Rail riding

[73Eldo]

I saw that one. It folds up reasonably well and can handle some off roading when the rails are overgrown.

[ncmired]

This rail rider is serious - both in bike construction and the rails ridden:

[Retrorockit]

They also made some 18 cylinder sleeve valve air cooled radials for the Hawker Sea Fury. The "Flat" head layout made them very compact for their displacement.
I found this animation of the smaller 14 cylinder Hercules.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrvep_YOio

[73Eldo]

There was also that Chrysler tank engine? that I think was 3 V8's in a triangle. I saw one of those at a museum before I knew they existed. Museum didn't have much info on it and that was the very early days if the internet so i think it was years before I was able to learn more.

[Retrorockit]

Opposed piston diesel is pretty cool. They list it as 18 cylinders, but that means 36 rods and pistons moving around. Sleeve valves made it possible.
Kind of like 3x 60* vee 12 aircraft engines spliced together.

[Retrorockit]

I'm kind of working form memory on this. I passed all my train books on to my brother so I can't look these things up.

[73Eldo]

There are some good videos on the Deltec. Very interesting that someone came up with that and more or less made it work.

[73Eldo]

I didn't think UP built many (or any?) of their own locos. For sure the later ones were all ALCO's which included the big boys, challengers, and northers. Some railroads did build their own, Southern Pacific I think was one that still has a few survivors. The big boys were coal. Back when they were still in regular use they did try to convert one to oil but it apparently didn't work so they ended up converting it back. When they restored one 2019 they did convert it to oil which works fine for how hard it needs to work these days.

In the 70's and 80's people were putting those V12's in just about everything you could think of and if you broke it you didn't bother to repair it because they were apparently so cheap and easy to get from military surplus. Now days even broken engines and parts apparently go for huge money.

[Retrorockit]

At least the Deltic ran on rails at some point so it's not OT.

[Retrorockit]

Don't forget the turbo compounded diesel aircraft engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRpRVKdSy1w

The turbo is geared back into the crank for energy recovery.

[ncmired]

There's somebody out there in the U.S. (or maybe Canada) trying to restore a Typhoon, that has the same or a similar engine, IIRC.

Not an aero engine, but a complex beast none the less - the Napier Deltic.

[Retrorockit]

Most beastly single engine fighter was the Hawker Tempest. 3500HP. I won't even try to explain it. No cams, no valves.........
https://mechtraveller.com/2019/10/th...e-aero-engine/
Jets came along before it reached it's full potential.

[Retrorockit]

Because they weren't hauling coal that one would've been an oil burner.

[Retrorockit]

16 small diameter driving wheels, 4 x2 piston double action steam engines. Articulated (the 2 sets of drive wheels can steer separately. That's how 1 engine could haul lumber out of the Pacific NW mountains. Each 2 cylinder compound engine had pistons in series to get more work out of the steam. Union Pacific built their own locomotives, and they were the only ones who got that to work right. That's definitely King of the Hill. It probably takes 3 diesel/electrics to replace that.
because they're hybrids they can be wired together.

[ncmired]

Related to work and train engines of old, it looks like the Big Boy No. 4014 is rolling again - all 1.1 million pounds of it:

Yes, obsolete, but it makes glorious noises, as do the still runnable V-12 R&R Griffons & Merlins, and the Allisons of old:

These V-12 engines must have sounded phenomenal when pushed to war emergency power.