Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

bangshift.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 127 posts

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#41

Post by jabl »

topspin wrote: post #38
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #25

This thing feels like a mortal danger to the (up to 8x!) iron pipes / hydrants it's pulling from, that it'd want to just chew up the very pipes themselves! Or to the building it's hurling 37 tons of water a minute at! I don't understand how a connector hose wouldn't collapse, how it maintains any cross-section rather than being sucked into collapse. Also wondering: what replaced this! (Ed: great reply from Mindcrime.…

> Also wondering: what replaced this! A collection of smaller pumps and monitors, which is likely a better scheme, in terms of flexibility and fault tolerance. While a remarkable design, the single pump with long hoses to multiple hydrants, then radiating to multiple monitors, is a system that takes great coordination and precious time to deploy and rework in action. The Napier Deltic engine is the party piece in all…

I believe most contemporary marine two stroke diesels use electrical blowers for scavenging at low speeds. At higher speed the turbocharger spins up and takes over, and the electric blowers are shut down.

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#42

Post by jcgrillo »

jacquesm wrote: post #9
ggm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The type 55 "deltic" locomotives, named after army regiments used to do the east coast Edinburgh-London train run, there were 22 of them in service and one in the science museum London. They had the first 100mph rating for diesel passenger service. The engine had a unique characteristic whine or whistle. As an avid train spotter at Waverley station in edinburgh I loved hearing it, saw every one and was in the cab of…

Those are amazing engines. It's a pity that in the future we'll just be using magnets and coils, there something about these designs that moves me in a way that nothing electrical ever will. And I'm a great fan of renewable energy, and realize that the pollution that has been created (and is still being created) is absolutely unsustainable.

There are people working on internal combustion engines with a very similar design currently, for many applications (military, trucking, etc) diesel or diesel electric is the only realistic option for the foreseeable future: https://achatespower.com/

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#43

Post by jabl »

hydrogen7800 wrote: post #24
giobox wrote: post #3

That "deltic" engine just for the water pumping is incredible, I'd never seen that cylinder layout before. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Deltic

Piston engines got pretty wild before turbines eventually took over the world. The most efficient ones were more efficient than today's turbines in terms of BSFC[0]. One of the most interesting to me was the Napier Nomad[1], which used turbo- and super-charging. However, the turbo had secondary fuel injection and effectively ran as a turbine to drive the compressor. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fu…

Napier Nomad is one of my favorite engine designs. More info at https://oldmachinepress.com/2019/08/05/napier-nomad-compound...

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#44

Post by mindcrime »

michaelt wrote: post #39
citizenkeen wrote: post #13

Something the article doesn’t mention is why this was phased out. Was it replaced with something similar?

The article says the "super pumper" could supply 8,800 gallons per minute, and it came with three "satellite trucks [...] not burdened with a pump of their own" Your basic modern fire pump unit can pump 2,200 gallons per minute (if you can find a water source that'll give you that much) and it'd typically have a crew of 4-5 firefighters on board. So you'd probably replace it with 4 regular fire trucks? Then you've go…

(if you can find a water source that'll give you that much)

Note that, for what it's worth, fire pumps are generally rated for their capacity when drafting from a static water supply (think, pond, lake, river, etc). Basically all modern fire pumps can easily exceed their rated capacity by a pretty good margin when pumping from a pressurized source, but then you're back to your point of "do you have a source that can supply that?" Still, there are ways. In my firefighting days we had some hydrants in our district (the ones on the big 30" main that ran right down the middle of the county in particular) that could individually supply 2000gpm. And nothing says you are restricted to using one hydrant! There are also all sorts of complex water supply evolutions one can run, involving relay pumping with multiple engines, drafting and using hydrants, etc.

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#46

Post by jcgrillo »

Indirectly related, for anyone interested in the topic, Pirault and Flint's Opposed Piston Engines[1] is a nice survey. Unfortunately it seems to be commanding a shocking price these days though.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/-/he/Martin-Flint/dp/0768018005

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#47

Post by joemi »

> During a fire in the Bronx, firemen laid 7,000ft of hose to get to a suitable water supply and the truck pumped as though it was dipping its feet into the ocean.

"7000 ft" sounds wrong to me. That's over a mile of hose. Feels like that's unnecessarily long. I'd love to learn more about this. Anyone know when or what fire this was?

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#48

Post by potato3732842 »

7402 wrote: post #45

Anyone else struck by this bit? Mack was awarded the contract to build the truck in 1964 and by the end of the year, the unit was nearly ready to hit the streets of NYC. Seems amazingly fast by current standards. Those were the days!

Think about all the processes they just didn't have to do back then.

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#49

Post by maxerickson »

joemi wrote: post #47

> During a fire in the Bronx, firemen laid 7,000ft of hose to get to a suitable water supply and the truck pumped as though it was dipping its feet into the ocean. "7000 ft" sounds wrong to me. That's over a mile of hose. Feels like that's unnecessarily long. I'd love to learn more about this. Anyone know when or what fire this was?

It could draw from 8 hydrants. So average of 900 feet in that case.

Which still seems like a lot, but not so incredible.

Re: The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)

#50

Post by garbagewoman »

potato3732842 wrote: post #48
7402 wrote: post #45

Anyone else struck by this bit? Mack was awarded the contract to build the truck in 1964 and by the end of the year, the unit was nearly ready to hit the streets of NYC. Seems amazingly fast by current standards. Those were the days!

Think about all the processes they just didn't have to do back then.

just less massive amounts of waste, fraud and corruption
Post reply on HN