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Old 11-May-2008, 03:25 AM
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Trebuchet Trebuchet is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: The great NorthWet
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mugaliens View Post
And where is Trebuchet when you need him...
Out of town, and off line, for a couple of days.

The method of getting the car up to 88 mph in BTTF3 always bothered me a bit. Throw some explosives in the firebox? Surely the loco could have developed enough steam pressure to blow the boiler without any supplemental fuel, if you let it. It could probably have done 88 mph on it's normal supply of cordwood, given straight enough and smooth enough track, which is somewhat doubtful.

I've got my doubts about the counterweight method however. You either have to have enough weight to accelerate the loco to 88 in just the height of the canyon wall, with a 1:1 pull, or you need to use a pulley system to give the loco more running room and a massively larger weight. Probably several hundred thousand pounds. Hmm, must do some math one of these days.
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