Has your operation ever used a hot engine to preheat or transfer boiler water to one ready to fire up? I know this may have been more common during the steam era when engines were needed out, but I recall this might have added stress as well. Both steam operations I have worked for, I only recall firing up cold with a fire and not transferring any material from a shop boiler or other locomotive. However, doing so could expedite the process, especially if overnight the power needed for the next morning had to be changed. Is anyone currently doing this, even on a semi-regular basis? What issues might arise that are incidental to the process?

My memory is foggy on this to say the least...but I seem to remember some form of such transfer occurring on the Heber Valley Railroad around the time of the 2002 Winter Games. Whether it was between the 618 and 75 or if the Nevada Northern engine was one of the engines involved, I am not sure. John Rimmasch was the CMO at the time and he may remember the details better.

sc 'doc' lewis

John,

In recent years, I think the Huckleberry has developed a procedure and added a couple of valves to one of (both of?)their locomotives to accomplish just this, but it is from the shop boiler (although there is nothing to keep the same process from happening between two locomotives).

Steve

I was up at the Huck a couple weeks ago and asked about their shop boiler. Very convenient, however we don't have one. I'm sure it's a straight forward process, but I needed to know what kind of stresses to avoid and preliminary procedures might need to be followed. I was also curious if going from atmospheric temperature to getting hot water shot into the boiler (albeit with a top valve open such as a whistle blower valve on the turret) might be incurred . The logic seems that the practice would be useful. I ask because only keep one engine hot at a time. I'd like to see a promotion of fuel conservation, and if we can do that by implementing some new methods that do so and preserve the integrity of the material and soundness of our boilers... that would be great. At the very least I was hoping to cut the use of our portable compressor for drafting the blower during fire up. It's a waste of diesel fuel and insufficient draft for properly pulling carbon and other unburned deposits of material (wood sap/insufficient heat) from the flues, firebox, and grates.

I have done this process a few times in the past at the Pacific Coast after seeing it done at Roaring Camp.

I remember Steve Lee telling me that they had a boiler in one of the cars and it helped firing up the engines. I think they salvaged it from a passenger diesel.

There's a significant difference between using a fired boiler to simply provide steam for the blower and atomizer on another that's full of ambient water, and using it to provide superheated water under pressure - or even hot water at not quite 212 degress - to an empty one. I'm not sure which you are asking about, and suppose you aren't either or you would have worded your question more clearly. I have had a lot of experience with the first example, none at all with the second, and a little bit of in between stuff, where steam was also "blown" through ambient water in an effort to help heat it faster.

I'm pretty much settled that easy and slow is the best way to make boilers hot or cold and there's no sense doing it any other way in today's environment.

Your mileage may vary as always, and objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.

dave

Using steam to run a blower from a neighboring engine is one thing. To be more specific on the other, how hard on the boiler would it be to provide a slow "blowdown" from one engine to help heat up the other? I'm not picturing a full on transfer of one boiler to another obviously, but if there were ambient water in one engine, and a blowdown hooked up to hot water from another engine providing hot water to it, how much and how long and maybe at which intervals have you seen done? Also, I would like to see just out of curiosities sake if anyone has tried this and without mentioning any specifics, where something may have gone wrong or what they would have done differently.

Would you start with a half glass of ambient water or less?

Hello All,

The C&TS used to use steam from a hot locomotive to run the injectors on a cold locomotive to fill the boiler. I also believe that they used the steam to run the blower after the fire was lit. Mr. Jack Anderson mentioned to me that while at Mt Rainier he used a hot water heater to warm the water on locomotives before light off.
It is also important to realize the SP and the Santa Fe had shop boilers that one of their functions was to keep locomotives hot. On SP 3420 when you look at the casting with the safeties and the whistle there is a valve for house steam that came from overhead lines. Word from retired SP employees that the line feed steam at 50 psi. In the Santa Fe roundhouse that stood in El Paso it had steam pipes in it when it was torn down in the late 1980’s.

Robby Peartree

John,

"Doc" Lewis is correct, I used this method at the HVRR with the NNRY No. 93 as well as with the 75 and 618. I have also done used at the Ohio Central with great success in all cases. I actually learned how this was done from the UP. I witnessed the UP process during a long layover in 1991 as the UP steam locomotives were heading to Sacramento. As a brief history, the 844 and 3985 were sent to Railfair 91, almost two weeks early as the UP was anticipating a strike from the BLE and UTU workers. The two steam locomotives were sent to Salt Lake City, UT and were stored to ride out the strike. The strike took place as I recall and the schedule was restored, however, had they not made the move early, they would not have made it to Railfair on time. At any rate, here are the details of how this is done and why:

First you need TWO long heavy duty steam rated hoses with couplers. If you park the two locomotives side by side, you first blow down the boiler of the hot locomotive very well. Next, you connect one hose to the blow down valve of the hot locomotive and connect it to the mud ring of the cold boiler. Next, on the other side of the cold locomotive, connect the other high pressure hose and run it around the cold locomotive and tie it to the opposite side of the hot locomotive. Now, you MUST keep somebody in the cab of the hot locomotive. The same person can walk over and check the cold one from time to time, but you MUST stay on the hot locomotive.

Now, open the blow down valve of the COLD locomotive full open. Open the whistle valve or vent valve on the cold boiler full open. Leave the return hoses CLOSED for now....just leave them connected to the boilers. Now, just CRACK the blow down valve open on the HOT locomotive.....when I say crack, just crack it! Make sure the water in the hot locomotive is high in the glass.

Now, your first goal is to simply move hot water to the other boiler.....nothing more. Allow the hot water from the Hot locomotive to move to the cold boiler, slowly. If you had two equal boilers connected to each other, you would expect to fill the empty boiler with hot water in the space of two or more hours. If you really want to control the temperature and speed, fill the cold boiler with about two feet of tap water before you start the process. This way, as the hot water enters, it will cool some while it is heating the cold water slowly, but at the same time, heating the water and boiler of the cold boiler.

Say both boilers are identical. You would fill the cold boiler with hot water until both water glasses read the same level....for the sake of the discussion, say 1/2 full. Now, that you have hot water in the cold boiler, and steam in the hot boiler, now open the blow valve on the return water line full open on the cold boiler. Crack the blow down return water line on the hot boiler about the same amount that the delivery line is open.

The idea here now is that you have created a heater, similar to that in a building. Which is, that you send hot water and steam to the top of the system and as it comes back down the building it cools, and is sucked back into the boiler and reheated and re-used again. If you have the valves on the hot locomotive set correctly, you should be able to use a heat gun and see that colder water is moving through the return line at say....200 degrees or less, while the temperature of the delivery line from the hot locomotive is at 300 plus degrees. You will know that the COLD boiler is hot when the temperature of both lines equalizes.

I did not use this method to actually steam the boilers...I only used it to heat them to boiling or near boiling. Once we had enough heat....water temperature of well over 200 degrees, we then installed a fire in the firebox and rose steam from there.

Indeed, the UP uses a steam boiler that is located in the shop (and one that is installed in the Boiler/Dorm car) to heat the steam locomotives before their trips. The process used by UP is nearly identical to what I have outlined. There is a hot delivery and a cool or cold return line. The boiler simply keeps the water moving between the locomotive and the stationary boiler. The UP (under Steve Lee...I have no idea if changes have been made or not) also would raise steam in the 844 and 3985 to almost full boiler pressure before the fire was lit. Keep in mind, they would still take two days to do this on the 844 and 3 to 3.5 days on the 3985. This is a slow process and is not designed to remove time from the fire-up process, it is designed and used to place equal and stable heat to the entire boiler before a fire is installed in the fire box.

Please keep in mind that this is not a defined prescription for all boilers and if you try this, you must keep safety as your first priority and you must use the right hoses and connectors to do this. If you have additional questions, feel free to contact me off line or through the forum.

I know that the Grand Canyon, under Mr. Franzen also jump started their steam. Robby as I recall would have been at the GRCy during this time period. Robby mentioned C&T. Robby, were you there for the GCRy process?

John, in your case and as I have seen what you are doing...I would do this and make it work! Very good in your application!

Kindly yours,

Yes John, the GCR did use a pre-warming process for firing up steam locomotives, although it was used more frequently for warming them in preparation for a hydro.

What we did was use a steam generator from a diesel and send the steam output into the blowdown on the mud ring. But we had a special pipe with a 'Tee', so that we added fresh water to mix with the steam just before it entered into the boiler. So, you had steam of say 350 degrees mixing with ambient water to filll the boiler with warm water.

It saved time for heating the boiler for a hydro, especially during the winter when city water might only be 45 degrees. The boiler would be full in a few hours vs. the 2-3 days that resulted when we heated the boiler with a kerosene heater in the firebox. But for fireup - it was much simpler and faster to light a small fire by conventional means.

GCR no longer has steam generators in operation, as all of the cars have been converted to electric heat. So this method is no longer used.

Eric

Hi Eric,

Thank you for the response. It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years since you Ryan Harris, Mike Cowan, Bernie Hiemenez, and I took the 100 year anniversary trip to the canyon. I wish you and GCR well with the runs this weekend and the September steam trip.

Robby

Does filling a Fireless cooker from a "live" steam locomotive count? And then operating said fireless with the air compressor, turbo generator and hydrostatic lubricator all functioning.

Sorry Howard, but they were correct...."Those days have been gone for a long time"

Rob

I read that Santa Fe did boiler washouts in a 12 hour cycle. A locomotive with boiler of some pressure and temp was taken to the boiler wash facility and the boiler blown clear through the terminal blowdown. All of the boiler water was saved to be cleaned, treated and reused. The locomotive was then washed then refilled from a hot tank/boiler holding recycled boiler water. The boiler water makeup was hot enough that the locomotive was easily on the ready track within 12 hours.