A dreadnaught wheel is a wheel with articulated rails attached at the rim to provide a firm footing for the wheel to roll over. These wheels have also been known as "endless railway wheels" when fitted to road locomotives, [1] [2] and were commonly fitted to steam traction engines. [3] They are very similar to pedrail wheels, differing primarily in that their rails are not connected to the wheel directly, but articulated to each other.
Prior to wide adoption of continuous track on vehicles, traction engines were cumbersome and not suited to crossing soft ground or the rough roads and farm tracks of the time. The "endless rails" were flat boards or steel plates loosely attached around the outer circumference of the wheels, which spread the weight of the vehicle over a larger surface and hence made it less likely to get bogged by sinking into soft ground or skidding on slippery tracks. [3]
An early version was patented by James Boydell in August 1846 and February 1854. Boydell worked with the British steam traction engine manufacturer Charles Burrell & Sons to produce road haulage engines from 1856 that used his continuous track design. [4] Burrell later patented refinements of Boydell's design. [5]
A number of horse-drawn wagons, carts and gun carriages using Boydell's design saw service with the British Army in the Crimean War (October 1853 and February 1856). [1] [6] The Royal Arsenal at Woolwich manufactured the wheels, and a letter of commendation was signed by Sir William Codrington, the General commanding the troops at Sebastapol. [7] [8]
An Australian blacksmith and engineer, Frank Bottrill (1871–1953), [9] after a failed endeavour using wheeled traction engines in outback Australia, and becoming aware of the Boydell wheel, decided to improve the design. [1] [6] In 1907 he patented an "improved road wheel for travelling, useful for traction engines". Bottrill's design used two rows of overlapping rails fastened to the rim with cables to smooth the transition from rail to rail.
Eventually Bottrill, in association with A. H. MacDonald & Co. of Richmond, Melbourne, began producing steam and oil-based tractors fitted with his wheels. [10] The most famous was known as "Big Lizzie," built in 1915, [9] with a wheel diameter of 7 feet 2 inches (2.18 m). [6] At 34 ft (10.4 m) long and 45 long tons (46 metrictonnes), with two dreadnought wheeled trailers it was capable of carrying a total of 80 long tons (81 metrictonnes) and effectively making its own roads. [1] [11]
Some references [12] also use the term pedrail. The issue is further confused by Bottrill referring to his design as "ped-rail shoes". [13] The two concepts are similar in that they attempt to improve cross-country performance by spreading out the load on a flat surface. The difference is primarily in how the pads are connected; the dreadnaught wheel connects the pads to each other and ride along the wheel, whereas in the pedrail arrangement, introduced in 1903, each pad is connected to a pivot on the wheel itself, and there are no inter-pad connections. Some pedrail systems also include internal suspensions to improve their performance over rough ground. Bottrill's design spans the definition, as its cable attachments are similar to the pedrail connections, albeit much more simple.
A bogie is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transport. A bogie may remain normally attached or be quickly detachable. It may include a suspension component within it, or be solid and in turn be suspended ; it may be mounted on a swivel, as traditionally on a railway carriage or locomotive, additionally jointed and sprung, or held in place by other means.
Continuous track or tracked treads are a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle better than steel or rubber tyres on an equivalent vehicle, enabling continuous tracked vehicles to traverse soft ground with less likelihood of becoming stuck due to sinking.
A traction engine is a steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin tractus, meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any traction engine is to draw a load behind it. They are sometimes called road locomotives to distinguish them from railway locomotives – that is, steam engines that run on rails.
Rail transport terms are a form of technical terminology applied to railways. Although many terms are uniform across different nations and companies, they are by no means universal, with differences often originating from parallel development of rail transport systems in different parts of the world, and in the national origins of the engineers and managers who built the inaugural rail infrastructure. An example is the term railroad, used in North America, and railway, generally used in English-speaking countries outside North America and by the International Union of Railways. In English-speaking countries outside the United Kingdom, a mixture of US and UK terms may exist.
A trackless train — or tram, road train, land train, or parking lot train is a road-going articulated vehicle used for the transport of passengers, comprising a driving vehicle pulling one or more carriages connected by drawbar couplings, in the manner of a road-going railway train. Similar vehicles may be used for transport of freight or baggage for short distances, such as at a factory or airport. Often depending on use, land train may or may not be skeuomorphically styled to look like traditional, often steam trains.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-2-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, two powered driving wheels on one axle and no trailing wheels. This type of locomotive is often called a Jervis type, the name of the original designer.
The Cowan rail accident occurred at 7:20pm on 6 May 1990 when the 3801 Limited special steam passenger train returning from the Morpeth Jazz Festival was struck in the rear by the following CityRail inter-urban passenger service. The steam train had stalled while attempting to climb the steep gradient from the Hawkesbury River to Cowan, New South Wales, and it was found that sand applied to the rails to regain traction had interfered with the signals and given the following train a false clear indication.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-2-4 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, two powered driving wheels on one axle, and four trailing wheels on two axles.
An adhesion railway relies on adhesion traction to move the train, and is the most widespread and common type of railway in the world. Adhesion traction is the friction between the drive wheels and the steel rail. Since the vast majority of railways are adhesion railways, the term adhesion railway is used only when it is necessary to distinguish adhesion railways from railways moved by other means, such as by a stationary engine pulling on a cable attached to the cars or by a pinion meshing with a rack.
A road–rail vehicle or a rail–road vehicle is a dual-mode vehicle which can operate both on rail tracks and roads. They are also known as two-way vehicles, hi-rail, and rail and road vehicles.
Red Cliffs is a town in Victoria, Australia in the Sunraysia region. It is located on the Calder Highway, 16 km south of Mildura and 544 km north-west of Melbourne.
Muir Hill (Engineers) Ltd was a general engineering company based at Old Trafford, Manchester, England. It was established in the early 1920s and specialised in products to expand the use of the Fordson tractor, which in the pre-war days included sprung road wheels, bucket loaders, simple rail locomotives, and in particular in the 1930s they developed the dumper truck. Later they built high horse power tractors.
Charles Burrell & Sons were builders of steam traction engines, agricultural machinery, steam lorries and steam tram engines. The company were based in Thetford, Norfolk and operated from the St Nicholas works on Minstergate and St Nicholas Street, some of which survives today.
Locomotive wheelslip is an event that affects railway motive power usually when starting from stationary, but can also affect an engine in motion.
A showman's road locomotive or showman's engine is a steam-powered road-going 'locomotive' designed to provide power and transport for a travelling funfair or circus. Similar to other road-going traction engines, showman's engines were normally distinguished by the addition of a full-length canopy, a dynamo mounted in front of the chimney, and brightly coloured paintwork with ornate decorations. The dynamo was used to generate electricity to illuminate and power various fairground rides. Although originally the ride's motion was powered by an internal steam engine, some later rides were driven direct from the showman's engine via a belt drive.
The history of steam road vehicles comprises the development of vehicles powered by a steam engine for use on land and independent of rails, whether for conventional road use, such as the steam car and steam waggon, or for agricultural or heavy haulage work, such as the traction engine.
Bramah Joseph Diplock was an English inventor who invented the pedrail wheel in 1899 and the pedrail chaintrack, a type of caterpillar track, in 1907.
James Boydell was a British inventor of steam traction engines. His most significant invention was the first practical track-laying vehicle, for which he received British patents in August 1846 and February 1854.
Frank Bottrill was an Australian blacksmith and inventor, known for his giant "Big Lizzie" traction engine, thought to be at one time the largest in the world. It had a unique variant of the Dreadnaught Wheel design. Alternating bearing plates gave support to each wheel, allowing it to travel over soft ground without bogging down. This was an early attempt to solve the problem that was later addressed more effectively by the caterpillar track. After running into financial difficulty, Bottrill spent the later part of his working life clearing bush and hauling loads in the west of New South Wales and Victoria. Big Lizzie has been preserved, and stands in a park in Red Cliffs, Victoria.
The South African Railways Dutton road-rail tractors of 1923 were road-rail steam tractors.
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ignored (help)He called it the Pedrail or Dreadnought wheel.