6:15 - Chapter 2 - Off the rails
8:30 - Chapter 3 - Back to the drawing board
10:00 - Chapter 4 - Out of the game
Chad
Always enjoy the railroad based vids!
Too bad they scrapped it. It could have been a great museum exhibit! It was a curiosity. It might have been an engineering failure but the sheer size and power was impressive!
It still would have been a gigantic paperweight
Unfortunately the first railroad museum exhibition in USSR was found in 1991, the last year of ussr :( Only several historic locomotives was preserved before immovable on posts.
@@paleopotato736
Better than nothing. it would have been a curiosity.
@@Seregium
Too bad.
You aught to do a video on the Southern Pacific's Cab-Forwards one day Simon, or the Erie Triplex's.
Yes I hope he makes videos in those locos
Ought*
Or, the New Zealand NZR G class locomotives (garratt types (two sets of driving gear with a shared boiler/firebox)).
As far as I know it's the only time that a set of steam locomotives were split in two, becoming double the number of smaller engines.
They did this because new carriages meant lighter train weights, so the purpose the double engines served no longer existed, and the type had issues - such as the cabin overheating in small tunnels.
After the splitting, they were apparently still bad but for different reasons; they would leak a lot of steam, and did not weigh enough to grip the track very well.
Pointless to mention it for such an old video, but I just can't help myself. That "Russian" broad gauge track noted at 0:30 was not developed in Russia at all. The technology was actually imported from... wait for it... you'll never guess... The United States of America!! This is courtesy of American railroad engineer George Washington Whistler, who convinced the Tsar to use American broad gauge. You're welcome!
Do a video on the SD40-2! it set the industry standard for decades.
DDA40X Operated by Union Pacific it was the most powerful.
This reminds me of Strelnikov's train in the 1965 original version of "Doctor Zhivago" starring Omar Sharif.
But it wasn't an AA20 locomotive used in the film. I just now checked ... since those scenes were filmed in Spain, the locomotive used in the film was a Spanish RENFE Class 2-8-2 Mikado.
Though the Spanish 2-8-2 locomotive was nearly half the size of the AA20 4-14-4, it still left quite the impression on me when I first saw the film while the Iron Curtain was still firmly in place and we didn't have a lot of visibility into the USSR.
So if Strelnikov's heavily armored black-and-red train in the film was meant to take advantage of western fears and imaginations back then, it certainly achieved that purpose.
And that stayed with me as I served in the U.S. military from the late 80s up until the Iron Curtain fell in the early 90s ... and my respect for the former Soviet Union fell with it. Because that was about the time that they also opened the first McDonald's in Moscow and started selling Coke and Pepsi there
And here we are, thirty years later ... once again ... no McDonald's in Moscow.
Another delightful briefing with Simon.
You should do a video on the Soviet Я class, the Ya-01 Garratt. The largest Garratt that Beyer-Peacock ever built. It's 4-8-2+2-8-4 monster.
Nice profile pic.
Completely agree. Was actually built with sloping pipes to properly drain in case it froze.
How 'bout instead they focus on the common mass produced types of Soviet steam locos that not only were key to winning WW2 but also enabled the Soviets to do all their other stuff including the nastier things like Gulags as the Soviet Union was from beginning to end a Railway dependent empire
Hehey! You actually covered it! Nice one Simon, thanks man
Always nice to hear about something you've never heard of!!!
Soon as you said 4-14-4 ridged frame I thought well that’s derailing all the time that’s why Union Pacific Big Boy’s are a Mallet design so they can take curves at speed!
Same problem happened with some of the PRR's Duplex locomotives. The 6-4-4-6 Class S1 was particularly notorious for that, couldn't handle anything but the shallowest of curves and as such was restricted to a very specific stretch in Ohio.
Technically they’re aren’t a Mallet, they’re classified as a simple articulated. Mallets have two sets of differently sized cylinders that use the same steam twice, high pressure in the front pair, and the exhausted low pressure in the rear pair for example. A Union Pacific 4000 class, along with both the 3800 and 3900 classes have two pairs of identical cylinders that only use that steam once before it’s exhausted into the open air
@@justat1149 oh! I always thought them mallets
Their is another one as well. The Russian P38 was a soviet copy of the big boy.
There's is a somewhat a actual Soviet big boy the engine is classified as the p38 2-8-8-4
A 2-8-8-4 would be called a Yellowstone type. Several railroads in America had them too.
@@bensmall6548 well yes it is known as the Yellowstone wheel configuration but I just typed it as 2-8-8-4
the last sentence could have been better summarised by saying that the soviet planners definately went "mega"
You should cover the more modern freight locomotives that have been in service across the world like the workhorses EMD GP-7 & 9, GP-40, GE Dash 7, 8 & 9 and the newest GE Evolution series.
Not even close.. the DMIR Yellowstone ..could pull that pos back to the iron range..
it wasn’t to big ..just took low percentage curves.
Actually, the C&O/VGN's 2-8-4's were about the same size and all US 2-10-4's except for CV's were larger - some much larger
to be entirely honest, the AA20 was less like the Union pacifics big boys, challengers or any sort of articulate, but much, much more similar to the actually semi comparable Union Pacific 9000 class, which was one of UP's first parts to their, at the time growing super power addiction.
*The U.S. had and has the world's heaviest loading guage.* So the USSR trying to keep up with the U.S. in locomotive size, weight and power would always prove to be pointless as their tracks, bridges, turntables, curves, etc.. couldn't handle such massive railroad equipment like U.S. tracks could.
The U.S. adapted and upgraded it's tracks and infrastructure continually along with bigger and bigger steam locomotives.
And while the U.S. had massive ridged locomotives. It could handle them. But even the U.S. Railroads realized that going articulated was the only way to go once you got to a certain size.
The U.S. hence went on to have the world's largest and heaviest steam locomotives like the Challenger class and 4000 class, as well as the Yellowstone's and Allegheny locomotives. 🙂
1:07 14 driving axels? Nope...
That is the Soviet i knew -big in everything that would let it down eventually but some still work to date Mil Mi-26 for example.
I love trains, so I'm loving the technical detail. Although I'm depressed that I can point to some of the locations mentioned on a world map due to current events.
I need Megaprojects too be a 2 hour long episode! I love it!
If you watch all the ads, it already exceeds 2 hours
Excellent. Learned something new today. Thanks.
Surprised they didn’t try articulated Mallet-type locos. Like a 4-8-8-4.
The Soviet’s “if it needs more, add more” ideology produced some very amazing results tbh
when he says "100+ foot long rigid frame locomotive" I wince in pain.
This is a good one, Simon.
I can't go a full day without constant Whistler TV. Yes folks that's right.
We get "mallet" train too, but its been prototype, 4 experimental models, his name P-38-0001 (П-38-0001) and 0002, 0003, 0004
It’s hilarious that they didn’t think of turns earlier on in the process
I know the UK's BR standard 9F was several years late to the party but having a 2-10-0 wheel arrangement, even this was too much for the infrastructure. It couldn't negotiate tight turns so the middle driving wheel wasnt attached to the chassis, it was 'floating'. A similar solution the Russians tried to implement by shaving off the flanges of the middle driving wheels as stated in the video. If a 2-10-0 Design was having problems, then a 4-14-4 design would have no hope! In this case, bigger certainly is not better! Just ridiculous!
Good stuff! You have a very soothing voice also.
A 4-14-4 steam loco - - - 110 feet and it's a rigid frame !!! What were they thinking, how did thing it could round a curve ?? The Union Pacific "Big Boy" was long also but it articulated for curves. OH, Simon has a great video on the Union Pacific "Big Boy"
the 110 feet length includes the tender.
Logically speaking it would have been better to use two of their preexisting trains and simply "linking" them up back to back.
Likewise could the use of a second locomotive further back help as well. But communication becomes more important in this case. But wiring some signal lamps in the second cab wouldn't be too hard to communicate the basics of speed changes and general pauses etc... Not like ships engine rooms have been controlled by wire for decades prior.
It's odd that they chose to one-up the Union Pacific 4-12-2 instead of the genuine UP "Big Boy" 4-8-8-4 or even the Virginian "Triplex" 4-8-8-8-2 (which actually had a lot of the same problems as the AA20). The difficulties with a long, rigid frame should have been obvious, not to mention that an articulated frame is cast in shorter, more managable sections.
It's part of the reason why in the US railroads tend to team up conventional locomotives for more power. You get more use, thus more cost effective and they're more flexible around turns because they're hitched as opposed to one big engine.
They called it "Stalin's Locomotive?" Attaching a despotic leader's name to something is pretty risky business, especially if it fails. The designers were probably sent to a gulag for 'reeducation' for that blunder.
That's a post war map at 1:57 though it doesn't really change the fact of the immense size.
7:30 - There is no way this had a "maximum speed of 156 Miles per hour". The record for a steam engine is only 126Mi/hr, and it damaged the engine. Maybe you mean 156 Km/Hr.
Agreed. The highest ever recorded was 126 mph and that was with a fast passenger engine not a freight loco
Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Greetings from Toronto bud! 👋
The Beltway Bandits Mat Link Tree 👍
I always liked the Soviet primiary solution to everything being "make it BIG".
This is actually a Western stereotype/meme about the USSR. Because in reality, the USSR rather preferred compactness as in Europe or Japan.
Look into the Pennsylvania Railroads Duplex Engines, the S1 longest steam locomotive ever 140 foot rigid frame, T1 reported fastest steam locomotive ever, and the Q2 highest horsepower steam locomotive ever.
1:10 14 Driving wheels, not axles, it had a wheel on each end of the axles.
Aside from using the wrong locomotive in the thumbnail, this video was alright. It's a rare case of Simon doing a railway video that isn't riddled with obvious hints of insufficient research.
Love your videos (over a hundred), but 7,200hp for an engine developing 242 psi boiler pressure with two cylinders of 29.13 in × 31.89 in does not pass the physics test. You may have read that wrong.
he did, the hp figure and top speed made me raise an eyebrow and realize those are the stats of the PRR s1 duplex.
Oh goodie! It's the Russian Rail Straightener! Never found a turnout it couldn't break, a curve it couldn't straighten and straight track it couldn't crush. It's a wonder of engineering!
Wonder if they could have used it to destroy railroads to prevent their use by the advancing Germans? It would probably get itself stuck on the tracks it's destroying, or derail, but that blocking a critical bit of line would be very effective. Could deliberately derail and damage the locomotive so it can't be moved in a critical spot that it would be difficult to move from or be built around, such as in a narrow cut or tunnel. An otherwise useless gigantic locomotive could be good for when you need a large object in the enemy's way.
They tried to fix it. I miss that about engineering today. If it doesn’t make it past computer testing they just scrap the whole idea. Most of the time.
Simon, you sparked some thought here with the first 5 year plan. Would the collectivization of the Soviet Union be a Megaproject? It would certainty be morbid though.
That difference in guage of the rails was also one of the reasons Germany lost WWII. They couldn't ship their logistics east over Soviet lines.
Hello Simon, I like your video's very much. And most of the time, the details are spot on.
However, in this video is an error: The size of the Soviet-Union was not 22 milion square kilometers, but 32 million square km.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the country has 'shrunk' to "just" 17 million square kilometers.
Has Simon done a video on the Union Pacific DDA40X? That would be a good one too.
I’ve been waiting on that one. Or Atsf 3000
Good video 👍
Aren't a lot of railway in Africa and Europe built differently than those in America? Something like Big Boy or Challenger would ruin the tracks?
I'm certainly surprised that 2-10-0 configuration locomotives ran on British railways. I would have thought most curves too tight on our lines.
I fucking love the design of soviet steam locomotives. Just something about them.
Yeah, they REALLY suck
The real question is how many people on this project ended up in the gulag?
Can you do the history of MonsterTrucks?
Maybe a Side projects?
Ah, the AA-20, or, as Train of Thought calls it, "Igor".
One of those more advance technologies that the leader speaks of
aw damn I thought you were talking about the Russian P38 locomotive. The only mallet style locomotive ever built by russia and the actual russian equivalent to the big boy.
It wasn’t a true Mallet since the cylinders were all equally sized, meaning they were called “Simple Articulated”.
They configuration slightly different big boy has 4-8-8-4 configuration compare to 2-8-8-4 p38 configuration
Can anyone tell what the boiler size of the locomotive is for I have been asking for years and would like to know all the details of the aa-20 if anyone can I’ll appreciate every bit of information I can get my hands on.
Simon’s beard says, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!”
You are aware that the USSR, in the search of powerful locos, bought several locos from various american loco builders. That's why a lot of classes of Soviet locos look like American steam, they were knock offs.
You could try a video on the Union Pacific cab forward or Erie railroad triplexes
Do a video on the Russian Class M62. Probably the most numerous diesel locomotive in the world.
Well it's not the biggest locomotive in the world, take it from the American diesels like the unoin Pacific gas turbines(Not really diesels or not diesel at all but they have designs as one)
And the DDA40X Were Very big giants, theres more aside from those in America
They are still some preserved too
I pulled this video up as fast as a train pulls out of the station
Why didn't they just double up on locomotives? That would spread the load more evenly on the track and spare the couplers by spreading traction load along the length of the train.
Or was that one of the ideas that got you sent to the gulag?
On the Train of Thought channel he just called it “Igor”
am i the only person who want to see a "what if" armoured train version of this????
MORE TRAINS!
Pretty sure if Baldwin loco works worked on this it would have had a way different body style
That is one awesome locomotive!
Small by North American standard. US 4-10-2's, 4-12-2 and 2-10-4;s wwre much larger. It only looks big because you have nothing to compare it to in the photos
The weird thing that I always keep trying to figure out is why the Soviets never tried any of the articulated designs of the overseas powers. They were more than willing to steal Weaponry design but never railroad designs. If they had done something similar to the United States, they might have popped out something a little better.
Maybe that was their plan, but than Hitler invaded them, and by the time war ended and they had some time to recover , diesel was all the rage. They did have some articulated diesel locomotives though.
Basically, Soviet steam era was extremely small, and coincided with great demand on rail traffic and drastic shortage of resources, production capacity and qualified personel. In 1920s they tried to restore locomotive works to pre-WWI state, and in 1930-40s it was refining that style of engines, while experimenting with diesel and electric traction. Basically, they prioritised producing many, MANY "smaller" engines over creating complex effecient designs
Oh Simon has a train video.
Upvote.
Done
Ok now I'll watch the video
Can you cover Vanera space program? Russian programs that explored Venus.
AA20 steam locomotive has straightened ALL railroad curves from Luhansk to Moscow. This project was cancelled with 2 main reasons: excessive axial load and frequently derailments in curves.
More train videos please Simon!
USSR entered World War II on 17th of September 1939 , when they attacked Poland which was already attacked by Nazi Germany, following terms of Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. In 1941 they merely change alliances. Get your facts straight Simon.
If they were thinking ahead they could have recycled all that iron and steel and at least got some money back! 😅😂
They ere afraid to scrap until Stalin had been safely dead for yeras
More like the USSR’s “Big Fail”
There was a person who could have solved the transportation problem, unfortunately, was eliminated during a political purge
It's got 7 drive axles, not 14.
Video suggestion: the first IPhone
Most of us can't imagine what we can do without a smartphone today
You'd have to talk to people. Oh, the horror!
Need a F16 Fighting Falcon video.
"Go big or go home." - The Soviet Union.... (probably)
Can we can a compilation of the ussrs absolute units usually like this, Russian and for some reason they only made a couple of them.
Soviet "Big Steel" indeed.
In which the Russian railways were successful.
Converting captured German war locomotives to wide gauge.
If only they had made it even bigger, it would have been even better
No. That would’ve made the problems even worse.
I can only imagine how many hapless planners and engineers were "purged" by Uncle Joe for the failure of this particular megaproject 😄
I wonder if this is what the fictional aurora from Metro Exodus is based on.