How many wood-burners are out there still operating? I guess the majority would be ex-logging engines. What are the main design differences with a coal burner and for what, if any, reason would you want to convert to coal? Thanks.

jason.whiteley@sympatico.ca

The only ones that I can think of are Dan Markoff's narrow gauge 4-4-0 Eureka in Nevada, and the Narrow gauge woodburning heisler at the Sumpter Valley RR.

> How many wood-burners are out there still
> operating? I guess the majority would be
> ex-logging engines. What are the main design
> differences with a coal burner and for what,
> if any, reason would you want to convert to
> coal? Thanks.


cookiemonster@rrmail.com

> The only ones that I can think of are Dan
> Markoff's narrow gauge 4-4-0 Eureka in
> Nevada, and the Narrow gauge woodburning
> heisler at the Sumpter Valley RR.

The B&O Museum's William Mason 4-4-0 25 in Baltimore, MD.

The Eureka Springs & North Arkanas RR's ex-W.T. Carter Lumber Co. 2-6-0 1 (if it's still servicable) in Eureka Springs, AK.

I believe the Clarks Trading Post / White Mountain Central RR's 2-truck Climax and 2-truck Heisler engines are wood fired.

I'm sure there are others.

Regards,
Jim Robinson

> How many wood-burners are out there still
> operating? I guess the majority would be
> ex-logging engines. What are the main design
> differences with a coal burner and for what,
> if any, reason would you want to convert to
> coal? Thanks.

In general wood burners have very deep fireboxes and require a very high and loose fire to keep enough mass burning to provide BTUs. Coal packs more BTUs in the same space as wood and can make use of shallower fireboxes - such as the kind that fit over trailing trucks or rear drivers. The ramifications extend into tender size and capacity as well as distance between refueling stations.

Dave


irondave@bellsouth.net

Wood was obviously the initial choice because of its availability, but coal and oil are both superior. Compared to wood, coal is easier and safer to store, load, and use, and provides 80 percent more heat per pound of fuel. In the Southwest, heavy fuel oil was cheaper and more available than coal by the turn of the century. Oil provides 40 percent more energy per pound than coal, and is even easier to store and use.

> In general wood burners have very deep
> fireboxes and require a very high and loose
> fire to keep enough mass burning to provide
> BTUs. Coal packs more BTUs in the same space
> as wood and can make use of shallower
> fireboxes - such as the kind that fit over
> trailing trucks or rear drivers. The
> ramifications extend into tender size and
> capacity as well as distance between
> refueling stations.

> Dave


Kevinmccabe@avenew.com

> Wood was obviously the initial choice
> because of its availability, but coal and
> oil are both superior. Compared to wood,
> coal is easier and safer to store, load, and
> use, and provides 80 percent more heat per
> pound of fuel. In the Southwest, heavy fuel
> oil was cheaper and more available than coal
> by the turn of the century. Oil provides 40
> percent more energy per pound than coal, and
> is even easier to store and use.

Hello all!

In talking of woodburners, remember that Argent Lumber ran their engines on mill scraps fired on a bed of soft coal....so they actually ran their engines on both. I've always belived (but with no proof) that our Museums ten wheeler (former Hampton and Branchville #44) was probably fired on mill scrap too...during the depression, coal was expensive!!

As far as currently operating locos go....aren't the engines at allaire park (in NJ) fired on wood? Also Ward Kimball's 0-4-2 plantation loco is wood fired....the John Molson 2-2-2 replica in Canada...can't think of any more right now!

Mike Gellner, Member SCRM

The South Carolina RR Museum, Inc.
msgscrm@aol.com

> I believe the Clarks Trading Post / White
> Mountain Central RR's 2-truck Climax and
> 2-truck Heisler engines are wood fired.

I can confirm the Climax is/was wood-burning, as I spent a couple hours in 1990 hand-firing that loco in exchange for the cab rides over the covered bridge.

lner4472@bcpl.net

One of the differences between coal and wood fired steam locomotives was the horsepower ratings and locomotive efficiency. Coal fired locomotives had the advantage of developing maximum power from high BTU coal while wood fired locomotives were lucky to achieve 75% efficiency due to the inconsistancy of the quality of their wood supplies at fueling stations.

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
envlink@voyageronline.net

No Message

> How many wood-burners are out there still
> operating? I guess the majority would be
> ex-logging engines. What are the main design
> differences with a coal burner and for what,
> if any, reason would you want to convert to
> coal? Thanks.

We have custody of two, altough both are out of service and one is down for its FRA certifiation(WTCarter #1 and Victoria Fisher and Western #7).

Having spent my larval stages on the 7, I can tell you that i can take a lot of wood to fill up a deep firebox. But, a wood fire is very gentle on the sheets and tubes.

Northern Counties Logging Interpretive Association in conjunction with the California State Park System has two wood burners at Fort Humboldt State Park in Eureka, CA. They are both 0-4-0 "Gypsy" types built in the 1880's by Marchutz & Cantrel of San Francisco. Both have long histories in the timber industry of Humboldt County. One is a true geared locomotive (the cylinders are mounted on the frame pointing forward, turning a huge geared cog wheel on the front of the locomotive that can either drive a spool or the front axle of the locomotive, and the rear axle is driven by a side rod). This machine worked it's entire life for the Bear Harbor Lumber Company, located on the coast west of Garberville (rumor has it that some track may still exist from this operation and that several log cars are sealed inside a collapsed tunnel). The Bear Harbor locomotive is known as the Gyspy and still has it's original boiler. The other locomotive is a conventional direct drive machine, but it has a third cylinder mounted above the frame that operates the spool. This locomotive worked at several locals around Humboldt County for lumber operations owned or controled by a man named Falk. It closed out it's lumber career in the late 1920's working at the now abandoned town of Falk southeast of Eureka for the Elk River Mill & Lumber Company. This machine is known as the Falk. It received a new boiler during it's restoration. The two machines weigh eleven and nine tons apiece, respectively.

A state boiler inspector visited the museum this past spring and gave both machines a clean bill of health. The NCLIA maintains a couple hundred feet of track in the park. The two locomotives (along with a couple restored steam donkeys) are steamed up on the third Saturday of every month (except for May, when they will steam up on Memorial Day weekend). The group maintains two pieces of rolling stock at the Fort, a four wheel flatcar fitted with benches and railings and a huge (but short) Redwood log mounted on a pair of disconnected trucks. Short train rides are offered during the steam ups, generally starting mid-morning and lasting until late afternoon. Several non-operating donkeys, a loggers shack, and several other logging related items and interpretive displays are also present around the park grounds.

The Gyspy has always been a real easy steamer. The Falk, however, is more difficult. The new boiler that was installed on the locomotive has a way-too-small firebox, and as a result the locomotive cannot be worked very hard for very long. The demands of the operation at the Fort are well within it's capabilities, but the locomotive has travelled extensively, including down to the steam gatherning at the Nevada State Railroad Museum for a couple years in a row. Part of that event involved running the steam locomotives present in a parade around the museum's loop trackage. The Falk could only make it around the loop about three or four times before it would literally run out of steam and had to be put on a side track to recover.

By the way-the entire operation is still link and pin, and until fairly recently the Falk was not even equiped with brakes.

Below is a link to the NCLIA homepage. The group would eventually like to see a timber technology museum established somewhere in the Eureka area that could tell the story of the timber industry in California on a scale comparable to the railroad museum in Sacramento. In addition to the two State locomotives at Fort Humboldt, the group also has a number of other locomotives, several dozen pieces of logging railroad related rolling stock, a complete early sawmill, and a huge collection of other historic logging equipment stored at a private location awaiting the establishment of such a museum.

The other locomotives are:

Pacific Lumber Company 2-6-2 #29
Arcata & Mad River 2-Truck Shay #7
Hammond Lumber Company 3-Truck Shay #33
Hammond Lumber Company 2-8-2 #15
Bear Harbor Lumber 2-4-2T #2 (Sister to Gyspy).

The organization also owns one diesel. The machine started life as Elk River Mill & Lumber Company #3, a 2-Truck Heisler. After that operation shut down the locomotive was scrapped down to it's frame and re-built as a diesel. It spent it's second commercial life as a diesel as an in-plant switcher at a US Plywood paper mill at Samoa before being preserved.

NCLIA Webpage
jamoore@elko.net

A good example of the efficiency of a coal fired locomotive vs. a wood fired locomotive is that of Western and Atlantic Railroad locomotive No. 3 (39), the General. As built by Rogers, Ketchum and Grovsner in 1856, it burned wood and had a rating of 400 horsepower (hp). However, due to the poor BTU content of wood provided as locomotive fuel on the W & A, it is believed that the locomotive probably developed approximately 300 hp.

In 1871, the railroad rebuilt the locomotive to burn coal, but retained the original firebox shape and dimensions. When the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway pulled the locomotive from the scrap line in 1889-90, they removed the locomotive's high diamond stack and returned the locomotive to its post-1865 appearance complete with the balloon stack.

Finally, in 1961 the locomotive was rebuilt at South Louisville Shops and emerged as an oil burner with the fake wood pile to hide the oil tank in the fuel bunker in the tender. So here you have a fairly scarce example of a locomotive that burned all three types of locomotive fuel during its lifetime.

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
envlink@voyageronline.net

> As far as currently operating locos
> go....aren't the engines at allaire park (in
> NJ) fired on wood?

The locomotives at the Pine Creek RR (Allaire State Park, NJ) are coal fired.

Although no longer operated, the RR Museum of Pennyslvania's John Bull replica is wood fired.

The Reader Railroad's stored (still servicable??) ex-Long Leaf Lumber Co. 2-6-2 7 is/was a woodburner.

The late Tommy Thompson's Anacortes Ry 18-inch gauge 0-4-4T Forney (made from a 0-4-0 compressed air locomotive) is wood fired (it's stored servicable).

Regards,
Jim Robinson

> So here you have a fairly scarce
> example of a locomotive that burned all
> three types of locomotive fuel during its
> lifetime.

Here's another example.

Cass Scenic Railroad's Pacific Coast Shay 2 was originally built as a wood burner (in 1928 no less). It was the only wood-fired PC Shay. Originally Mayo Lumber Company 4, it was quickly converted to oil firing when it was discovered that this big superheated engine would have to stop for wooding up "about every three feet"...burning more wood than you're hauling!

This Shay spent it working life in British Columbia (finishing up as a dock switcher in Vancouver in 1970) operating as an oil burner and continued to operate as an oil burner at Cass during the 1970's and early 1980's.

Shay 2 was converted to coal firing by Cass in 1983.

Regards,
Jim Robinson

What is involved in the conversion to coal from wood?

Thanks.


jason.whiteley@sympatico.ca