Last news
Thanks for your words of encouragement!
8/26/98:
I've been offlined for some weeks by a cooked 2.5 gigabytes hard drive, the usual time consuming and headache generating disaster. I now hope to be able to update the site regularly once a week. This also explain why I'm late with links page update and mail too... Really sorry!
9/7/98:
Things getting quieter now. Added 1 famous link, tech. data for the
4 8 0 (both versions), a picture of first Chapelon single expansion 141
E 113 MIKADO, a few data and bibliography on the André Chapelon
page. And, I hope, "cleaned up" a few things. Comments or inquires always
welcome!
A French proverb says that it's better late than never, but I really hoped to have more time to steal to food work. First a personal message: Could Mr. David STEPHENSON who sent me an E-Mail send again his E-Mail address?? Apologies, Mr. Stephenson, I killed your mail during a reinstallation of my mail software. This time, I added the last heads of chapter on the Chapelon's page and completed some already present. Added (and corrected) figures to the existing paragraphs of the tech. data page (there are now tractive effort values for some engines, the figure for the 160 A 1 being on the Chapelon page), started description of the 242 A 1, and set up the plan of the PACIFICS. Also added two drawings of the 155 mph ten wheels project to the photo gallery, also photos. of other engines inspired by Chapelon's works to another French railroad company. I wish you a nice visit!
Advanced technical paragraph about 160 A 1, added the last and most important remark in the note about separately adjustable valve gears (forgotten in previous release), added various hi-res. technical drawings in .gif format (load quickly!), started display of Mallet's and du Bousquet's locomotives in the pictures gallery, also began to add a gallery of other historically significant French compounds as well as a general French engines gallery. Work on the site isn't going as fast as I would, but the task is really impressive because of the scattering of most data, and also because of their quantity. And I've no archivist to help!!
The beginnings of the KylChap technical
page. May be another update in a few days. Apologies, late with mail, but
as questions are very interesting, answers are often long and hard to write
with my poor english. But THEY WILL COME!
Added promised hi-res. scans of the Kylchap drawings.
Changed photos in the 242 A 1 gallery, and corrected a few mistakes in texts of André Chapelon page. Also added 2 photos. of 141 P series
11/17/98
Corrected one horrible misspelling... Thanks, Mr. Stephenson! Also
some others spelling corrections and minor text changes in Chapelon page.
Added photos in the general french engines
gallery.
Added to the KylChap page a graph showing compared efficiencies (vacuum
vs. exhaust steam back pressure) of almost every existing blasting devices,
including plots made on a few foreign (U.S. & others) engines. Added
a few things about 160 A 1 and 242 A 1 in the technical data page (original
compound starting devices used), water consumption of 160 A 1 and
242 A 1, added previously forgotten details about the triple expansion
configuration planned by Chapelon in there.
12/7/98
Added compared indicator diagrams of 141 E 113 vs. those of the original
machine in the tech. data page, also
a photo of an original engine of the same type.
I had the honor to be contacted via E-Mail by a member of the Chapelon family, Mr. Ollagnon, whose André Chapelon was the great uncle; He has given to me in his first mail a precision about the date of arrival of the great grand father of Chapelon in France, soon rectified in the biography. Many thanks to him of course, and to Hugh Odom, Dave Stephenson and Alan Williams for their translation and rewriting help and suggestions. This month, as it appear to be the "natural" site update period, the beginning of the typically French accessories page, a first audio record, new photos of NORD's RailRoad "SUPERPACIFICS", new links and comments added in the other links page, a may be important addition to the intentions, and a few novelties I think you'll discover by yourself, beginning with reduced .JPG files size without lowered photo size, (just let me know if quality has suffered too much) giving faster image loading.
1/12/2000
Just coming back! 'Hope I'll resist a few time now (joke). As you may already know, I was offline during nearly 10 month because of health reasons further complicated by the complete degeneration of our world (in)famous social protection system. It's war.
Many thanks to all for supporting me!
The mails I received from you were a great pleasure once printed by my muse!
Answers pending!
I've been able to start something during this otherwise bad time, that is the translation of "La locomotive à vapeur", 1952. Paper and pencil are great. I plan to distribute it - after professional rewriting - on a CD-ROM in hypertext, including a complete scan of the "french paper" version. Only 120 pages done (about 800 left!) at the moment. To follow...
Hope you'll like the few additions of this release.
Added: Tech. info about the S.E. Mikado of 1946, an as short as possible description of the numbering systems used in France during the period of interest for this site, a painting of 231-726 by E.A. Scheffer, a new series of locomotive introduced in the gallery. It includes a color photo of a Paris to Orleans R.R. PACIFIC showing the livery used by this company. Some new pictures in the existing galleries - SOME "big Mallets" added - Also some new links.
Sincerely glad to be back with you, dear fellows worldwide steam nuts!
As I've not recovered completely at the moment, apologies in advance
for any (temporarily) dead link or missing data. I'm tired!!
Getting better. Enhanced audio page now three
good records in MP3 format (two Chapelon's Pacifics, one 4 8 2,
S.N.C.F.'s 241 P series), thanks to some upgrade of the software installed
on my computer. Also added two details about numbering systems. Hope this
annoying page will help you to have a better readability of any text and
photo related to French steam.
03/16/2000
Started the long planned "Compound: Why
& How" page, with a text written by Chapelon, extract of a conference
he held in the university of Paris - la Sorbonne in 1933. Completed the
tech. data about 141 E 113. Added a short paragraph
about Chapelon summarizing perfectly I believe the exact importance
and quality of his works, extracted from a book written by T.J Van Riemsdijk.
Ended technical description of S.E. MIKADO
141 E 113, and currently working hard on the translation of "La locomotive..."
as well as completing the translation of the conference of 1933, also on
a poll page to allow to tell me easily what kind
of material you would like to be added first to the site (the poll page
will be added within a few days) , preparing to move the site to another
server offering unlimited space as it becomes tight here (you'll be warned
of the availability of the other server by a Javascript dialog box.. and
the site at Tripod will remain open for an indefinite period) without forgetting
late mail! Just a detail: I'm not sure you'll be able to download the MP3
files introduced on the audio page, as this kind of files is stupidly banned
from most servers regardless of their contents! It could be the last hit
from one ex-Spice Girl hidden on a steam related site, who knows!! Some
new photos of Chapelon's PACIFICS (P.O. and Nord versions), 240 P, Du Bousquet's
and Mallet's engines .... Have a pleasant visit!
Some news. The first is that I've just bought the domain name CHAPELON.NET (someone else has bought chapelon.com, don't know for which use, but I'll ask ); It was the smallest tribute possible that I could return to this great man whose name has never been honoured in his own country; Every major town of France has a Carnot street or avenue or school, the same applies to many engineers and scientists, but NO Chapelon school or street ANYWHERE. At least, a domain name will now greet his name! I'll warn you via this page when the redirection of the URL will be active.
Continued Chapelon's conference of 1933, added the figures missing in the first release. Note that the images can't all be enlarged as there is not enough space available on my Tripod account for me to upload all the files; For the same reason, the audio page is temporarly unavailable. I've opened a free account at XOOM which offer unlimited space, but the servers of this I.S.P. seems to suffer from some twists currently. The 50 megs. associated to my primary accout (free.fr) are praticaly unavailable because the average transfer rate appear to be of about 120 bytes/sec., much too slow to be used. If anyone can suggest a good free accounts provider offering more than the 12 Mo. available on Tripod's account, the suggestion will be welcome.
I've also started a page containing some correspondence of A.C. with colleagues, friends and historians of French railways with a short but fun comparison of steam vs. eletrical railroads.
The translation of "La locomotive ...." advances also, as well as late mail. Many thanks to those leaving these nice comments on the guestbook, they do encourage and sustain me a lot!
As usual, some new photos, and the visitors poll page is available. Also, I've added a page related to live steam models of french locomotives, and the first introduced locomotive is not the least one; Bravo encore, Neil!! Some links added on the international steam links page, also on the other links page.
To the next update. Stay tuned. Thanks a lot for visiting this site.
Very recently back online, I open this (not so) new version of the site
because I've been warned of the brusque and incomprehensible cancellation
of my account at Tripod, "....This Tripod member has been removed because
they violated our Terms of Service.", says my member login page. I really
don't see what they mean and send them an email.
I hope that you'll enjoy the continuation of Chapelon's conference,
as well as the tech. data about the locomotives of the G.E.L.S.A.
as much as I enjoy to be able to update the site! There are also some other
novelties that I prefer let you discover by yourself... And I hope, more
to come if my accounts are not systematically canceled!!!
Hi! This time, a minor update concerning mainly the steam links page, Chapelon's conference, the audio files. Some minor fixes (broken links & missing thumbnails). A more important new is that, awaiting the completion of "La locomotive à vapeur" - in a never previously published version - my first E-Book, "The high speed and high power French steam locomotives", written by L.M. Vilain in 1959 is now available; Click HERE for more information. Following numerous requests, currently preparing some pages summarizing Chapelon's exhausts design theory among other.
Thanks for your interrest to this site. Very sincere thanks to the authors of the very nice messages left in the guestbook; I try to reply to everyone as time permits.
8/20/2001
To keep on that e-mail matter, I wish to present my very sincere apologies
to all of you who are waiting for an answer to thier mails; Be sure that,
soon or late, the answer will come.