Stuttegardt Concept

A Lone Islands shunting locomotive, specially built for light slipway duties in Calida Portum, featuring most outstandingly a fully rigged counter-pressure braking system.  "Dynamic Braking" for steam locomotives.  This being, that when the regulator has been closed and the counterpressure valve open, the cylinders of the engine become the same in function as the cylinders of an air or gas compressor.  Cooling water is injected into the cylinders and evaporated into steam by the working heat of piston friction and gas compression, air is intaked from the atmosphere through secondary chimneys adjascent the funnel through the exhaust valve ports of the pistonvalves, and the mixture of steam and air that they compress due to the braking of the engine's motion is fed into the otherwise conventional brake cylinders to apply the brake blocks upon the driving wheels.  The wheels are therefore braked by a shared stopping force between the brake blocks and the rods of the locomotive, reducing wear on both, conserving tyre-profiling via reduced brakeshoe application, and conserving steam and energy that would otherwise be spent operating a steam powered routing valve, ejector or compressor to operate the brakes. 



In later years, many locomotives on both the long inclined plane of the slipway, on long hill-railways, lines with steep inclines, or exceptionally fast and developed steam locomotives, would come to use this innovative system of dynamic braking.  

The counter-pressure braking system is not to be confused with the counter-steam method of braking a locomotive, which involves simply reversing the valve timing while moving in one direction.  This practice can overtime cause damage to the valve spindles of slide-valve engines, and can completely destroy the valve and pistonrings of piston-valve locomotives.  It will also most assuredly have the capacity to destroy the exhaust poppet valve spindles and follower cams of poppet valvegear of any type.  

For a friend.