Assume for a minute that it would be possible to create an internal combustion inside a steam chest. We all know that the spark plugs in a car or other vehicle create mini explosions when the gasoline enters the chamber forcing the pistons down to turn the crankshaft.
Who's to say that the same principle could not be accomplished with a steam locomotive? One factor that would need to be figured out is how to rebuild the steam chest and the pistons or cylinders to accomodate such an explosion...how large would this explosion have to be just to move the main rods even a fraction of an inch let alone, how may explosions in succession would there have to be CONSTANTLY to generate enough power to move a sizable locomotive down the rails at main line speeds? When you take into consideration the premise and relative similarities between a steam locomotives running gear and inner workings of an internal combustion engine, they aren't that entirely dissimilar. Take for instance the screws on an ocean liner or naval vessel. Granted they are much larger in scale but they all pretty much server the same purpose and generally operate and behave in the same manner.
Has anyone ever thought of restoring a steam locomotive using this type of propulsion if you will? Yeah, okay you lose the nostalgia, the charm, the life and soul of the engine and everything else that people have grown to love about a true steam engine and it gets completely blown out the window because she doesn't behave like a normal engine would, but has such a concept ever been realized or at least considered?

I LOVE out of the box ideas.......

but i have some reservations about the practicality of this one.

Sure, both steam and IC engines, like the legislative branch, operate on the basis of expanding hot gases. Anybody who has ever worked on both knows how different they are apart from that basic principle. If you were to put a spark plug into the steam chest and ignite a vapor of gasoline the probable result would be to lift the whole valve off its seats and make a loud noise. Movement? I don't think so.........

Technical issues aside, if one wants to move steam locomotives with an IC engine, the most economically viable solution is to couple it to one and shove it. I have seen some steam locomotives retrofit with IC engines using chain drives or such to join the transmissions to the axles, and many amusemant parks have IC engines covered in sheet metal that look like steam. If retrofitting steam cylinders with spark plugs were a better way to accomplish it, it would be done.

dave

That would seem to be the logical progression from steam, compressed air et c. where the pressure is provided from a source outside of the cylinder. In fact, I believe that you have just described the workings of some of the early direct drive diesel experiments.

GME

There were at least a couple of VERY early diesel locomotives built along this concept. The Russians fooled around with some in the 1950's as well. The main problem with this concept is the engine can't be self-starting; you have to start the locomotive moving with compressed air or steam and then switch it over to internal combustion. You wind up with all the disadvantages of traditional steam (low tractive effort compared to engine weight, high maintenance, difficulty in balancing the running gear) and none of the advantages (use of low cost fuel, simple technology). It's not hard to see why this concept never made it past the prototype stage.

If you go to an antique gas and steam museum you will likely see a bunch of old single cylinder stationary steam engines originally configured to run on steam, and then converted around the 1940's era to burn diesel or kerosene, so it shouldn't be theoretically impossible. But why would you do that steam is so much nicer.

Adam

I've forgotten the builder's name, but I read a description of a British engine from around 1930 that had a transverse 8-cylinder engine with two opposed banks of 4 cylinders, one Diesel, the other steam. The locomotive was a high-mounted 2-8-0 with the engine under the boiler, driving the wheels through a jackshaft. This thing would start its train on steam, and then convert to Diesel operation above a certain speed. Then the boiler would raise steam for the next start. It was said to have been used in local freight service for a few years.

This idea combined the high maintenance cost and poor train-starting characteristics of steam with the benefits of . . . uuh, well, I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.

If you go to the Henry Ford, you can walk into a house-sized "gasteam" engine, one of nine installed in the Ford Highland Park Plant power plant in 1910. This reciprocating engine had two pairs of tandem cylinders, one steam and other IC (natural gas?) for use according to whether gas or boiler fuel was cheaper.

I've never heard of a steam cylinder being converted to gas operation. Converting an IC engine to steam is fairly easy, but usually inelegant. I've seen a Ford Falcon (next to the 2-6-0 at the CCCA museum at Hickory Corners, Michigan) with its 6-cylinder engine sawn off at the base of the cylinders, and 3 old-fashioned D-valve cylinders grafted on, with the unused crank throws operating the valve eccentrics. A much classier conversion was sold by the Skinner Engine Co., in which EMD 567's were converted to Unaflow steam engines, exploiting the similarity between a 2-stroke Diesel and the single-acting Unaflow.

The Kitson-Still Steam/Diesel Hybrid Locomotive:

http://www.lner.info/locos/IC/kitson.shtml

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/L ... tsonst.htm

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/P ... /still.htm

The Russian attempts:

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/L ... ssrefr.htm

Also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_dies ... locomotive

My favorite "steam to IC" project was in the arid reaches of the Mojave Desert; it is documented in David Myrick's Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California, Vol. 2. Ludlow & Southern #2, a pre-1900 4-6-0 hand-me-down from New York Central, which the shop forces started to modify in the 1920's:
"---the cylinders, boiler and cab were removed from the running gear, and an attempt was made to improvise a homemade drive from a Holt tractor. The job was never finished, so historians can only speculate as to what type of superstructure was envisioned for this monstrosity."
The photo on P. 834 shows the locomotive as it was in the 1930's; the most obvious missing element is a sprocket chain to the output shaft of the engine. Holt was an ancestor of Caterpillar and the output shaft appeared to be connected to a turning clutch, so one would presume there's another sprocket on the other side. Finding sprockets that would fit on one of the driver axles may have been the challenge that put the project "on hold" (as it turned out, forever). It would certainly be a conversation piece if a modeler decided to take this job to completion (I think there are "G" scale versions of Holt tractors)--show up at the Large Scale club and get a big "what the heck is THAT???" reaction.