The steam locomotive with wheels on its wheels - Fontaine Locomotives 

Or Pen-y-darren, which was made in 1804. Really shows how bad the design was if the first steam loco did your design better than you.

I was thinking that too, its not like the top wheel was running on the rail wheel at the bottom it was separate, so it could have easily (for a given amount of easy coming to cutting gears into cast steel strong enough for the engines torque) had a gearbox, even with two ratios so it could pull hard then shift into an overdrive of sorts to cruise at speed.

I'm thinking by adding teeth to act like a cog would make for need of more pressure from the boiler

​@@Colt45hatchbackby adding teeth you are increasing resistance and would make need for more pressure from the boiler in my opinion

Somedays you just need something to take your mind off the job.

for me it is good for winding down for bed.

Haha, I remember that game!

@@Benji_transport_vids it still gets updates

@@louierenault7344 ik

I'd be inclined to agree - you'd probably need helical or double-helical teeth to handle the loads involved if the top and intermediate wheel rims were geared to each other. At the time helical gears could not be built at the strength and scale needed and double-helical gears hadn't been invented. You'd probably need some sort of lubrication system for the gear teeth, too, which would be very impractical and probably just end up getting oil on the drive wheel/rail interface! I really can't work out what the logic behind the Fontaine was. Just fitting 7.5ft-diameter driving wheels would have provided exactly the same 'gearing-up' effect, and as the video showed locomotives with drivers of a similar or larger size were far from uncommon in Britain and Europe. As to the friction between the intermediate wheels, the Fontaine did apparently have a system of compressed air rams to push the upper wheels onto the intermediate rim, which could be adjusted by the crew - presumably you'd increase the force for starting and then reduce it once up to speed. Clever, but adding to the pointless complexity!

They had an air powered mechanism that could vary pressure of the upper axle upon the lower axle to increase or decrease adhesion. This is before they knew a great deal of what we know today so expect some weird ways of doing things because it's just the times.

@@creamwobbly let me rephrase, not widely understood. Still isn't exactly. Is it? Have to be pretty well into the trains to even ask about adhesion as a concept. Do be loving the comparison to certain modern inventors and their scammy behaviour though

They already make models with horrifically inefficient means of transfering the power from the motor to the wheel. Worm gears suuuuuck.

Hey dude could you link it because I can't find it

Jupiter is my Favorite 4-4-0, I just like the colors.

Fontaine*

@@florjanbrudar692 what

Very recently?

How do you personally define "Old West", exactly? I don't think there's any commonly accepted response to that.

Not sure where your getting your information from but I think 25,000 4-4-0s built in America over a period of 50 years would qualify them as _VERY_ common and long lasting and there's nothing stupid about experimenting to try and improve locomotives (or anything else for that natter). The development of the steam locomotive has produced many experimental designs, some not as successful as others admittedly.

Don't know what you're getting on about, because 4-4-0s were the most prevelent wheel arrangement of steam locomotives in this country for a large portion of the 19th century. They were built in huge numbers beginning in the early 1840s and ceased to be dominant in the late 1880s. They certainly weren't the only type of locomotive in operation following the Civil War, but they were still highly prevelent. An estimate by John White Jr. (who literally wrote the books on 19th century American railroads) placed the 4-4-0 as represrnting 85% of all steam locomotives in service in 1872.

@@VideoDotGoogleDotCom most old movies tend to use the 4-4-0 almost exclusively for a "western" engine. It's pretty straight forward, if one grows up on old cowboy movies.

Looking at the design, I'd say it would have made no difference at all. The key concept that the engineer of that design made was confusing RPM with circumference speed. Look at it. Big wheel on top, driving a slightly smaller wheel on the bottom, with the smaller wheel on the rails. But the circumferential velocity of the top wheel exactly matches the circumferential velocity of the bottom wheel, no real change in velocity.

it was a spark arrestor. as some locomotives burned wood which gives off sparks, a mesh at the top of the funnel (which I think was similar to your fireplace mesh) to stop sparks from coming out and potentially starting fires. most Western/Southern locomotives burned wood due to lack of coal in the area (such as Central pacific, and the Western and Atlantic)

Nobody tried for the same reason electric engines don't use gearboxes. Steam engines scale linearly with speed, a change in ratios doesn't do anything.

Usually a case of someone has an idea, then either fixates on it, or sees an opportunity to make money out of it, to the point that it's actually a Bad idea becomes irrelevant to their thought processes.

I really like your military history knowledge pre-1950. nice to see someone with similar interests :)

@@pilotbug6100 Thanks. Nice to see I am not the only one.

And both of which boil my blood

@@KPen3750 that's not very nice :(

1.28:1 was the ratio, i miss heard it too at first

The massive chimney is a spark catcher, to avoid setting fire to dry grass and shrubs &c.

@@svennoren9047 Thank you, Sven

Actually! A Stirling Single GNR 4-2-2

@@thetransportationguy7930 oh, M-m-my Mistake ☹️