Durango & Silverton to Experiment with Oil Firing

o484 · **Posted:** Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:06 am

From Ngdiscussion.

WVNorthern · **Posted:** Wed Jul 04, 2018 1:59 pm

o484 - It appears that the image failed to upload.

Jennie K · **Joined:** Fri Feb 13, 2015 2:48 pm **Posts:** 198

http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,352526

Dave · **Posted:** Wed Jul 04, 2018 6:01 pm

Lots of foaming. If the get to something technical and interesting, let us know......

QJdriver · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2018 5:04 pm

Well, I don't know if this is technical and interesting enough, Dave, but I would venture that their power ought to run pretty good on oil, if they copy the Baldwin standard burner, brickwork, and plumbing setup we used on our 2-8-2s in Guatemala.

It sure ain't traditional. I'd suggest coal from Monero….

DanielHuppenthal · **Joined:** Mon Jan 07, 2013 2:39 pm **Posts:** 17

I'm surprised that they aren't looking into Coke coal instead for the lower if any conversion cost. I know no one really uses it here in the states for steam but they do across the pond.

Dave · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2018 6:31 pm

With respect Cat Daddy, I think they would do better to adapt the SLM / Sulzer light oil system rather than go back to the bunker C era. Much cleaner, fuel more readily available, and far less likely to shell carbon out or set firepan fires. I'd hope they are in touch with Roger Waller...….

DJSullivan · **Joined:** Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:58 am **Posts:** 89

FWIW, Short Line Enterprises converted 1888-built Dardanelle & Russellville 4-4-0 No. 8 from coal to oil back in about 1975-6 for operation on the new Virginia & Truckee. After they operated if for a while, they figured out they needed a stronger blast with oil than with coal and reduced the nozzle by about 20% area. It subsequently operated for 21 years at the Nevada State Railroad Museum--on old crankcase oil, heating oil, and the occasional shot of diesel--and was a joy to fire.

HudsonL · **Joined:** Mon May 24, 2010 10:22 am **Posts:** 548

This is probably a dumb question, why not propane?

Comes in handy container.

Is easy to load.

No hazmat spills.

Burns clean.

No cinders.

No Ash.

-Hudson

softwerkslex · **Posted:** Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:53 am

I can recall printed articles on gas for steam locomotives. The capacity is not there. It sees use on park trains, where the demand is not as high and refilling can be done quickly in a coffee break. Examples are Kings Island, Cincinnati and the San Franscisco Zoo (and the Lake Minnetonka streetcar boat, which receives liquefied natural gas at the dock from an installation designed by the gas company).

I am guessing that one charge of liquid gas would not support the trip to Silverton.

The same problem with diesel engines. When BN experimented with LNG, it required a whole tank-tender car just for fuel.

Kelly Anderson · **Joined:** Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am **Posts:** 2477

WVNorthern · **Posted:** Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:44 am

"Burns clean" isn't exactly what most railfans are seeking. Oil burners still produce a nice smoke trail for those foamer photos.

J3a-614 · **Posted:** Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:07 am

Kelly Anderson wrote:

HudsonL wrote:

This is probably a dumb question, why not propane?

No hazmat spills.

Burns clean.

No cinders.

No Ash.

No range. Propane has low btu density, you would need a large tank car full to reach Silverton.

Also, huge risk of explosion with any leak.

There would also be a HUGE financial penalty.

In the comments to an article in the Durango Herald on this fire, a fellow named David Cole kept harping on LPG or LNG as an alternative fuel.

He had several comments, but this one was the key:

Quote:

Considering that a round trip is 6 tons of coal....it would be approx 3.3 tons of LNG per trip. Figuring density of LNG is about 3.75 lb/ gallon. That would be about a 2000 gal tank which would provide a 240 gal reserve. Industrial natural gas boilers are easily found and should be readily adaptable by anyone with a ChemE/ME power processes background. This could be a viable answer for all of the coal powered railroads under public/regulatory pressure in the US

This was my response (and I hope it finds approval from Mr. Anderson):

Quote:

What's the price for your LPG or LNG? At a relatively modest cost of $2 per gallon, you're looking at a fuel charge of about $4,000 per trip.

Coal, 6 tons (if that's accurate), at $120 per ton loaded into the tender, is only $720.

Is the profit margin large enough to absorb an additional $3,280 per trip?

And multiply that by all the trips this line runs per year.

What about the cost of the conversion, which would include getting all the drafting right (a lot of trial and error)? It's not about just sticking a new burner in the firebox; ask the Union Pacific what was involved in oil conversions for steam engines that were coal burners, what they had to do back in the late 1940s for the 800 series.

Oh, and you've got to do that for new boilers, too, which themselves aren't exactly cheap, nor are they anything like what you would find from a typical boiler builder. The boilers from those other guys don't live on a locomotive, with all its bouncing, shaking, flexing, tilting on grades and curves, wildly variable power demand, etc.

There is a reason there is a whole set of federal boiler regulations for locomotives, completely separate from the regulations used for stationary boilers.

https://durangoherald.com/articles/2271 ... k-416-fire

J3a-614 · **Posted:** Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:19 am

Not quite on subject, but this oil burner talk tickled my brain cells a bit to recall a problem Southern Pacific had with oil fired engines.

This may have been unique to the Cab Forwards. Those engines were essentially Mallet and Yellowstone types that ran in reverse, which meant a very long trip from the oil tank to the firebox, which on some grades could be fairly elevated compared to the fuel in the tender.

I would have thought there must have been some sort of pump, but the SP came up with a much simpler solution. They just pressurized the fuel tank with about 5 psi from the brake system. It obviously required a fuel filler hatch that could be clamped down, and you also wanted to depressurize the tank before you opened it, too.

I believe I found that out in one of William Kratville's books, the one on the Cab Forwards written by Robert J. Church. . .need to get my own copy one of these days.

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL3041656M/Cab-forward

QJdriver · **Posted:** Sat Jul 07, 2018 12:51 pm

Couple quick comments:

The old Baldwin system works with pretty much ANY type oil product or waste, unless you mean gasoline or propane.... BUT that Sulzer system works fine, too, they have a "Super Kriegslok" on the Vollernbahn (not sure of exact spelling) that runs great using it. The Krupp locomotives we had in Guate used a three burner system that was very well liked when they were new. They we retrofitted with Baldwin system only because parts for the Krupp system were no longer available.

Properly operated oil burners DO NOT leave a smoke trail.

The more serious issue with propane is that all it takes is a pinhole and a spark. While liquid fuel frequently results in a fire (which can be put out with water), an explosion occurs much less frequently. With propane, it's almost always an explosion.