@@kristenburnout1 Mazda didn't invent the Wankel engine. They didn't even build the first successful examples. But they kept working on them long after other companies gave up. It's also fun to describe them as a Dorito wobbling inside a peanut.
I was a young lad in England when and where 2-stroke diesels were moderately common. Commer trucks, and even a few buses, used the noisy TS3 (based on a Sulzer design) with just one crankshaft for its OP cylinders, Foden had their own 2-stroke inline-6 that sounded like a mini-me Detroit 6L71, and I've traveled many miles behind Class 55 Deltic locos hauling 100MPH trains on the East Coast Main Line out of Kings Cross, with my head out the window, flies and soot in my hair and face, relishing every moment of it! I never rode behind a Class 23 Baby Deltic loco, but they were even louder than their big brothers. The sound of a Deltic loco at full welly is, along with a Vulcan's howl, a sound that one will NEVER forget. To help keep those memories alive, I now have a bus with a Detroit 6V92 that I've straight-piped, and that also brings a big stupid grin to my face, especially when I use its Jakes.
I worked on log skidders with 3 and 4 53 Detroits back in the 80s. I loved them. The Cats and John Deeres just wernt the same. Too quiet. We always said they were a great machine for turning perfectly good diesel into noise and smoke.
My Dad was an apprentice engineer from Canada who got his post-university training at Napier. He started in I either 1950 or 51 at 21 ro 22 years of age, and quickly found himself on the deck of the torpedo boats with Deltics recording values and helping the engine room adjust to the machines. He also worked on the Deltic locomotives, and it's a double edged sword that he was picked by the company to spearhead the Montreal office's campaign to sell the Deltic in Canada. Napier was already in some trouble and didn't provide support to close the sales Dad tried to line up, according to my Mum, focusing on UK business instead. In the end, though, the Deltic experience led to him moving to United Aircraft where he ended up working to high-power fast naval projects, as well as the Turbo Train; and after that with Bombardier where he was back to diesels, and selling the LRC. Within the engineering community, experience with the development team at Napier was revered, and made a lot of doors open for him, for decades after. As a kid, we always had a sample actual cylinder from a Deltic in the basement, an ashtray made from a Deltic piston; and a beautiful scale salesmen'a model of the 18 cylinder Deltic; any one of which I'd give a lot to have now. He only had the highest praise for the engineering talent at Napier, and said that the draftsmen could teach you more than a senior lecturer at McGill, his aima mater. And just to address those here who are suggesting that the Deltic was over complex, it wasn't. The complexity was elsewhere, in the complex power train that tied the crankshafts together, distributed power to blowers and superchargers and pumps. But an 18 cylinder engine putting out the power of a 36 cylinder unit, but without any valve trains, no heads to leak, no cooling to perform at the head was in the end far simpler. And because all those eliminated units were ones that needed frequent adjustment for timing, involved camshaft wear, rocker friction , valve seat cracking, etc. etc.... nope, this was a masterpiece of simplicity.
The Deltics are such cool engines. I spent some time in the cab of 55019 and 55022 both featured in the video. That droning sound stays with you for the entire night after a day on the footplate. But they are thoroughbred race horses, with both engines running they picked up speed very well. Some of the locomotives even had names of race horses like Alycidon and Tulyar, others had names of regiments, those in the video 55019 Royal Highland Fusilier and 55022 Royal Scots Grey. The last one was pulling a freight in the video, but they were never built for this work, they were express passenger locomotives. The owner of 55022 had it mainline certified, usually doing rail excursions, but for a year he contracted the haulage of this freight running from Blythe to Fort William in Scotland, conveying alumina for aluminium production.
I drove a HEMTT in the Army; 8V92 Detroit about a foot behind your head. Yeah, I have tinnitus because of those things, lol. A 12 hour day of one running at 2000-2500 RPM will do that to you.
American here who loves world locomotives. The deltic class 55 is one of the most amazing and unique machines of all time. It is the most incredible diesel electric, the Krauss Maffei diesel hydraulics of the Denver and Rio Grande were the most iconic diesel hydraulic, and the Fell Diesel Mechanical represent the best examples of their type in mt personal opinion.
My uncle used to be a fitter at BR Doncaster depot and spent a good deal of his career looking after the Deltic’s. Apparently they took a bit of looking after to keep them running well and they had a hell of an appetite for fuel but they were/are fantastic machines. Hearing one working hard is probably one of the best sounds you’ll ever hear!! I absolutely love the styling of the locomotives too, from an age where someone put some effort into making things look good!
I was a fitter at Finsbury Park depot and these locos were a pain to work on. Everything was so cramped and the floors always slippery, and if you had to work on one when it had just came in the shed it was very hot to work on.
Doncaster dude here , I can remember walking round the maintenance/ fitting shop whilst being a subcontractor . Pretty awesome piece of kit and I think just gone out of service at the time . Sadly nothing is like back then .
@@newagetemplar6100 I'm originally from Thurnscoe and as a kid I could hear them from about half a mile away. The noise of a deltic makes me think of my childhood
Glad the Mack SuperPumper was mentioned! One more cool detail on that rig is that the truck used a Mack END 864 V8 (the predecessor to the E9). That thing must have sounded awesome!
You are absolutely correct. You could actually hear it coming. The only thing better was when it was in operation. You had to wear hearing protection if you around it for any length of time. When you were close you could feel the vibration in the street.
It's actually a very simple design, as it has no valves. But that is true of any opposed piston 2-stroke diesel, like the 6 cylinder opposed piston engine it was developed from. Also, some amount of exhaust piston lead is used on all opposed piston diesels. The unique feature was making the 3-bank design work. They worked out that by reversing the bottom crankshaft each cylinder would have the exhaust piston lead the intake piston by 20 degrees. The competition were developing a 4-bank engine. The reason Napier's designs appear complex is because they were for higher power than the automotive market, thus requiring more cylinders. It's possible to build an absolutely massive 6 cylinder engine but it has to be low revving which hurts the power/weight ratio, something which was important in most applications Napier targeted.
@@londonalicante The masterstroke in the Deltic engine concept is that by adding one crankshaft, you can add two cylinder banks. You don't get that by adding a fourth crankshaft, which only gets one more cylinder bank.
@@andyharman3022 There's that way of looking at it. Inline opposed piston has 2 crankshafts and 1 cylinder bank, Deltic has 3 crankshafts and 3 cylinder banks (which is a massive gain for just one extra crankshaft) and 4-bank engine has 4 crankshafts (which is still 1 bank per crankshaft, the same as for 3 crankshafts.) The issue as I see it is that the 4th crankshaft and bank adds a lot of complexity as well as a lot of wasted space in the central void. According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Deltic the competition at Jumo did try to develop a 3-bank engine but abandoned it as they couldn't work out the timing. An advantage of the 4-bank engine is that you can have any amount of exhaust piston lead you like, but the delta configuration is fixed at 20 degrees. Here's a link to the Jumo 4-bank engine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Jumo_223
@paulrbrownbr549 3 days ago this is my favorite engine, they have two of them here in Deland Florida, USA with the Nasty Class boat of the US Navy built in Norway and used in Vietnam in the 1060's....I believe it is classed as the PTF .. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Nasty-class_patrol_boat
@@billb3444 *The **_Gegenkolbenmotor_** (opposed-piston engine) was invented by Wilhelm von Oechelhauser and junior partner Hugo Junkers, patented on July 8th, 1892.*
Brought back a few memories of building these during my apprenticeship at Paxmans where they were remanufactured. I even helped build the sectioned one in the video for the National Railway Museum. Good show. 👍
@@sandervanderkammen9230 While Napier licensed the earlier Jumo 204, the Deltic was designed by Napier, with Junkers having given up on using a 3 crankshaft design in favour of further development of their 4 crankshaft design.
@@s.a.3882 Napier licensed the 3 bank designed from Jumo along with the 205... It's not a "British design" or based on "British Engineering" The Deltic is a product of British manufacturing... and German technology.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 All the information I have shows the Deltic was designed by Napier, based on Junkers technology, which traces it's roots back to the first opposed piston engine designed by James Atkinson. If you know of a Junkers 3 crank design, please state the model number, since the only reference to Junkers working on a 3 crank design states they gave up and moved to a 4 crank design.
I lived in North London in the 1970s, about 1/2 mile from the main line from London Kings Cross to Scotland. When I lay in bed late at night and it was otherwise quiet, I would hear the Deltics coming out of the tunnel at New Southgate absolutely flat out on their journey north. The noise was incredible and quite unlike anything I’ve heard before or since. Awesome!
Fantastic video. I've taken an interest in this engine before and thought I'd done a fair bit of reading on the subject. But you have uncovered plenty that I didn't know. Very interesting! An excellent video
I saw a lot of info and pictures that weren't in Flight Dojo's video! Thanks for the historical coverage on not only auto/cycle but also industrial/military engines/vehicle/equipment! Awesome content man!
In their final years of British Rail service one covered for a HST set. The crew let it rip and it kept HST timing by doing 121 mph (May have been faster) Considering they were only supposed to do the ton (100mph)
Excellent video. I had always held a grudge against the British Rail diesels replacing the charismatic steam trains, however, the ingenuity of the Deltic design has inspred a new respect for these locomotives.
Despite how brain meltingly complex this design is. When it's built correctly and when it's maintained properly it runs as smooth as hell. No warm up time just crank over and vOoooooom
This is another very unique engine that I find very cool just like them old Detroit Diesels and EMD engines because not only it's a 2-stroke diesel, but it has an opposed piston design in a triangle that can make a decent lot of power.
Fantastic sounding engines these! Great that you did a whole video on these, thanks VisioRacer 😎 Btw, 1 possible correction (if you're talking about the trains), the 18 cylinder engine cls 55 were retired in 1981, although a handful were sold, some of which ran (and some still run) special trains, and occasionally hired to haul freight, e.g in 2011 for 3 weeks, and for a single train in 2017 😎 I've got to see one of these in the flesh some day!
Thanks mate, great video. I printed a simplified cross section image of this motor on a shirt for my pommy father in law. When he went back to England to visit family he got comments everywhere on the shirt.
The two clockwise/one counter clockwise rotating crankshaft was the key to getting the concept to work. Jumo built rhomboidal layout prototype engines during the War, but these had four clockwise rotating crankshafts and suffered from Human Centipede effect.
Jumo would abandon development of reciprocating piston engines in favor of Jets and Gas turbine engines... Dr. Anselm Franz would design the world's first mass production jet engine to power the Messerschmitt Me-262, and design the engines that would become the most successful gas turbine engines in history... The PLT-25 that powered the M1 Abrams and the T53/55 the most successful helicopter engines in the world.
4000+ HP *HIGH SPEED* diesel engine is no joke.I believe I saw a baby Deltic on a tug boat when I was young, because I could not "see" the crankcase / block / head intersection, (there is no head, lol) and it baffled me for a long time. Great content !
That could have made a racing tugboat lol.imaging making a deltic running E85 and use castor 927 maxima 2 stroke oil with drysump and VRO to the intake ports!
Napier have a long history of producing more powerful than everyone else's engines. Just take a look at the most powerful aero engine of WW2, the Napier Sabre.
Thx for an informative and well produced video. FWIW saw these in PTFs (.nastys) in Vietnam in '72 the gear cases were getting fragged by SVN operstors to keep from operating. Also saw in Coronado loved the sound of turbos with near continuous exhaust pulses.
great vid, what a cracking "lump" have a look at the intercity125 loco genset that was also stuck on leander/type40 ships as a container mounted power supply
Just here to say i didn't watch you for a long time, now i see you have 500k subs bro, that's amazing to see, i remember Bravo hgt videos, i feel old now lol
Excellent video. Thank you. There is much more information here than I have previously read or heard. Another good reason for being a Patron🙂. Cheers from NZ.
Indeed, but the story starts in Germany, Napier licensed the amazing technology from Jumo in Germany. The Gegenkolbenmotor was invented by Wilhelm von Oechelhauser and junior partner Hugo Junkers in 1892.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 That issue was covered. Thank you for the additional detail. Improvements constitute the majority of useful patents, according to my understanding,
@@michaelguerin56 It was barely mentioned and gave the false impression that the Deltic was based on British engineering technology. The Deltic is a German Jumo engine design sold to Napier, a variation of the 24 cylinder Jumo 223/224.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 I assert, with all due respect, that you need to pay closer attention to the video. In addition, it is a short video. The author introduces viewers to various subjects, whilst providing sufficient reference points to enable further individual research. That is what I see, across the range of Visio Racer videos.
mercury marine should come out with a mini deltic 2 stroke optimax outboards. The v6 3.2L stroker 300XS is 60 deg block and 3160 cc 193 CID each. Now this could be used to form a 579 CID mini deltic optimax with all the proper gearing for each crankshaft. that would be sick!
Again a brilliant video with rare images. The double piston concept is not able to meet emission regulations of today. The geometry of the combustion chambers are given by the shape of the pistons. Possibly one could improve them . . . . if there were somebody crazy enough. ;)
@@sandervanderkammen9230 No, I didn´t. The combustion chamber of a diesel has got a different shape, than a gasoline engine where the spark plug starts a fire and the flame front should spread evenly. Depending on the number of injector nozzles the optimal diesel combustion chamber meets the shape of the spraying diesel. This is difficult to achieve when there are two pistons and a cylinder, building the part of the combustion chamber. The only chance to inject the diesel is from the wall side of the cylinder - causing bad exhaust gas. We are working on large ships diesel engines with more than one injectors, depending on the size of the motor. It is extremely important to distribute the fuel precisly in order to get those very high efficiencies. And - coming along the efficiency - you don´t see any smoke at the exhauster.
I can remember the Deltic diesel exhaust haze at Kings Cross station in London in the 1970s!. One other point regarding Napier that is interesting, the businessman and early racing driver S F Edge had Napier make his record-breaking cars for him. Their works was at York Road near Waterloo Station in London and built him the Napier Six. It is said the car was painted with leftover paint from painting the works- a shade of green that was subsequently named "British Racing Green."
These engines were fitted to Ton Class MCMVs in the through until the 80's. Used to make lots of smoke, and often suffered from cracked cylinder liners forcing combustion gases into the coolant header tank. We had several starboard engines fail in a row. Got so good at swapping them out, we could exchange an engine in a weekend and back on patrol.
Railway engines (prime movers in North American railway terminology) have a vide range of application: locomotives, marine, stationary power generation, mining, etc. EMD, GE Transportation (now under a Wabtec ownership) are selling them for aforementioned use. EMD 567, 645 & 710 (their number indicates per cylinder displacement in cubic inches, all two-stroke) GE Evo engines. Even Alco 251 series are still being used to this day.
Uniflow Diesel engines were invented by in Germany. The _Gegenkolbenmotor_ was invented by Wilhelm von Oechelhauser and junior partner Hugo Junkers and later adapted to Diesel Cycle operation. American Alexander Winton licensed the technology and formed the Winton Engine Company and sold it to General Motors, his designs have been sold under the Winton, EMD, Detroit, General Motors and Kassboerer brands.
Unfortunately the video has long gone, but there was one of the prototype Commer TS4 engines on a test bed revving its heart out. Sounded absolutely glorious.
@@stevepage2541 Blame GM for that. The TS3 & successor TS4 were all trashed by GM. Theories suggest that its much more efficient than their own Detroit Diesels and due to its small size, can fit on trucks smaller than the commercial ones. The DD and the TS3 & TS4 has functionally the same uniflow pattern yet the TS3 is much more efficient as the combustion is extracted by 2 pistons opposing each other compared to a DD using valves and 1 piston. TS3 is cheaper to make as there is no poppet valves or camshafts to deal with.
During the late 80s and early 90s I lost count how many times I did the Kings Lynn to Liverpool Street route pre electrification and pulled by Deltic equipped locos!🙂🥰
Fairbanks-Morse (1) in the US who had purchased a license to build Junkers opposed diesels designed a 24 cylinder diamond layout 2 stroke diesel. It was under development for the US Navy during WWII but was abbandonded when the war ended. As usual see Old Machine Press. 1) F-M built diesels for diesel electric subs along with their own diesel locomotives.
In the class 55 the train heating boiler was located between the two Deltic engines. The noise experienced by a second man having at enter the engin room to attend the boiler while running must have been incredible.
*The **_Gegenkolbenmotor_** (opposed-piston engine) was invented by Wilhelm von Oechelhauser and junior partner Hugo Junkers, patented on July 8th, 1892.*
@@retiredbore378That's very unlikely as Eugene Brille purchased a Lohner-Porsche in 1899...it was the world's first hybrid electric automobile and was powered by an Oechelhauser Gegenkolbenmotor (opposed piston engine)
Lovely loot from 1945 handed to UK industry in order to cripple its development during the 1950's. Way too many doomed ideas from Germania experimented with in the UK long after they had been abandoned by the master race.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 Consider that BMW got their start in radials building P&W Wasps under license. Wright sold licenses to multiple engine builders and nations including the USSR and Japan. As did the British builders and the French. Plus a lot of aircraft builders shamelessly used airfoil profiles developed by the US's NACA.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 I know that. I was merely pointing out the BMWs started on radials by building Wasps under license. Plus BMW along with the Italians stuck with seperate cylinder inlines long after cast block engines became not just cutting edge but pretty much standard.
Like aircraft engines and tanks, locomotives Diesel engines are only rated in Horsepower... torque is an irrelevant unit of measurement in these applications.
@@eefjuh5533 Because horsepower is the only metric that determines the top speed and the actual amount of work the engine can produce, torque does not tell us this critical data.
I always dreamed of scaling this down to a single cylinder, 2 pistons and cranks, about 1000 cc on a 5 speed box and put it in a motorbike. Somebody started that project 30 yrs ago but it 'disappeared' , suspiciously..
The first hybrid car, the Lohner-Porsche had one... the Oechelhauser Gegenkolbenmotor was originally just a single cylinder. Hugo Junkers developed it into a multi cylinder engine
Maybe you could do a vid on Steve Morris engines. He mills his engines/heads from a billet of aluminum. He has several lines of engines that he sells. He also races them himself.
My brother and his mate both bus drivers seemed to have a thing about the Delicts they went to see the last one coming through our town , to me it's just a train .
These also have been used in ships for the military . The junkers jumo was of the same concept with just 2 cranks and opposed pistons for aircraft and was successful .
7:39 It would be really interesting to put the nine cylinder variant in a road truck, like a old Peterbilt or Kenworth cab over with a sleeper and gut the sleeper to house the engine. Or just go to all out and put the full-size version in a old ugly Mack truck or modify a bus because it’s going to take up a lot of real estate. You’re going to need a front axle that can withstand all of it. Either way it would be awesome to go terrorize the roads with
India has the WDP4 and WDG4 locomotives (of USA origin) that have 16 cylinder 2 stroke engines of well over 4000 horsepower that sound nearly as good as a Deltic. If you are in another country you can listen to them on TH-cam, ideally with a good pair of headphones.
I see you used some of my footage from my sister channel 'freightlocos' the animation you showed is wrong, one of the cylinder banks has wrong layout of exhaust and intake. It's my favourite loco and engine
One of the most interesting sounding engines, no wonder everyone wants to see one running in person. However I wouldn't want to catch a whiff of those exhaust fumes though.
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The Napier Deltic is so iconic that you can simply say "Triangle engine" and everyone knows what you're talking about.
*Mazda fans have entered the chat*
@@kristenburnout1 nah,the apex seals blew up while they tried entering the chat
@@kristenburnout1 Mazda didn't invent the Wankel engine. They didn't even build the first successful examples. But they kept working on them long after other companies gave up. It's also fun to describe them as a Dorito wobbling inside a peanut.
. The damn Rotards..
an embarrassing lot of misfits that can't figure out which oil to use or which filler hole to pour it into...
@@AnshidSalmanthe apex seals blew up?, I thought apex seals just wore out. Felix Wankel
I was a young lad in England when and where 2-stroke diesels were moderately common. Commer trucks, and even a few buses, used the noisy TS3 (based on a Sulzer design) with just one crankshaft for its OP cylinders, Foden had their own 2-stroke inline-6 that sounded like a mini-me Detroit 6L71, and I've traveled many miles behind Class 55 Deltic locos hauling 100MPH trains on the East Coast Main Line out of Kings Cross, with my head out the window, flies and soot in my hair and face, relishing every moment of it! I never rode behind a Class 23 Baby Deltic loco, but they were even louder than their big brothers. The sound of a Deltic loco at full welly is, along with a Vulcan's howl, a sound that one will NEVER forget. To help keep those memories alive, I now have a bus with a Detroit 6V92 that I've straight-piped, and that also brings a big stupid grin to my face, especially when I use its Jakes.
I worked on log skidders with 3 and 4 53 Detroits back in the 80s. I loved them. The Cats and John Deeres just wernt the same. Too quiet. We always said they were a great machine for turning perfectly good diesel into noise and smoke.
The Commer was certainly different but it also seems to have had an extraordinary large amount of reciprocating mass with the large rocker arms
My Dad was an apprentice engineer from Canada who got his post-university training at Napier. He started in I either 1950 or 51 at 21 ro 22 years of age, and quickly found himself on the deck of the torpedo boats with Deltics recording values and helping the engine room adjust to the machines.
He also worked on the Deltic locomotives, and it's a double edged sword that he was picked by the company to spearhead the Montreal office's campaign to sell the Deltic in Canada. Napier was already in some trouble and didn't provide support to close the sales Dad tried to line up, according to my Mum, focusing on UK business instead.
In the end, though, the Deltic experience led to him moving to United Aircraft where he ended up working to high-power fast naval projects, as well as the Turbo Train; and after that with Bombardier where he was back to diesels, and selling the LRC. Within the engineering community, experience with the development team at Napier was revered, and made a lot of doors open for him, for decades after.
As a kid, we always had a sample actual cylinder from a Deltic in the basement, an ashtray made from a Deltic piston; and a beautiful scale salesmen'a model of the 18 cylinder Deltic; any one of which I'd give a lot to have now.
He only had the highest praise for the engineering talent at Napier, and said that the draftsmen could teach you more than a senior lecturer at McGill, his aima mater.
And just to address those here who are suggesting that the Deltic was over complex, it wasn't. The complexity was elsewhere, in the complex power train that tied the crankshafts together, distributed power to blowers and superchargers and pumps. But an 18 cylinder engine putting out the power of a 36 cylinder unit, but without any valve trains, no heads to leak, no cooling to perform at the head was in the end far simpler. And because all those eliminated units were ones that needed frequent adjustment for timing, involved camshaft wear, rocker friction , valve seat cracking, etc. etc.... nope, this was a masterpiece of simplicity.
The Deltics are such cool engines.
I spent some time in the cab of 55019 and 55022 both featured in the video.
That droning sound stays with you for the entire night after a day on the footplate.
But they are thoroughbred race horses, with both engines running they picked up speed very well.
Some of the locomotives even had names of race horses like Alycidon and Tulyar, others had names of regiments, those in the video 55019 Royal Highland Fusilier and 55022 Royal Scots Grey.
The last one was pulling a freight in the video, but they were never built for this work, they were express passenger locomotives.
The owner of 55022 had it mainline certified, usually doing rail excursions, but for a year he contracted the haulage of this freight running from Blythe to Fort William in Scotland, conveying alumina for aluminium production.
I drove a HEMTT in the Army; 8V92 Detroit about a foot behind your head. Yeah, I have tinnitus because of those things, lol. A 12 hour day of one running at 2000-2500 RPM will do that to you.
I wonder if they are running the modern 2 stroke synthetic oil in the Delticas running today. these should run great with amsoil interceptor oil.
This channel has evolved into an appreciation of all things internal combustion and I am HERE FOR IT. 💙
American here who loves world locomotives. The deltic class 55 is one of the most amazing and unique machines of all time. It is the most incredible diesel electric, the Krauss Maffei diesel hydraulics of the Denver and Rio Grande were the most iconic diesel hydraulic, and the Fell Diesel Mechanical represent the best examples of their type in mt personal opinion.
I believe they used them in the USN Nasty patrol boats as well as the pumps for the fire service
There should by mini deltic 2 stroke outboards!
My uncle used to be a fitter at BR Doncaster depot and spent a good deal of his career looking after the Deltic’s.
Apparently they took a bit of looking after to keep them running well and they had a hell of an appetite for fuel but they were/are fantastic machines.
Hearing one working hard is probably one of the best sounds you’ll ever hear!!
I absolutely love the styling of the locomotives too, from an age where someone put some effort into making things look good!
I so agree!
I was a fitter at Finsbury Park depot and these locos were a pain to work on. Everything was so cramped and the floors always slippery, and if you had to work on one when it had just came in the shed it was very hot to work on.
Doncaster dude here , I can remember walking round the maintenance/ fitting shop whilst being a subcontractor .
Pretty awesome piece of kit and I think just gone out of service at the time .
Sadly nothing is like back then .
@@newagetemplar6100
I'm originally from Thurnscoe and as a kid I could hear them from about half a mile away. The noise of a deltic makes me think of my childhood
Glad the Mack SuperPumper was mentioned!
One more cool detail on that rig is that the truck used a Mack END 864 V8 (the predecessor to the E9). That thing must have sounded awesome!
You are absolutely correct. You could actually hear it coming. The only thing better was when it was in operation. You had to wear hearing protection if you around it for any length of time. When you were close you could feel the vibration in the street.
Napier really didn't believe in the KISS concept 🙂 Incredible engine if you ever get the chance to hear one pulling hard.
It's actually a very simple design, as it has no valves. But that is true of any opposed piston 2-stroke diesel, like the 6 cylinder opposed piston engine it was developed from. Also, some amount of exhaust piston lead is used on all opposed piston diesels. The unique feature was making the 3-bank design work. They worked out that by reversing the bottom crankshaft each cylinder would have the exhaust piston lead the intake piston by 20 degrees. The competition were developing a 4-bank engine. The reason Napier's designs appear complex is because they were for higher power than the automotive market, thus requiring more cylinders. It's possible to build an absolutely massive 6 cylinder engine but it has to be low revving which hurts the power/weight ratio, something which was important in most applications Napier targeted.
@@londonalicante The masterstroke in the Deltic engine concept is that by adding one crankshaft, you can add two cylinder banks. You don't get that by adding a fourth crankshaft, which only gets one more cylinder bank.
@@andyharman3022 There's that way of looking at it. Inline opposed piston has 2 crankshafts and 1 cylinder bank, Deltic has 3 crankshafts and 3 cylinder banks (which is a massive gain for just one extra crankshaft) and 4-bank engine has 4 crankshafts (which is still 1 bank per crankshaft, the same as for 3 crankshafts.) The issue as I see it is that the 4th crankshaft and bank adds a lot of complexity as well as a lot of wasted space in the central void.
According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Deltic the competition at Jumo did try to develop a 3-bank engine but abandoned it as they couldn't work out the timing. An advantage of the 4-bank engine is that you can have any amount of exhaust piston lead you like, but the delta configuration is fixed at 20 degrees.
Here's a link to the Jumo 4-bank engine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Jumo_223
The Gegenkolbenmotor engines that Napier licensed from Jumo in Germany were the most sophisticated and advanced of their type in the world.
@@londonalicanteThe Deltic is actually a smaller, more simplified variation of the 24 cylinder Jumo 223/224 engines which had 4 banks.
Incredibly complex, but apparently, they have a good "time between overhaul ". Thanks for sharing 👍.
The Napier Deltic was known for high power output but bette known for poor reliability and short TBOs...
Short times between overhaul. Exactly why British rail had so many spare engines and so many class 55 repairs were no more than swap an engine.
These engines were also installed in PT boats. I rode one in Vietnam.
@paulrbrownbr549
3 days ago
this is my favorite engine, they have two of them here in Deland Florida, USA with the Nasty Class boat of the US Navy built in Norway and used in Vietnam in the 1060's....I believe it is classed as the PTF .. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Nasty-class_patrol_boat
I've watched many videos on the Deltic. This one is perhaps the best compiled, edited and presented short video on the subject. Nice job.
The Commer Knocker was also an opposed piston two stroke diesel.
Great video Viso. The Napier Deltic was a magnificent bit of British eccentricity and magic.
German technology licensed from Jumo. They invented opposed piston engines
Doxford marine diesel 1911
@@billb3444 *The **_Gegenkolbenmotor_** (opposed-piston engine) was invented by Wilhelm von Oechelhauser and junior partner Hugo Junkers, patented on July 8th, 1892.*
Fascinating video, the sound of a Deltic Napier is as iconic as a Paxman Valenta and Rolls Royce Merlin
It is unreal the complexity but simple at the same time
Brought back a few memories of building these during my apprenticeship at Paxmans where they were remanufactured.
I even helped build the sectioned one in the video for the National Railway Museum. Good show. 👍
The Napier Deltics were `also used in Norwegian designed Patrol Boats bought by the U.S. Navy in the 1960's.
Amazing German technology that was licensed to Napier by Jumo, the Deltic engines are a smaller variation of the 24 cylinder 4,500 horsepower Jumo 224
@@sandervanderkammen9230 While Napier licensed the earlier Jumo 204, the Deltic was designed by Napier, with Junkers having given up on using a 3 crankshaft design in favour of further development of their 4 crankshaft design.
@@s.a.3882 Napier licensed the 3 bank designed from Jumo along with the 205...
It's not a "British design" or based on "British Engineering"
The Deltic is a product of British manufacturing... and German technology.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 All the information I have shows the Deltic was designed by Napier, based on Junkers technology, which traces it's roots back to the first opposed piston engine designed by James Atkinson. If you know of a Junkers 3 crank design, please state the model number, since the only reference to Junkers working on a 3 crank design states they gave up and moved to a 4 crank design.
@@s.a.3882 Thank you for proving my point...
I lived in North London in the 1970s, about 1/2 mile from the main line from London Kings Cross to Scotland. When I lay in bed late at night and it was otherwise quiet, I would hear the Deltics coming out of the tunnel at New Southgate absolutely flat out on their journey north. The noise was incredible and quite unlike anything I’ve heard before or since. Awesome!
Fantastic video. I've taken an interest in this engine before and thought I'd done a fair bit of reading on the subject. But you have uncovered plenty that I didn't know. Very interesting! An excellent video
You're doing amazing on your English and your videos! Keep it up
Incredible engineering for even today's standards. .good old boys back then
I saw a lot of info and pictures that weren't in Flight Dojo's video!
Thanks for the historical coverage on not only auto/cycle but also industrial/military engines/vehicle/equipment! Awesome content man!
Dude your content is really impressive, video after video, it’s appreciated
Unfortunately an emphasis on quantity over quality... this one was very incomplete and misleading.
In their final years of British Rail service one covered for a HST set.
The crew let it rip and it kept HST timing by doing 121 mph (May have been faster)
Considering they were only supposed to do the ton (100mph)
Excellent video. I had always held a grudge against the British Rail diesels replacing the charismatic steam trains, however, the ingenuity of the Deltic design has inspred a new respect for these locomotives.
Fantastic adaptation of German aircraft technology to british locomotives
Despite how brain meltingly complex this design is. When it's built correctly and when it's maintained properly it runs as smooth as hell. No warm up time just crank over and vOoooooom
Diesel engines don't like starting when cold, especially when the engine is getting tired and compression is lost.
This is another very unique engine that I find very cool just like them old Detroit Diesels and EMD engines because not only it's a 2-stroke diesel, but it has an opposed piston design in a triangle that can make a decent lot of power.
Power of 3 engines in one engine, new york fire debt have or had a deltic fire pump to deal with high rise fires 🔥.
You must like fairbanks morse as well.
An great engine with a really great sound.
Great video documentary, VR! Love the channel.
Fantastic sounding engines these! Great that you did a whole video on these, thanks VisioRacer 😎
Btw, 1 possible correction (if you're talking about the trains), the 18 cylinder engine cls 55 were retired in 1981, although a handful were sold, some of which ran (and some still run) special trains, and occasionally hired to haul freight, e.g in 2011 for 3 weeks, and for a single train in 2017 😎
I've got to see one of these in the flesh some day!
Good research, sir. Napier could think "out of the box"
I think you mean to say *Hugo Junkers*
Thanks mate, great video.
I printed a simplified cross section image of this motor on a shirt for my pommy father in law. When he went back to England to visit family he got comments everywhere on the shirt.
Just when you thought that the 2 stroke Detroit was the dirtiest diesel out there. . . .
SO dirty the brits came up with a name for it, they call it _Clag_
The two clockwise/one counter clockwise rotating crankshaft was the key to getting the concept to work. Jumo built rhomboidal layout prototype engines during the War, but these had four clockwise rotating crankshafts and suffered from Human Centipede effect.
Jumo would abandon development of reciprocating piston engines in favor of Jets and Gas turbine engines...
Dr. Anselm Franz would design the world's first mass production jet engine to power the Messerschmitt Me-262, and design the engines that would become the most successful gas turbine engines in history... The PLT-25 that powered the M1 Abrams and the T53/55 the most successful helicopter engines in the world.
Junkers.
The sound of those Type 55's is the sound of my childhood until the 125's took over with their screaming engines.
Worked on them on the ECML at Gateshead MPD. Very informative video thank you.
Video really omitted the development history of the Gegenkolbenmotor
Excellent video. Thanks.👍
4000+ HP *HIGH SPEED* diesel engine is no joke.I believe I saw a baby Deltic on a tug boat when I was young, because I could not "see" the crankcase / block / head intersection, (there is no head, lol) and it baffled me for a long time. Great content !
That could have made a racing tugboat lol.imaging making a deltic running E85 and use castor 927 maxima 2 stroke oil with drysump and VRO to the intake ports!
Very good video thank you so much.
They liked screws and bolts at Napier. As always very interesting video.😊
That's nuts....
Napier have a long history of producing more powerful than everyone else's engines. Just take a look at the most powerful aero engine of WW2, the Napier Sabre.
The opposed piston engines is German technology..
And Sleeve valves are American.
Thx for an informative and well produced video. FWIW saw these in PTFs (.nastys) in Vietnam in '72 the gear cases were getting fragged by SVN operstors to keep from operating. Also saw in Coronado loved the sound of turbos with near continuous exhaust pulses.
great vid, what a cracking "lump"
have a look at the intercity125 loco genset that was also stuck on leander/type40 ships as a container mounted power supply
You have a very cool and unique viewer base. Educational comments are the best ones
Thank you! I do love that too
Insane engines. Complex and yet somehow simpler. One of everyone's favorites.
Just here to say i didn't watch you for a long time, now i see you have 500k subs bro, that's amazing to see, i remember Bravo hgt videos, i feel old now lol
So many thanks VR for your dedicated research work!!.. 🏆
😊🙏
Very incomplete research, in particular the origins and development history of the Gegenkolbenmotor.
Thank you.
Excellent video. Thank you. There is much more information here than I have previously read or heard. Another good reason for being a Patron🙂. Cheers from NZ.
Indeed, but the story starts in Germany, Napier licensed the amazing technology from Jumo in Germany.
The Gegenkolbenmotor was invented by Wilhelm von Oechelhauser and junior partner Hugo Junkers in 1892.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 That issue was covered. Thank you for the additional detail. Improvements constitute the majority of useful patents, according to my understanding,
@@michaelguerin56 It was barely mentioned and gave the false impression that the Deltic was based on British engineering technology.
The Deltic is a German Jumo engine design sold to Napier, a variation of the 24 cylinder Jumo 223/224.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 I assert, with all due respect, that you need to pay closer attention to the video. In addition, it is a short video. The author introduces viewers to various subjects, whilst providing sufficient reference points to enable further individual research. That is what I see, across the range of Visio Racer videos.
@@michaelguerin56 Both the Title and the thumbnail are particularly egregious misrepresentations...
Beautiful 2 stroke diesel engines. They are very interesting. I made a video in 3D about a week ago in my channel.
mercury marine should come out with a mini deltic 2 stroke optimax outboards. The v6 3.2L stroker 300XS is 60 deg block and 3160 cc 193 CID each. Now this could be used to form a 579 CID mini deltic optimax with all the proper gearing for each crankshaft. that would be sick!
The legendary Napier Deltic diesel masterpiece....once heard never forgotten.
Absolutely brilliant German technology
This is why I love this channel!
my cat loves u too! 🐱♥️♥️♥️
@@fidelcatsro6948 My Mercury Submersible MotoGP Superbike loves you too beautiful! 🙃🙃🙃🙃
@@rm6330 just make sure its not carbon fiber we dont want another unnecessary implosion..
@@fidelcatsro6948 🐶
great video very interesting they sound fantastic and a brilliant bit of engineering 👍👍
Excellent job, great vid! : )
Excellent overview.
Almost no mention of Jumo who invented, developed and licensed this technology to Napier... German technology made in the UK.
Fascinating video, thanks 🙏.
Again a brilliant video with rare images. The double piston concept is not able to meet emission regulations of today. The geometry of the combustion chambers are given by the shape of the pistons. Possibly one could improve them . . . . if there were somebody crazy enough. ;)
The shape of the combustion chamber???
It's a Diesel... did you miss that part?
@@sandervanderkammen9230 No, I didn´t. The combustion chamber of a diesel has got a different shape, than a gasoline engine where the spark plug starts a fire and the flame front should spread evenly. Depending on the number of injector nozzles the optimal diesel combustion chamber meets the shape of the spraying diesel. This is difficult to achieve when there are two pistons and a cylinder, building the part of the combustion chamber. The only chance to inject the diesel is from the wall side of the cylinder - causing bad exhaust gas. We are working on large ships diesel engines with more than one injectors, depending on the size of the motor. It is extremely important to distribute the fuel precisly in order to get those very high efficiencies. And - coming along the efficiency - you don´t see any smoke at the exhauster.
I can remember the Deltic diesel exhaust haze at Kings Cross station in London in the 1970s!. One other point regarding Napier that is interesting, the businessman and early racing driver S F Edge had Napier make his record-breaking cars for him. Their works was at York Road near Waterloo Station in London and built him the Napier Six. It is said the car was painted with leftover paint from painting the works- a shade of green that was subsequently named "British Racing Green."
another great video .
Great vid - thanks!
These engines were fitted to Ton Class MCMVs in the through until the 80's. Used to make lots of smoke, and often suffered from cracked cylinder liners forcing combustion gases into the coolant header tank. We had several starboard engines fail in a row. Got so good at swapping them out, we could exchange an engine in a weekend and back on patrol.
Railway engines (prime movers in North American railway terminology) have a vide range of application: locomotives, marine, stationary power generation, mining, etc. EMD, GE Transportation (now under a Wabtec ownership) are selling them for aforementioned use. EMD 567, 645 & 710 (their number indicates per cylinder displacement in cubic inches, all two-stroke) GE Evo engines. Even Alco 251 series are still being used to this day.
Uniflow Diesel engines were invented by in Germany.
The _Gegenkolbenmotor_ was invented by Wilhelm von Oechelhauser and junior partner Hugo Junkers and later adapted to Diesel Cycle operation.
American Alexander Winton licensed the technology and formed the Winton Engine Company and sold it to General Motors, his designs have been sold under the Winton, EMD, Detroit, General Motors and Kassboerer brands.
Wow,what a beast! Sounds like a hundred Commer lorries revving in unison!
Unfortunately the video has long gone, but there was one of the prototype Commer TS4 engines on a test bed revving its heart out. Sounded absolutely glorious.
Pity,that's something I'd have loved to have heard!
@@stevepage2541 Blame GM for that.
The TS3 & successor TS4 were all trashed by GM. Theories suggest that its much more efficient than their own Detroit Diesels and due to its small size, can fit on trucks smaller than the commercial ones.
The DD and the TS3 & TS4 has functionally the same uniflow pattern yet the TS3 is much more efficient as the combustion is extracted by 2 pistons opposing each other compared to a DD using valves and 1 piston. TS3 is cheaper to make as there is no poppet valves or camshafts to deal with.
A work of art
Beautiful German engineering art... manufactured in Britain
Fantastic video.
Great content
During the late 80s and early 90s I lost count how many times I did the Kings Lynn to Liverpool Street route pre electrification and pulled by Deltic equipped locos!🙂🥰
87.9L supercharged diesel. That would lay down the power.
Beautiful engine what a piece of engineering and that sound .
Fantastic German engineering technology... manufactured in Britain.
Brilliant video
Good video, thanks.
wonderful.....thank you so much
Fairbanks-Morse (1) in the US who had purchased a license to build Junkers opposed diesels designed a 24 cylinder diamond layout 2 stroke diesel. It was under development for the US Navy during WWII but was abbandonded when the war ended. As usual see Old Machine Press.
1) F-M built diesels for diesel electric subs along with their own diesel locomotives.
In the class 55 the train heating boiler was located between the two Deltic engines. The noise experienced by a second man having at enter the engin room to attend the boiler while running must have been incredible.
That last Boss evolution . . . 👌😳👍.What a beast !
Reminds me of the Russian Svezda that I think he already covered on a video.
Sounds like a couple of 8V92 Detroits working in unison.
Detroit 16V92...
*The **_Gegenkolbenmotor_** (opposed-piston engine) was invented by Wilhelm von Oechelhauser and junior partner Hugo Junkers, patented on July 8th, 1892.*
@@retiredbore378That's very unlikely as Eugene Brille purchased a Lohner-Porsche in 1899...it was the world's first hybrid electric automobile and was powered by an Oechelhauser Gegenkolbenmotor (opposed piston engine)
Lovely loot from 1945 handed to UK industry in order to cripple its development during the 1950's. Way too many doomed ideas from Germania experimented with in the UK long after they had been abandoned by the master race.
One thing Napier never shied away from was complexity.
Or buying thier designs from someone else...
@@sandervanderkammen9230
Consider that BMW got their start in radials building P&W Wasps under license. Wright sold licenses to multiple engine builders and nations including the USSR and Japan. As did the British builders and the French. Plus a lot of aircraft builders shamelessly used airfoil profiles developed by the US's NACA.
@@mpetersen6 _Fredreich Renttschler_ didn't found Pratt & Whitney until 1925... many years after BMW became famous for _In-line_ engines...
@@sandervanderkammen9230
I know that. I was merely pointing out the BMWs started on radials by building Wasps under license. Plus BMW along with the Italians stuck with seperate cylinder inlines long after cast block engines became not just cutting edge but pretty much standard.
that noise ! the deltic roar
The sound of German design technology
i worked at paxman diesels 70 to 83 assymbling these, very interesting
You should include the engine torque ratings again like you used too if possible, great video btw
Like aircraft engines and tanks, locomotives Diesel engines are only rated in Horsepower... torque is an irrelevant unit of measurement in these applications.
@@sandervanderkammen9230why is that irrelevant?
@@eefjuh5533 Because horsepower is the only metric that determines the top speed and the actual amount of work the engine can produce, torque does not tell us this critical data.
If you get the chance visit York (UK) rail museum .., as I remember there is both a train & an engine on display ...
I always dreamed of scaling this down to a single cylinder, 2 pistons and cranks, about 1000 cc on a 5 speed box and put it in a motorbike.
Somebody started that project 30 yrs ago but it 'disappeared' , suspiciously..
The first hybrid car, the Lohner-Porsche had one... the Oechelhauser Gegenkolbenmotor was originally just a single cylinder.
Hugo Junkers developed it into a multi cylinder engine
I grew up with the sound of those diesel-electric trains. I love that sound.
Now we need murcury outboard mini deltic 2 stroke outboards for the the racing boats!
Miss the sounds and smells of the old engines on trains
Does anyone know where I can find more of the B&W footage from around 0:55s?? I have been hunting for that footage for years..!!!
Maybe you could do a vid on Steve Morris engines. He mills his engines/heads from a billet of aluminum. He has several lines of engines that he sells. He also races them himself.
My brother and his mate both bus drivers seemed to have a thing about the Delicts they went to see the last one coming through our town , to me it's just a train .
Amazing 2t diesel
These also have been used in ships for the military . The junkers jumo was of the same concept with just 2 cranks and opposed pistons for aircraft and was successful .
Jumo designed a 3 bank and a 4 bank version.
you know only Britain has a mach1 car ? 26yrs later...
The British mcmurty sterling fan car pulling 7sec quarters..
we didnt peak in the 50's !
Jesus, no matter the size a two stroke screamer still all sound similar!
7:39 It would be really interesting to put the nine cylinder variant in a road truck, like a old Peterbilt or Kenworth cab over with a sleeper and gut the sleeper to house the engine. Or just go to all out and put the full-size version in a old ugly Mack truck or modify a bus because it’s going to take up a lot of real estate. You’re going to need a front axle that can withstand all of it. Either way it would be awesome to go terrorize the roads with
It is important to mention that Junkers also tried similar engines, one with 4 sides, the Jumo 224
Jumo developed both 3 bank and 4 bank versions.
Awesome buddy 😎🤠🤠 too good..... greetings from India 🤘🤘 3:21 🎉🎉
India has the WDP4 and WDG4 locomotives (of USA origin) that have 16 cylinder 2 stroke engines of well over 4000 horsepower that sound nearly as good as a Deltic. If you are in another country you can listen to them on TH-cam, ideally with a good pair of headphones.
@VisioRacer You should also check out the characterful Paxman/Valenta engine used on the famous HSTs. Hear them scream on a heavy pull!
I see you used some of my footage from my sister channel 'freightlocos'
the animation you showed is wrong, one of the cylinder banks has wrong layout of exhaust and intake.
It's my favourite loco and engine
One of the most interesting sounding engines, no wonder everyone wants to see one running in person. However I wouldn't want to catch a whiff of those exhaust fumes though.
The Bedford TM artic tractor had a two stroke GM diesel engine decades ago.