Busch Gardens Railway
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These aren't actual original trains though right? So maybe some special alterations could be done that would have a similar effect of giving the train more force or whatever it needs.
And considering the current thought is each train after Balmoral Castle is going to get extensive overhauls anyways...
Yes, they're original steam trains manufactured by Crown Metal Products, which is now defunct.
Alpen Express (Green) is Crown #17 built in 1972
Der Hochbeinige (Red) Crown #228 built in 1974
Balmoral Castle (Blue) Crown #661 built in 1974
In my limited knowledge I suspect the "major" of major overhaul would be boiler replacement/rebuild.
I highly doubt it. The engine is what it is. The best you could expect is to bring them up to specs.
Generally speaking, no. Reducing the size of the drive wheels or changing the length of the piston stroke would have some mechanical effect but I don't believe either of these are realistic nor a priority for the park.
The last option would be to change the operating boiler pressure but given my limited knowledge of these things, that would be prohibitively expensive and require the whole thing to be redesigned from the ground up.
I should say that much of this is from my basic college level understanding of mechanical engineering and thermodynamics, and not experience with steam engines.
Well, we could always see if Doc Brown is available....
I feel like if they are going through with a complete rebuild/upgrade in an effort to modernize the engines it seems like they should be able to do some of the things you listed. This is not my area of expertise though.
It’s not about the power the train puts out, rather the wheel size. They all use the same broiler, fire box, frame, and cylinders; but Balmoral and Der Hochbeinige have larger drive and pilot wheels. This allows them to start from a dead stop in Festhaus Park without causing their wheels to lose traction and start spinning, like Alpen Express would do.
It's too bad my old article on the subject is gone. It would have solved. Lot of these questions.
I got a friend who’s a big train enthusiast who I should be going to the park with next weekend. He promises to tell me as much as possible about them when we visit.
The entire blue train is getting detailed and throughly cleaned today. Although I havent heard when it should be in operation this should mean its very soon.
I know they were testing it last week at night. I'm so looking forward to seeing her running again!
Yep. Balmoral made a loop this morning and was back on the maintenance track just after 11 am. ?
So much for that...
I was here at opening and only saw the green train going around. But I wasn’t at the Caribou station till about 11:20 but it was parked by then.
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