I had hopes we might see her steam a length of track by the close of the season. Any word of her current rehab status?

113 was fired up for more testing of appliances on Sept 10,11. The compressor was installed, but was not connected that day. When it was tested with air, it failed to operate. I won't get into the details, but Bob et al got it running today. I believe some brake items have to be installed.

I was hoping it would be running by now too, but hopefully shortly. It is so close!
I have been saying that for a while now, haven't I? It will happen. I'm not sure if the locomotive will move with its next fire up or not. We don't announce these events because they can and have been cancelled or delayed for whatever reasons.

Firing with anthracite is interesting to say the least.

Bernie Perch

Firing with anthracite is interesting to say the least.

Must it burn anthracite or does it prefer the hard stuff?

The large Wootten firebox is designed to burn anthracite. The anthracite we are currently using are chunks 3" in size or larger. It takes a lot of wood for it to "catch". Our next load will be smaller in size. Bituminous coal could probably be burned or a mix, but it is all new territory for most of us who were brought up on firing bituminous coal. I'm sure it would be difficult to keep the pops from continuously going off if bituminous coal would be exclusively used. This could possibly happen with anthracite coal also.

When firing with bituminous coal, the coal is thrown in and it almost instantly blazes with a firebox full of flame. When large anthracite is thrown in, it sorta sits there, crackles a bit and decides over time whether or not it will start working. On the road and working with a strong draft it will probably be different. The burning anthracite has about a 3" blue flame and the fireman is not blinded.

Bernie Perch

Bernie,

It is my understanding that the a-coal roads burned very small pieces of anthracite... generally fines just a notch above culm. Many went to a blend of bituminous near the end. According to Bob Fischer, the CNJ ended the steam years burning whatever anthracite they could find, including spilled coal from boats in the Lehigh Canal.

It is quite interesting to hear of your experiences. You have a truly unique machine, and I appreciate your openess to share your learnings.

All the best,

Rob

Word to the wise, from past experiences overhauling steam locomotives, air will not work well operating pumps & injectors for tests. Air is not as heavy or has the mass to move some parts, as steam does! Especially if your testing a cross compound pump! Also less likely to blow out some gaskets. Have fun – David Notarius, London UK, Ex New Hope Pa.

Bernie,

From my years working with anthracite, let offer you this advice: blend your coal with bituminous. As state, most of the famous anthracite roads i.e. Reading moved to a blend of anthracite and bituminous with much greater success than anthracite alone. You'll find that blending will help the anthracite ignite and once lit, aid in igniting the volatile matter and combustible gases associated with bituminous i.e. smoke.

One thing you've probably noticed with anthracite is it's sustainability with generating vast quantities of heat once burning properly. With that, there is virtually no lead time as to when the coal has burned all of its combustible gasses and dies out almost immediately. Unlike anthracite, bituminous (pending on its grade) will slowly lost heat and thus, signal for another scoop or 10. Not quite the case with anthracite, once it goes out, it’s out and there really isn't any good way of getting it back without totally rebuilding your fire. This, is another inherent value of blending your coal.

Food for thought.

Best,
DC

Well, actually........

if you have rebuilt the air pump well, even a cross compound, it will runs slowly but steadily and dependably on air furnished by a good sized shop compressor with a large storage tank for a few minutes, until the tank runs low. If I rebuilt one, and it did not run well on air under those conditions, I'd be pretty certain I didn't do much of a job on the rebuild.

Injectors rely on condensation of steam to prime and velocity of expanding steam to force, testing them on air isn't even sensible. You MAY get a bit of syphon action, but that won't tell you anything about their ability to force against the steam in the boiler.

You can test governors and dynamos on air, but the dynamo will put out about 26 VDC on air, which will be close to 32 when switched to steam.

Your mileage may vary.

dave

Don, Dave,

Thanx for your comments on testing on air and firing. I was going to comment on testing the injectors with air, but you beat me to it.

I agree on using a mix of bituminous and anthracite and have commented on it every time we fired up and others in the group feel the same way and it is my guess when we get running there will be some done. We wrote our grants based on the premise that this was an anthracite burning locomotive, so we are going to adhere to using as much as possible. Also, the nearest anthracite coal preparation plant is two miles down the tracks and it would be nice if the next load in the tender was directly loaded there.

Bernie Perch

What did the Reading 2102 use for coal when it was operated by the BM&R in the 1990s? And what did the 2101 use for coal when it was operated by AFT?

BM&R used mostly bituminous coal in the 2102, we had a smoke issue with our neighbors on the Temple end of the line and tried various mixtures of bituminous and anthracite from 90:10 to 60:40 with varying degrees of success, but most of this was burned in the hand fired 425. About 70:30 seemed to work well with a moderate train. It did help quite a bit with the smoke abatement (particularly with a banked fire), but was a pain in the butt to keep the mix in the tender consistent. I sent an email to the D&SNG several years ago, with what we tried and do not know if they ever tried it to ease their problems with smoke abatement during their overnight layovers.