# ACE 3000 in Live Steam?



## Britstrains (Feb 24, 2008)

Hi Guys,
Today I came across an old newspaper article in some archives that I had downstairs. From the 1980's. I found one that mentioned the Ace 3000 which was a coal fired diesel locmotive that ran on steam but looked like a diesel locomotive. I was wondering if anybody has ever seen one produced in live steam particularly gauge one. If you search google for "ACE 3000 Locomotive". Does anyone think that it could be possible to produce in gaugeone? Just Curious.
Thanks,
Brittany


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## CapeCodSteam (Jan 2, 2008)

Brittany, 

I remember reading about that loco years ago, long before I got into G1. That would look great pulling a bunch of double stacked deep well container cars.


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Brit
While that is an interesting concept it might not be necessary if this paper could be validated therefore not having to reinvent only adapt proven steam power:

Coal fired locomotive vs Diesel


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## hawkeye2 (Jan 6, 2008)

I don't beleive that loco ever got off the drawing board. It was a concept that American Coal Enterprises was pushing. The loco was to have multi cylinders and was not suposed to damage the rails the way regular steam locos do. It would have been the answer to all the prime mover problems including some that probably didn't even exist. None of the railroads expressed much interest in it. There was an aricle in "Trains" magazine circa late 70's, early 80's that featured it and argued that if all the steam technology that existed by the mid 50's were combined in one locomotive it would be far superior to any diesel. If I remember the article was titled "Did We Abandon Steam Too Soon?"


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## tacfoley (Jan 3, 2008)

Over here in the UK the CME of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland, Oliver Bulleid, later to take on the job as CME of the Southern Railway of England, actually got a peat/turf-fired steam loco that looked just like a double-ended diesel off the drawing board and onto the tracks. It had a series of teeny and incredibly complex multi-cylinger steam engines between the frames of the trucks, in much the same way as a modern diesel -electric has its traction motors. 

For more reasons than can be gone into in less than about a hundred pages, it was a resounding failure in almost every respect. 

If you are interested, please Google 'Bulleid Leader locomotive' and note the spelling of Bulleid - this is correct. 

Best 

tac 
www.ovgrs.org 

PS - the opposite posit has always been with us - there are many 'steam' locomotives that are steam in outline only, but driven by infernal combustion engines, especially in amusement parks.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

Given the dependancy on imported oil for the diesels and domestic coal for steam, you'd have thought someone woiuld resurrect the concept. Especially if they solve the problem of CO2 emmissions from coal-fired power plants (like steam locos.)


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Pete
Even with the CO2 emission hurdle cleared there is still high maintenance cost (not accounted for in the article)of a steam locomotive vs diesel along with the lack of facilities to do a high capacity of builds and repairs of steam locomotives. I would guess it would take an oil embargo to see anyone considering this in the RR industry (probably switch to electric first).


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## David Leech (Dec 9, 2008)

Posted By tacfoley on 04 May 2010 03:46 AM 
Over here in the UK the CME of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland, Oliver Bulleid, later to take on the job as CME of the Southern Railway of England, actually got a peat/turf-fired steam loco that looked just like a double-ended diesel off the drawing board and onto the tracks. It had a series of teeny and incredibly complex multi-cylinger steam engines between the frames of the trucks, in much the same way as a modern diesel -electric has its traction motors. 

Hi Tac,
I think that you will find it was the other way around.
He developed the Leader while working for the Southern Railway, and then whilst he was briefly in British Railways, he left in 1950 for Ireland where he continued the concept as the peat burners.
I don't think that the Leader was a failure as such.
As with any of the worlds attempts to make a steam locomotive 'modern', they were always one off experiments that seemed doomed to failure because the powers to be did not want them to succeed. 
Do I hear conspiracy?

Anyway, Brittany, to answer your question, of course it would be possible to build anything in Gauge 1.
You may have to make it slightly differently as far as boiler and firing etc.. was, but any model is possible.
For example, I seem to remember seeing a UK manufacturer offering a live steam Leader for sale some years back.
All the best,
David


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Brit
If I was to model such a concept I would use the SP drawing as a base line:










A modernized Cab forward and go from there, maybe utilizing bio-diesel as the fuel.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

I think you gents need to think along the lines of; steam electric rather than a nostalgic steam mechanical. 
Much less pounding of the rails and less force used to put heavy steel parts in motion. 

Or if you insist then along the lines of the Pennsy turbine....just side rods and axle gears. 

Provided, of course, you can satisfy the EPA.... 

John


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## rwjenkins (Jan 2, 2008)

Here's a web page all about the ACE 3000 concept, which includes some line drawings and concept sketches...

The Ultimate Steam Page: ACE 3000


I believe there were drawings in Model Railroader at some point too (early 80's?), which were similar to the first variant drawing. Looks more or less like a Pennsy duplex (with the rear cylinders reversed as on the PRR Q-1 class, but in a 4-4-4-2 wheel arrangement) hiding under an SDP40F body. I don't see any reason why it couldn't be modeled in live steam, in fact the diesel-style body shell probably makes it a whole lot easier to hide any out-of-scale elements. R/C would probably be the way to go though, since the enclosed cab/body would make it hard to access the controls. Coal firing would also be tricky for the same reason, so it would probably make more sense to go with butane. Hmm, butane-fired at 1:32 scale, guess that would make it the "ABE 93.75" as opposed to the "ACE 3000"...


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Richard, 
I think you are missing the chance of a lifetime to make an automatic stoker for this beauty! As I remember the coal was to be pulverised and blown into the combustion chamber. A simple exhaust powered bellows and a measured hopper delivery and voila! ....er, there ya go! 

I'm waiting for pics.... lol 

John


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Brittany
In reality the best candidate would been to modernize the N & W Class A locomotive (do as SP did for their 4-8-8-2) making it a Backwards Mallie along with modern diesel sheet metal: The N&W Class A was the most versatile locomotive on the railroad, being used on everything from slow freight like coal to time freight and even heavy passenger trains. The locomotive was used on both the flatter and hillier parts of the railroad. The locomotive type was used on fast freight or passenger trains at speeds in excess 70 mph and could handle 19,000-ton coal trains. The DBPull of the 2-6-6-4 in economy setting is higher than that of the SD70M-2 between 5 and 65 MPH. Between 30 and 75 MPH the 2-6-6-4 exceeds 1.5 SD70M-2’s. The high horsepower output of the 2-6-6-4, especially when in high power mode, is of a great benefit in Intermodal service, which as will be seen later, is quite horsepower intensive.


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## Britstrains (Feb 24, 2008)

Well Guys,
I'm getting some good information here. I gues this topic really stoked the fire haha. Anyway, what about the possibility of using 2 ruby chassis and cylinder placed back to back and creating a small spacer between them and using that for the basis of the drive wheels, just a thought so that since it is a 4-4-4-2 you would just need a leading and trailing truck and then you would have the basic chassis and frame.
Just a thought,
Brittany


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## rwjenkins (Jan 2, 2008)

The problem with using Ruby running gear on this thing would be the drive wheel diameter. In 1:32 scale, Ruby drivers scale out to only 44" in diameter, fine for a logging engine maybe, but small even for a switch engine on a class 1. I'm not sure what size drivers the ACE 3000 was supposed to have, but I'd guess somewhere between 63" to 69" would be likely. Of course, since the prototype was never built, I guess you could plausibly get away with pretty much anything! Adding the space for a second pair of pilot wheels between the cylinders and the first pair of drivers on a Ruby chassis might be a bit challenging too, though.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

if this paper could be validated 
Charles, 
I breifly glanced at the paper, which claims that coal produces about 10x the Btus of oil. I remembered later the flaw in that argument - a steam engine is only about 5-10% efficient at converting coal to motion.


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