I thought this photo would be of interest. In India they built/overhauled four rack locomotives and converted them to oil. However, note they installed a diesel generator for what I guess is power for the oil burner. Also note the electric cab ventilation fan.

It is a frustrating choice for many of us that we wish they had the knowledge to avoid. However, I do know that the L&N General had a diesel (gasoline?) generator in the tender for powering the oil burner.

I really do not see anything wrong with the concept. There have been electrically powered auxiliaries on steam locomotives since the development of the light bulb. Lights, telephones and radios all require electricity no matter what fuel is being burned in the firebox. Traditionally this has been done with a small steam-driven generator and a battery bank. The weakness of this system is that you need steam pressure to run the generator. This means that if the batteries are down, you have to fire up the boiler to run any of the auxiliaries.

The General was built before electrical auxiliaries were at all practical and therefore was built without any. It the had not been designed to accommodate a steam-driven generator. The generator hidden in the tender was because the late and not in the least lamented Interstate Commerce Commission required an electric headlight. Had the L&N mounted a steam driven generator and obvious electrical auxiliaries I am certain somebody here would have complained that it was not authentic.

The Indian engines were rebuilt for regular service, not as an historical preservation project. A genset which runs on the same fuel and does not require steam pressure strikes me as a reasonable engineering decision.

GME

Greetings:
The Enyati Railway, a coal hauling line in South Africa had diesel driven air compressors on their Beyer-Garratt steam locomotives. The Garratts had vacuum brakes but the coal cars were air braked for use on SAR unit trains.
J.David

These Golden Rock locomotives have been 'commented on' here before. They are kind of poster children for how not to prioritize any 'historic preservation to operation' and they are relatively poor examples of how to build practical steam locomotives for operation.

That's not to say that, if daily operation of new steam power is of greatest importance, some of these approaches don't have merit -- just not cobbled up and applied with automotive-engineering technology ;-}

One thing that has prospective merit is the provision of 50/60Hz AC to run locomotive systems and auxiliaries (using OTS motors, pumps, and other equipment designed for 'grid' electricity). This also inherently permits 'native' HEP, full power for PTC implementation, and better instrumentation and control systems.

This gives a choice of using steam or a diesel genset as the source of the auxiliary power -- or either a portable generator or 'shore power' when the engine is being serviced, fired up, or stopped for an extended time. Water rate can be reduced dramatically, and some aspects of boiler circulation much improved, once you have reliable power and data 'buses' available on a locomotive; there are also some advantages in reducing the number of lube, steam/tracer, and exhaust lines required to implement small steam 'motors' or other more traditional equipment.

While cross-compound pumps are an important part of the 'sound' of American steam railroading, and are reasonably efficient (I understand they can be more efficient, in terms of steam mass flow required for a given air mass raised to service pressure, than even an efficient 'electric' or shaft-driven alternative) I do have to wonder if an OTS equivalent, even if provided only as a backup, is not a reasonable idea.

With respect to the firing system: the technique used in the Golden Rock locomotives I've seen is similar to the approach that was reported for the 'converted' Reading 2100 -- mechanical atomization and relatively high-pressure primary and secondary air. That's a lot of work for the wrong heat-release pattern in the combustion plume and downright ghastly turndown behavior. Having said that, I do think that it's possible to implement a multiple-burner mechanical system, and powering the various pieces of it electrically makes increasing sense, if you need high heat release from light oil (#2 diesel) firing.

Note that most of this doesn't come under the heading of 'historic preservation' at all. Whether or not working steam would have come to utilize some of these technologies is an open question; if I remember correctly, Porta had it 'both ways' depending on the sophistication and general creditworthiness of the country supporting a given locomotive. Here we are looking more at the market that was supposed to be characteristic of locomotive 8055, 'plandampf', the SLM/DLM rack locomotives, and much prospective excursion service for 'new build' steam (specifically, the 5AT and Turbomotive 2) and anyone interested in 'pure' historic preservation can stop reading at this point.

What's needed in an excursion locomotive changes, perhaps radically, when 'insurance coversge' begins to include things like breakdowns and consequential traffic disruption. Locomotives have to become considerably more reliable, even as the amount of secondary lube and water 'release' (especially continuous blowdown!) has to be minimized. I'm expecting the 'camel's nose' for EPA regulation of steam locomotives to come in on the lubrication, ash, and boiler-chemical emissions, with the same "logic" that got Sarah to mandate ECP being applied to stack emissions later 'because they can.' (Be nice to avoid that with common sense ... but is that really a commodity often seen around useful political targets?)

So if the purpose of an operation is to Run Trains, it may become desirable to figure out reversible modifications to 'historic' locomotives to make them more assuredly reliable to run -- at least to loss management agents and railroad operating people -- and to construct new power with some of this "alternative medicine" in mind. That does involve careful attention to, and discussion of, the faults and failures as well as things that promise good results.

Steam Into History's "York No. 17" features a small Honda generator hidden beneath the backup headlight atop the tender, providing electrical power for lighting. I'm not sure if it also provides spark for fuel ignition. The rebuild of "The General" included two small gasoline-powered units in the tender for electrical power and an air compressor.

This topic reminds me of the Best Friend of Charleston...a modern construction from original plans/design. The original valve gear took considerable work to reverse directions...so they installed a diesel engine in the tender that only moved the engine in reverse. The only way you could detect this was the "extra" fireman sitting at the back of the tender and the unmistakable diesel "growl" when the engine was rolling in reverse.

If you ever had the pleasure of being a carhost on the "Best Friend" in the 1970s you could stand on the front car and watch the extra fireman work the throttle...see the puff of diesel soot.

T7

The Morris County Central steam locomotives, 385 and 4039, were both oil burners, with a system designed to use waste oil. Earle Gil was literally a rocket scientist and the system he designed seemed to work well. But it required a pump to supply the fuel to the nozzles at pressure. The pump required two motors, one on 32VDC off the HL generator, one on 115VAC for fireup. Towards the end, though, (IIRC, it was maybe 35 years ago-) there were problems with HL generators and/or the 32VDC motor, so a little Homelite or similar generator lived up over the water space on the tender and kept the fuel oil pump running.

How much of the oil firing system in those two locomotives survives in 'analyzable' shape today? Are there surviving notes, plans, or good photo documentation of their components?

Yes, I'm also very interested in that system.