Skip to main content

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad

Efficiency and Horsepower Calculation of a Locomotive (Engr110, Winter 2014)

The Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad operates a one-third scale railroad with both steam and diesel locomotives as well as an antique from the early 1900s...

Students: Aram Garibyan, Siosiua Faleta

Advisor: Geetha Arun

The Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad operates a one-third scale railroad with both steam and diesel locomotives as well as an antique from the early 1900s.  The locomotives at Billy Jones have manuals of information regarding external and internal specifications. Since Billy Jones does not have information about how efficient their locomotives are, or how much horsepower/power they produce, the students were asked to calculate those unknown specifications. Using estimated and calculated elements, such as mean effective pressure, RPM, length of stroke, area of piston, students were able to calculate the horsepower of the locomotive.