Peter Heckert wrote:
When you walk by a locomotive you feel a blast of hot air but the air
is not confined and the platform does not get hot.
The use some splywood boards like Rossi and build these airtight
around the locomotive, this way that the flow of cold input air is
inhibited, set the locomotive to 470 kW power and see what happens.
What do you mean airtight? Those are not even a little airtight. The top
is open to the sky!
The space is roughly as confined as the underground platforms at Grand
Central Station in New York City, or Back Bay station in Boston. The
plywood boards are about as confining the posters, dividers or glass
waiting area walls in those stations. The stations are not intolerably
hot, even when you stand next to the locomotive. It is my favorite place
to stand.
As I said, I do love enormous noisy dangerous machinery.
I am sure the fan boxes are quite hot, which is why they erected the
plywood. So are the blowers in a diesel locomotive. You do not want to
get too close to those things. But oh they are lovely and I even like
the smell.
- Jed
