Yesterday made a visit to an operation which has a standard standard gauge locomotive.
They are not under FRA jurisdiction.
While talking with some of the volunteers, they mentioned that they recently had to replace nine tubes, all top row, all less than 5 years old.

In the conversation, it came to light that they routinely let the boiler stand full of water cold for weeks and months at a time between steamings.

AAAARRRGGGHHHHH !

How many times has it been discussed that air with roughly 21 percent oxygen will find it's way back into a cold, wet boiler ?
Yes, steaming drives the air and oxygen out of the water,
but the effect is reversed in a matter of a few days when the boiler cools down.

Years ago, I snorted and huffed upon reading the comments in the FRA's report on the 1995 Gettysburg incident,
paraphrasing that " basic steam boiler operation has become a lost technology ".
At the time, I did not believe that, but now realize that it is, at least in part, sadly true .

Everyone in this steam / railway / old iron / preservation, whether as an vocation or avocation, seems to consider themselves an expert.
It is NOT a Personal Attack, and I include myself in this observation.
Time for some soul searching and realistic evaluation....
Are we so concerned with climbing up in the cab, tooting the whistle ( or horn as appropriate ) and acting like a Big Sh!t, that we shake the bushes, kick sand, beat our chests to the point of no longer accepting any new learning, admonition or correction ?

Somewhere between Forrest Gump and C.W. McCall, there must be a philosophical statement,
" Life is like talking on a C.B. radio; If you have the mike button down and your lips flappin', you're not taking in any new information. "

"Nobody knows what they don't know until they know it." - L. D. Porta

You could say the same for any hobby that is comparable.
All are equally ignorant, but each are ignorant of different things. Only when they all listen, they find out what they're ignorant of. Yet, few (if any) feel that anyone else has anything to add.
Everyone's talking but nobody's listening.
But a key to this problem is you don't know if what you're listening to is correct or not. For example, I'm really into WW2 US military vehicles. I have a 1944 Jeep and probably 75% of what I hear from the public at shows is pure false info. People will tell you that Jeeps were made by Dodge or GMC (they weren't), have fuel injection (they don't) or other info that is simply factually incorrect. I'm certain that anyone operating a locomotive gets all manners of false "knowledge" from others, leaving the person at the throttle wondering what to pay attention to, if anything at all?

There are no shortages of "experts" in every field who know just enough to sound credible to someone who doesn't know better. I've had discussions with 60 year old men who ran 1522 for years before she retired (1951) and she was painted green, never was a coal burner and had run her at 110MPH. You gotta learn to tune it out.
When you see something that is either unsafe or just downright stupid, then point it out. A serious steam catastrophe could be the last of steam in the USA.
John Wayne said it best. Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid. Don't tolerate stupid, it's dangerous.

Matt,
Thanks for your thorough response and focusing upon boiler rusting, erosion / corrosion.

In my professional life, I work in industrial and power plant preventive maintenance,
specializing in water treatment and equipment preservation.

I have been called in after economizers have been destroyed by improper wet layup.
Almost without exception the boilers are fitted with nitrogen blanket ( inerting ) systems.
The staff does not use it ( from senior management down to the junior equipment operator ) .

Are they lazy, uninformed, not motivated, thinking, " It wont happen to me / on my watch / to my brand-new plant / I'll let it ride,
save a few bucks, and be a big hero to the front office / corporate bean-counter, and we'll all collect a big bonus " ?

Among hobbyists and steam excursion operators, I hear, " We need / are throwing lots of Sodium Sulfite at it. "

Wrong !

Attempting to establish and maintain a measureable sulfite residual in a boiler that is being fed oxygen saturated water is the supreme exercise in futility. The place for sulfite or hydrazine is where the feedwater is truly deaerated. This is a physical process where the cold feedwater is sprayed or trickled through cascading trays in a low pressure steam enviornment. This needs to happen in a tank operating between 2 and 15 psig. The released air, with nasty oxygen and carbon dioxide, must be continuously vented to the outside.

An injector or feedwater heater is Not a Deaerator.

The small industrial, commercial and excursion steam railroad enviornment is polluted by snake oil salesmen who have no interest in serving the real needs of their ' clients '. Their objective is to sell chemicals and generate lots of revenue.

We can make a decent 1890's boiler compound with soda ash and corn or potato starch.
The absolute necessity is to daily test the Phenolphthalein Alkalinity ( P Alk )
to avoid having an over concentration and risking Caustic Stress Corrosion Cracking.
ASME and ABMA recommend 300 Parts Per Million ( PPM ) as an upper limit.
Since we know that having a pH of 10 is the range where the general corrosion rate of iron and steel is at a minimum,
this is where we want to operate our boiler water.
This is entirely achievable with a P Alkalinity of 150.
This leaves a nice conservative margin for safety between operating at 150 PPM and the recommended limit of 300 PPM.

Now, about that Oxygen Pitting Prevention.
Folks, It's not my fault, I didn't make the rules of solubility of gases in water.
All I can do is inform you of the ugly truth:
Cold water at 70 F is saturated at about 7 Parts Per Million of Oxygen.
Steaming and vented ( deaerated ) water at 220 F is saturated at 40 Parts Per Billion of Oxygen.
Working the math, the cold water has over 5,000 times as much destructive oxygen as the steaming water.

So, to effectively protect a boiler by inerting with nitrogen;
Steam the boiler and chemically treat the same day it is filled with water.
While the boiler still has some steam pressure, admit 1/2 PSIG nitrogen through a regulator and check valve.
A brass check, manual isolation valve next to the boiler, above the water line and a
brass quick connect for the nitrogen line make this easy.
The last few feet of line before the boiler connection should slope downward towards the boiler.
This is so any condensation leaking past the check valve is discharged into the boiler, and does not make a liquid trap which would block the nitrogen flow.

The nitrogen pressure should be maintained slightly above atmosphere or flow purged
until the boiler is below 100 F. The nitrogen blanket should be purged for 15 minutes weekly.

How much does it cost ?
The set-up around $ 250 to $ 400, depending upon the availability of a first stage regulator to take the tank pressure down to 25 PSI.
A propane gas regulator for a grill or RV is good as a second stage to take the nitrogen down to 1/2 PSI ( they typically come preset to 11 inches of water, just right ).

Be sure to mount the nitrogen tank securely. A 200 cubic foot tank is available from most welding supply houses. Tank rent will vary, about $ 50 per year is typical. Refilling a 200 CF tank costs about $ 10 in South Central Pennsylvania. Your rates may vary.

In my opinion, this is much better than having pitting and rusting.

Oh yes, back to our snake oil salesmen ...
sulfite, and it's waste product, sulfate, are highly electrically conductive.
They actually promote galvanic, mixed metals, corrosion.
They cause a row of pitting at the water line in a boiler.
They convert a soft flowing sludge into a baked-on scale.

And here is the Hammer, they Cause Foaming.

Due to this, operators get forced into excessive blowdowns.
They are forced onto blowing down water, treatment chemicals and wasting fuel.
They have to add more chemicals to maintain recommended ranges.

I have yet to see a deaerating feed tank mounted to a locomotive tender.
Remember, their objective is to Sell Chemicals, treating and helping maintain your boiler is secondary.

Don't waste your money, time water and fuel in the sulfite trap.
A steaming boiler with a well formed and layer of Magnetite Hydroxide,
formed and maintained by controlling water P Alk consistently near 150 and a resulting pH near 10, will not have oxygen pitting caused while steaming.
A boiler laid up with pH 10 water and deaerated through steaming plus nitrogen blanketed and purged weekly will not have oxygen pitting.

There are boiler water treatments that do not require daily testing for P Alk.
They are automatic and self regulating. They cannot physically and chemically go into the high pH range where Caustic Stress Corrosion can occur.

This is not a commercial or endorsement, only a crossover of experience from the industrial / utilities side to the flanged wheel side of steam.

For those with low-tech, can a boiler be laid up dry?

Thanks for the full skinny on nitrogen lay up. When I read the initial message, I was wondering if one could purge the oxygen in the boiler with nitrogen, but figured that someone would answer the question before I asked, and you have. If the cost of water is such that dry lay-up seems wasteful, this would seem to be the route to go.

Lex, Yes, absolutely, and it is the Preferred Method for long term.

As with either layup method, it must be performed completely, thoroughly and promptly.

Time is Not on our side.

Rusting and Pitting is relentless.

There are no ' halfway ' jobs.

A boiler that has been conditioned to a Basic ( high pH, about 10 ) protective oxide film, then kept dry, even open in a low humidity enviornment, will be well preserved.

An old-school, but tried and true method is to clean and dry the boiler, then close it up with some quick lime on trays. Avoid spilling or contacting it, this is hazardous stuff; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide.

Another drying material ( dessicant ) is Silica Gel, available in small and large bags from a good electrical supply house. The nice thing is that it can be reconditioned and reused.

For the best possible long term preservation, clean and dry the boiler, then close it up tight and nitrogen blanket it, frequently and regularly monitoring and maintaining about 2 PSI. For any boiler or enclosed space, post as a Confined Space, atmospheric testing required prior to entry.

One of, if not the largest issues (in my mind) is a lack of basic understanding on the part of those who are left to manage the operation of a locomotive. Most sales folks mean well but fail to understand the vast differences between stationary industrial steam generation and locomotive boilers.

The horror stories I have witnessed are numerous..... The successes are in lower numbers but they are out there. Many say LSB 4000 to be a "snake oil" yet through proper implementation I have seen and have achieved absolutely PERFECT results. No scale, no rust and the ability to maintain chemistry via a surface level blowdown. The blowdown was only ever opened in the morning prior to breaking the bank or even removing the stack cover for about a 1/4 glass blowdown.

While firebox sheets cannot really be coated, a boiler should not be put into service without having the barrel blasted (not needle gunned) to a near white finish and getting properly applied coats Apexior.

While closed system feed water heaters do not deaerate at all Worthington open type systems to act to contribute effectively in that direction, right?

One of the biggest mistakes I see time and time and time again, as a rule and almost across the board is that of not blowing out a boiler while still hot! There are standard practices for a reason on this and when followed the boiler, superheater units and appliances are put up dry.


This is an important subject that should not be on the second page!

Cheers, Jason

Jason,
I'll admit to being a bit harsh on the water treatment salesmen. The vast majority may simply not know the important differences between a conditioned and deaerated industrial system and a ' fill the tender with whatever ' locomotive.
They do not realize the importance of Deaeration to the products and program they are selling.

They also are locked into whatever their employer has on the wagon for them to sell.

Since you mentioned the Terlyn LSB 4000, it has been very often used in fossil fuel fired and nuclear steam generation since the mid 1960's. It, and it's cousins and competitors have demonstrated revolutionary success in some of the most demanding industrial and military applications.

Enter Bill Bondie, of Lakewood, Colorado. He grew up a steam railfan. While working on a MS in Mechanical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines, he conducted trials and wrote his thesis on " Using modern water treatment to preserve antique steam locomotives. " The locomotive operators and boiler inspectors were impressed and loved the results. This was in 1995.

Here we are, in the rough and ready world of steam excursion railroading. Many have no training or background in water chemistry or metal preservation through water treatment. Blast it and paint it if it is thick enough, cut it out and replace it if it is too thin. Nothing in-between. No preventive steps, or not fully understood actions, without formal training in causes, effects and preventive maintenance, intervention and preservation while in use. About 30 years ago, the hot topic in Industrial Archaeology was, " Is Use Abuse ? "

As stated in a previous post, I see both sides of it, as a professional and as a hobbyist railfan.

Steam operators and maintainers need to understand these;

1. Boiler metal corrodes least and lasts longest when the water has a pH of 10.5 to 11.5 on the 0 to 14 pH scale.

2. Neutral pH water, near 7 on the 0 to 14 scale, acts like acid in a hot boiler. It literally and physically repeatedly strips the oxide film off the metal.

3. When the water is consistently at a pH at or above 10, a protective magnetite hydroxide film is formed and maintained.

4. The traditional methods and chemicals are alkaline. These are carbonates, hydroxides and phosphates. Being alkaline, they form a concrete-like deposit in areas of high temperature. Most importantly, in areas of poor or no circulation, or where seeping or leaking occurs, the local pH can elevate into the extremely high pH, or Caustic region, 14 on the pH scale.

5. Allowing the pH to reach the caustic region, with the accompanying expanding crystal growth, will cause destructive expansion of micro-cracks in stressed metal. When this becomes visible and apparent, it is referred to as Caustic Stress Corrosion Cracking.

6. To avoid the above problems, ASME and ABMA have established recommended limits for controlling chemistry of boiler water. This is the reason for limiting Phenolphthalein Alkalinity ( P Alk ) to 300 Parts Per Million ( PPM ). The 150 PPM recommendation is mine, as stated previously, to allow a comfortable margin for error and excursions where there is riveted construction, threaded pipe connections and rolled tube ends.

7. To maintain the chemistry within limits, daily water chemistry testing is necessary on steaming days and regularly during wet layup. In my observation, failure to correctly and routinely perform testing and controls are at the root of " horror stories " associated with boiler water chemistry incidents.

8. Terlyn LSB 4000 ( Locomotive Steam Boiler, formula # 4 ) is not an Alkali.
The pH cannot get above 10.4. Caustic Stress Corrosion Cracking is not a problem.
Daily testing to control p Alkalinity is not necessary.

It is generically an Amine, which is related to Ammonia. It is mostly nitrogen, hydrogen and a touch of organically bound phosphate ( phosphonate ). It works like popping old shingles off a roof with a shovel. Find a loose edge, get in there, and lift the scale, loose rust and crud off the surface. As the surface becomes clean, form a very thin ( 2 to 3 molecules ) protective organic film like waxing a surface.

Fresh crud, oxygen and corrosive salts cannot get to the clean metal. Brass fittings are protected from mixed-metals galvanic corrosion because the organic film electrically insulates them. It is an oxygen scavenger, but at the concentrations used in boilers, it is soon exhausted in that role.

9. The amines used for boiler water treatment are not particularly toxic. Yes, use splash protection for your eyes. Don't drink the stuff. If you get it on your skin, rinse it off. Scale model live steamers by the thousands are using it, breathing their engine exhaust, and showing no ill effects. ( some say they need a ' fix ' of steam and cylinder oil ;-) ).

10. The essential control on boiler chemistry is blowdown. It is a problem if you blow down too much. You could be blowing off treatment unnecessarily. It may be better to keep it in the boiler and performing it's job. I highly recommend using a conductivity instrument to measure the Total Dissolved Solids ( TDS ) of your boiler water.

I know of an excursion line that always blows down at a certain part of their run.
" It's part of the show ! " they say. They don't know the boiler water TDS. They don't know, or care, if the boiler needs a blowdown or not. Sadly, they are stuck in tradition, and Don't Understand Why they should Measure and Control the boiler water TDS.

11. Every application and operation is different in some aspect. A knowledgeable, thorough and experienced water treater, who understands the unique challenges of steam locomotive operation and water treatment should be consulted. You will have better results and save money in the long run.

Locomotive feedwater heaters typically approach 175 F for the closed type and 165 F for the open type. Worthingtons that I am familiar with have two vents, one to the stack, one to the track. They do not get hot enough to achieve a high degree of deaereation. The closed type do not have a physical vent for deaeration. The cylinder exhaust to a Worthington is mixing cylinder lube with the feedwater. Alkalinity present in the water will cause saponification and foaming. Yes, there is a skimmer effect on the vents, but oil is mixed with the water, especially hot water.

Many live steamers blow down hot. I would not blow down a dirty and scaled boiler hot, it will just bake on the scale and crud. This is not a commercial or endorsement. Terlyn users whose boilers are cleaned and conditioned after a few months of use don't have much scale and crud to be concerned with.

Worth while Conversation!

Glad to finally hear someone else who does understand the potential of LSB, if properly utilized of course!

I wouldn't say you are being "to hard" on salesmen, if one doesn't understand thoroughly that which consultation is being provided on..... don't give advice or prescribe a treatment program.

In terms of PH, it has long been my understanding via independent research and consultation with chemical companies that if it rises much above 10.5 and absolutely if 11 is achieved the bronze components of a power boiler system will be affected. Even having had application specialists ask if there is anyway I can eliminate the bronze from the system so the use of their product could be continued. Thoughts?

The Worthington type S and SA do factually achieve temps above the boiling point when the locomotive is working..... ask anyone who has suffered water in the heater system (pump, piping and pump) flashing to steam following a driver slip, throttle closing and sudden reduction in back pressure. Not to mention telemetry gathered via worthington and NALCO historically as well as others in the modern world. What is the reference for the heat achieved?

Just to clarify my position, I absolutely agree with the issue of over utilization of blowdowns. Following a boiler wash I have found it to take upwards of 5 days to achieve a TDS of 3, 000. LSB works well between 3,000 and 3,500.

Cheers, Jason

Jason,

So refreshing to have agreement and kindred spirits here ! ;-)

Amines will typically settle out around 10 to 10.4, depending upon the native alkalinity of the water, i.e. does it contain phosphates or carbonates. Native alkalinity also tends to complex and buffer with the amines, and that holds the pH near 10.

The protective organic film, water soluble poly acrylate, protects the bronze and brass " yellow metals " as well as the wrought iron and steel. I do not recommend it with soft copper, however hard drawn copper tube easily develops a self protective " blue blush " during initial exposure to amine, then it is OK. Bronze and brass valves and fittings do not show any ongoing corrosion or degradation with film enhanced amine, in my experience.

My statement of 175 F for a closed heater and 165 for an open heater is based on statements and reports by others, and in steady state rather than transient conditions. If your experience and reports by others is higher, I will not dispute that.

Am I correct that a closed FW heater has no venting ?

Am I correct that there is no spray of cold feedwater into live or exhaust steam, causing rapid heating of water drops with lots of surface area ?

This is the physical and mechanical setup of a conventional deaerator.

Maybe a test could be performed on an operating locomotive to determine the oxygen level of heated feedwater. Nevertheless, I doubt that the feedwater would be consistently heated or low oxygen level.

I've been one of the "snake oil" guys so far because NOBODY selling Terlyn so far has been able to explain to me in clear and concise terms how it can possibly do everything they said it would do. You guys have made a decent start here......

I think if you would continue to explain it more completely using plain language somebody who isn't a chemical engineer can follow, you might find an interested audience. I'd certainly like to know more. If your product isn't snake oil, don't have snake oil salesmen as a sales force, but Terlyn did, so now there's a lot of lost ground to be recovered.

dave

They are claiming it keeps the impurities in solution. Maybe it does. But how is that better? They say just blowing down the water column is enough to keep the levels down??? I know next to nothing about this but that's an interesting assertion. Seems like I'd rather have gunk settle to the bottom and be quickly blown out with a minimum of waste rather than have it fully dispersed throughout the boiler water. I, too, will be interested in hearing what the experts have to say.

http://www.terlyn.com/bwt.html

Steve