What was the typical and top speeds of the Climax, Heisler and Shay locos?
slow!
15 to 25 I think… mostly pretty darn slow…
Slower than that. graham county shay 1925 holds the record for fastest shay clocked: 18 mph
Ahh… grasshopper!!!
"The Heisler was the fastest of the geared steam locomotive designs, and yet was still claimed by its manufacturer to have the same low-speed hauling ability. "
from Wikipedia… the question was: What was the typical and top speeds of the Climax, Heisler and Shay locos?
This article indicates they hit 20 mph in testing: http://www.gearedsteam.com/heisler/articles/60_ton_heisler/article.jpg
I think you will find that the Heisler, the fastest of all geared locos, and advertised as such, could probably close in on 25 mph, and were faster than shays.
Greg
The slower speed was for pulling power
Sean McGillicuddy said:
The slower speed was for pulling power
Gee, really? I thought is was so the logs wouldn’t fall off the train! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Nah the crews loved them getting paid by the hour.
Hi Folks;
Just theory, I know. Still wonder how fast geared locomotives may have been if someone had invented a steam version of the Wankel rotary engine. It could have left the boiler starved for steam. Not sure, but it’s a fun thought to noodle around.
Best, David Meashey
I wonder about the class a and early horizontal B climaxes with the two speed gearbox.
It was a bit hard to find actual speeds, the manufacturer’s brochures I found on the Heisler just indicated they could go faster if needed due to the design of the rotating mass, besides indicating that the design had moving parts up away from dirt and grit.
It was a smart design, but not as sexy as that big crankshaft on a shay in my opinion, it’s almost scary standing near one when running (was at Georgetown loop, invited into the yard)
Greg
Does this look about right for speed of the Shay?
You could measure the track length and calculate it, but I guarantee that is a lot faster than you think in most cases.
15 miles per hour is 22 feet per second…
convert to inches = 264 inches per second, and then divide by 20.3 to get scale: 13 inches per second.
Mark out 26 inches and adjust speed to cover that in 2 seconds (easier to get a good measurement) and you would have pretty much the top speed of that loco.
10 miles per hour would be 8.66 inches per second…
Greg
timmyd DeHan said:
Does this look about right for speed of the Shay?
Yep !
More interested in the “petticoat junction” water tank outside though.
lorna dane said:
Nah the crews loved them getting paid by the hour.
Railroad crews actually get paid by the mile… So yah…
Too fast by half.
At around 53 seconds, you can actually see the rail joiners on the 1 foot track section. You can count the seconds to traverse the track section there and in other places.
Just about 3 seconds for the loco to traverse 1 foot. (1 foot = 20.3 scale feet)
1 foot per 3 seconds, or 1/3 foot per second… scaling to 1:20.3 (1 foot is 20.3 scale feet) is would be about 6.76 scale feet/second, that is 4.55 scale miles per hour.
Plenty fine…
timmyd DeHan said:
Does this look about right for speed of the Shay?
To me that looks just fine, it is a very nice layout from what I can deduce from the video.
You can calculate till the cows come home but at the end of the day the question is “do I like it?” if the answer is “Yes” then run at that speed.
I like to think that my railway is a “prototype” as there is only one like it in the world, so I am running “prototypical” trains and speeds its my railway and I will set the speed limit to what pleases me.
It looks just fine to me too Timmy! 
Here’s the real thing. The West Side Shays seldom topped 13 MPH.