From Rob Dickinson's site: Here is a brave soul who went to N. Korea in February 2003 to see steam and found it in both standard and narrow gauge form.

http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/steam/trains/nkorea00.htm
ryarger@rypn.org

The one thing I found interesting was the note that some of the narrow gauge engines over there have been reduced to buring shredded tires! These things must fire pretty rough and stink like hell. Makes you wonder what that would do to an engine, this is now the strangest loco fuel I have ever heard of.

Makes you wonder what that would do to an engine, this is now the strangest loco fuel I have ever heard of.

According to a special about Egyptian mummies on the Discovery channel, mummies were once so common that they were burned as fuel in steam locos. I swear, I'm not making this up.


Railway Preservation News
hkading@rypn.org

> According to a special about Egyptian
> mummies on the Discovery channel, mummies
> were once so common that they were burned as
> fuel in steam locos. I swear, I'm not making
> this up.

Heard this urban legend before; I still demand documented proof.

However, I can prove (once I get my Guinness Book of Rail Facts & Feats back) that during World War Two there was a Finnish(?) shunter reduced to burning dried fish at one harborside terminal.....


lner4472@bcpl.net

One source seems to be Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad", which lends support to the urban legend hypothesis. However, there are other references in contemporay newspapers that I was able to google up, and here's a fairly scholarly-sounding PDF:

http://home.ptd.net/~yanney/The_Mystery ... ARTYRS.pdf

Search for "fuel"--the reference is buried deep in the article.

Mummies as fuel on Cairo Railway?
eledbetter@rypn.org

> Heard this urban legend before; I still
> demand

there was something about it in the NatGeo within the last year ... If I remember right it happened but not to any great extent.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

I've seen a list of all the fuels used in steam locomotives in some steam loco article or book. As I recall, they included wood, coal (in all its many types), oil (light and heavy), turf (peat), manure (and you thought tires smelled bad), alchohol, coffee beans, mummies, and LPG (Crown Metal Works). Now we can add tires. No doubt there are others.

Good Steaming,
Hugh Odom

> Makes you wonder what that would do to an
> engine, this is now the strangest loco fuel
> I have ever heard of.

> According to a special about Egyptian
> mummies on the Discovery channel, mummies
> were once so common that they were burned as
> fuel in steam locos. I swear, I'm not making
> this up.


The Ultimate Steam Page
whodom@awod.com

If shredded tires are used then how often is all the wire (steel belt) pulled from the firebox?

>Probably they are not steel belted tires. Old technology tires used fiberglass and earlier still cloth to form tires).
In 1966, Richard Jensen's No. 5629 was fired up at Springfield, Illinois (for an aborted Springfield & Great Eastern trip) using old tires. The smoke was so dense that a good portion of the town was affected (good thing this occured in the middle of the night).
My question is: how do the North Koreans fire with tires without making smoke?
J.David


jdconrad@snet.net

> My question is: how do the North Koreans
> fire with tires without making smoke?
> J.David

I would imagine that the North Korean version of the EPA/FRA really doesn't care!


lamontdc@adelphia.net

I'm told (by Gary Bensman) that a feature of Dante Porta's proposal for modern 2-10-0's for use by developing countries was that the right-of-way be planted in fast-growing eucalyptus trees to be converted to charcoal, so that the railway can generate its own fuel.

And I think I've seen a picture of a Swiss steam engine in World War II with a pantograph on its cab and some kind of resistance heater in the firebox, for a fuelless steam engine, during times of a surplus of hydroelectric power and a shortage of real electric engines.

And at Project 1225 a few years back, we got a vague proposal for running it on some kind of artificial coal made of recycled wood or paper or something, kind of like an artificial charcoal bricquet. Nothing was ever heard of that.

Aarne Frobom
The Steam Railroading Institute
P. O. Box 665
Owosso, Michigan 48867-0665

Aarne,

Porta's system wouldn't even require the wood to be converted to charcoal; it could be burned directly in a variation of his Gas Producer Combustion System (GPCS) firebox. He converted one wood-burner to GPCS combustion in Paraguay in the 1990's, and it was reported that it used something like 1/3 (yes, one-third) of the fuel of a conventional wood-burner. Unfortunately, the Paraguayan railway system had so many other problems that one efficient steam locomotive was not of much use.

I also forgot to mention the fuel baggasse, which is the left-over sugar cane husks after the juice has been squeezed out. This has been burned in steamers in sugar cane producing countries for many years. Porta plans to convert his Cuban test locomotive No. 1816 to burn this fuel at some point.

Good Steaming,
Hugh Odom

> I'm told (by Gary Bensman) that a feature of
> Dante Porta's proposal for modern 2-10-0's
> for use by developing countries was that the
> right-of-way be planted in fast-growing
> eucalyptus trees to be converted to
> charcoal, so that the railway can generate
> its own fuel.

> Aarne Frobom
> The Steam Railroading Institute
> P. O. Box 665
> Owosso, Michigan 48867-0665


The Ultimate Steam Page
whodom@awod.com

> Makes you wonder what that would do to an
> engine, this is now the strangest loco fuel
> I have ever heard of.

> According to a special about Egyptian
> mummies on the Discovery channel, mummies
> were once so common that they were burned as
> fuel in steam locos. I swear, I'm not making
> this up.

Just proves the old adage: There's no fuel like an old fuel.


Kevinmccabe@avenew.com

> In 1966, Richard Jensen's No. 5629 was fired
> up at Springfield, Illinois (for an aborted
> Springfield & Great Eastern trip) using
> old tires. The smoke was so dense that a
> good portion of the town was affected (good
> thing this occured in the middle of the
> night).
> My question is: how do the North Koreans
> fire with tires without making smoke?
> J.David

An old friend was a fireman on the IC. One night they were stuck with an older 4-8-2 much in need of service and a load of very oxidized coal, and could barely make it up the hill northbound out of East St. Louis (Madison yards). They took the hole near Mt. Olive, and stopped alongside a junkyard--where they proceeded to load a few dozen old tires into the tender. With a few tires added to the old coal, they made plenty of steam and got into Clinton in good time--only to be removed from service for a few days after the hostlers took a look at the firebox and grates. He claims that they had enough steam that they outran the stink!


Kevinmccabe@avenew.com

Very interesting, mummies and dried fish (not to forget dung), those go on the list for sure. I guess the truth is that anything that burns well enough was probably used somewhere at some point. Someone should write an article.