I'm curious how many operations out there either are burning, or have tried burning, waste/residual oil for steam locomotives and how it has actually worked out in practice.

I've heard that preheaters are usually necessary but wonder about the effectiveness; curious about methods for startup firing, what standards/filtering are used for the fuel (if any), and what if any 'surprises' have been hit when attempted.

Back in the 80's and 90's the W&W ran two oil burners that used all kinds of stuff. Used motor oil seemed to burn pretty well with nothing more than a little heat. We also burned tank bottoms from a tank clean-out company that we cut with used motor oil. That stuff needed to be heated pretty well or it would not burn and it never really burned great but did manage to make steam. A few time we used diesel which burned like a dream.

Yes - under many circumstances.

Never found preheating necessary, although if using waste heavy industrial oil rather than crankcase drainings in cold weather it might be necessary. Qiality and contaminants vary widely. Consider adding a water seperator at the tank sump and draining it off frequently.

Variations in quality require a very simple and forgiving burner - I've had very good fortune with the usual Van Boden flamethrower. Fire up on compressed air.

Zap me a PM if you want more details.

dave

Never had any issues with "clean" recycled oil. In extremely cold conditions it was harder to flow but in one case whatever we were using was eating the firebrick like candy. Burns great though and I prefer it to diesel anytime.

I noticed they refueled SP 4449 with reclaimed oil in Milwaukee but did not ask what type. I assumed fry oil, is that too light?

We burn recycled motor oil with great success. We don't preheat and it's quite viscous at most any temp we run in. Ours is strained and cleaned so we don't get funny colors out the stack. Our latest cost was $1.05 a gallon.

Recycled (and centrifuged and coarsly filtered) oil burns well in a standard steam locomotive burner. Non-flammable fireproof hydraulic "oil" (a favorite for shipboard and military use) and antifreeze feel oily, but don't burn. The trick is finding a recycler who delivers cleaned recycled oil, not an admixture with significant amounts of non-flammable crud. Our latest delivery is good stuff indeed, cost roughly $1.20/gallon including delivery.

- Doug Debs

We used recycled motor oil on the 148 at both Black River and later on the M&E. The only real problem we had was that sometimes there was water in the oil, apparently very common with used oil from gas stations. It became SOP at Black River to see what was in the tank, and drain the water off the bottom, before lighting a fire. We didn't have to heat it, and in fact heating it would have gotten more water into the fuel, as the tank heater was leaky.

However, when that engine came up from US Sugar (forgive me if I've told this story before-), the tank was filled with Bunker C. Not a problem for US Sugar, as they had process steam available. But at Black River, we had to build a wood fire with pallets, old tie ends, just about anything that would burn, to get up to about 40 PSI. Then we could use the tank heater, sparingly, and switch over to oil. Once the Bunker C was gone or well diluted with drain oil, we could fire up on just oil.

I remember one of the older guys saying that he had calculated that the 148 used about four gallons per mile. Of course, I was just a kid then, and didn't ask if that included firing up in the morning, sitting in the station, with how many cars, etc. Still an interesting number, and I think they were paying less than a dime a gallon then. (Regular gas was 22.9, and I could run my VW for a week on $2.00, so a dime a gallon didn't seem too bad for steam locomotive fuel-)

EDM
STP, New Jersey

some oil recyclers will cook the oil (heat) to drive out the water then run it through a centrifuge to remove the metals and cigarette butts. What doesn't change though is the high sulphur content.

My understanding is that waste motor oil has heavy metal contamination, from the babbitt in an engine's bearings. Whether you want to deal with the environmental issues of that today, is up to you.

But I have heard stories of, "back in the day"... railway museums driving over hill and dale to collect 1 gallon here, 1 gallon there of used motor oil...

... right PAST restaurants with 10 gallons here, 20 gallons there of used fryer oil. Restaurants pay to have that stuff hauled away.