Gentle Hint: this article predates many of the innovations with EP lubricants.

Specifically go back and review the research that led to Texaco M grease.

Then come back here and discuss what you've found.


RME

You mean all the grease that is smoking main and rod loco bearings now?

Well, it was innovative in the Thirties -- and the direct result of even more smoking of main and rod bearings by older kinds of lubricant.

Seriously: I wasn't trying to be snarky. There have been several great changes in tribology since the days when 'facts [sic; read 'fats'], bases, and Mineral Oils' were the constituents of a grease. It's amusing to go back and look at 'expert wisdom' from that era (oddly enough, I was looking at that very issue of 'Lubrication' not two weeks ago!) but if you were trying to determine the correct grease for a modern journal, you sure aren't going to find it via a search on saponification...

imho at least.

From experience I'll add my humble opinion.
The old stuff worked, the new stuff doesn't. Not at mainline speeds and loads. Maybe on a captive locomotive running 10-15 MPH a few miles a day.
Texaco had a good product "back in the day" and we were lucky to have some of it. We tried all matter of other miracle concoctions that under operating temperatures melted and ran.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it, modern chemistry notwithstanding.

It would be interesting to do some chemical analysis but I think we'll find the modern product is not the same product.

But if paint is any lesson, the answer in preservation is NOT to cling desperately to those crumbling fractions of the old product which are still allowed to exist... but rather, we should "push the reset button" on our entire perspective and see what technology has to offer us. Certain products may have pedaled backwards... but material science has not.

One of the great things that happened to me in college:

I got in a discussion, after no few few beers (in the days I still drank them), with a person who was a first-class calligrapher. He was bemoaning the fact that modern tech was so inferior to the good old ways: ink from iron and oak gall; parchment carefully hand-prepared from the very best skins -- lasted 'forever', not like today's junk...

I got a little provoked at this, and the upshot was that I wrote a letter to Eastman Kodak asking what chemicals could be used to improve the 'state of the art' in calligraphy. Weeks passed and I more or less forgot about it -- then I receive a fairly detailed communication. Someone there decided to go through the catalog and determine exactly HOW to improve various techniques. Things like permanent reds. Better mordant techniques for getting inks to bond to substrates. Synthetic materials (and ways to fabricate them) for 'perfect' parchment (that bonds perfectly to applied material and is then treated to repel dirt, etc.). Gold leaf that never flakes, on underbond that stays flexible. All with formulae and stock numbers (some of which were for other companies' products!)

Evidently I'd challenged them; it was interesting to see what motivated industrial chemists could do in the 1970s.

Good main-bearing grease, and good steam oil, are probably achievable when the right chemists address them, too, in a motivated fashion. We haven't quite seen that yet. But I'm quite certain there are answers there, if we just get the right questions to the right people -- even if they don't make the 'right' level of profit margin off subsequent sales.


RME

From the article posted it is apparent that hard greases for journal lubrication were more closely related to Ivory soap than petroleum products. The soap (sodium hydroxide plus natural oils) provides the solid structure and proper temperature performance while carrying the non-reactive oils that actually provide the lubrication. I suspect that the soap also provided the proper viscosity characteristics neccessary as well. Maybe we should be calling Proctor & Gamble instead of Shell Oil or Texaco!

The skeptical cynic in me suspects that the list of "magic ingredients" involved in the old-style lubricants that some folks insist were better than the modern replacements probably includes, but is not limited to, the following:

PCBs
lead
mercury
ambergris
bird oils/facts such as ivory-billed woodpecker, piping plover, passenger pigeon, and albatross
asbestos in the processing filters
child labor
oil drilled from sacred Native American burial sites

I would like to think that, after a point, I was exaggerating. The more I think about it, though...

I have heard shop "war stories" about how certain substitute concoctions for specialized applications were stirred together in the proverbial cauldron from substances that would have certain regulators going into conniptions had they known they existed, let alone how they were being used. There comes a point when I simply raise my hands, say "I don't wanna hear about this!" and walk away whistling......

Personally, I found this issue


http://colt45.ws/misc/texaco/V10_1924/V ... 201924.pdf


far more interesting in terms of steam power lubrication...


RME

It was explained to me, and I recall reading in Howard G. Hill's book Riding the Limiteds' Locomotives that pre Type M grease had glycerine suspended in it. As locomotives became larger, and heavier, bearing temperatures increased and this caused the glycerine to evaporate, turning the grease into a spongy consistency, rendering it useless as a lubricant.

I was also under the belief that Type M was no longer made, and whatever is made today, is not the same, substance wise.

Any clarification? Interesting and relevant topic.

Dear Overmod

If the new technology is so good then why does my swamp cooler call for non-detergent oil? Answer because the "newer technology" of detergents does not help in the application. Scientific principles due not change with technology and sometimes the new ideas try to solve problems that did not exist. I think the AT&SF 3463 crowd is about to get the same lesson as the UP did with exhaust nozzles.

Robby Peartree

The mention of soap based greases brings to mind Texaco 904 grease, which is used for flange lubricators to decrease rail wear in curves. It's essentially soap and graphite.



I wonder if they make any other greased with a similar composition that might be suitable for locomotive use?

Just because your motor calls for non-detergent oil doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit from a nice synthetic with the important properties of non-detergent. I would also add that a lot of the crap coming from china rips off old blueprints so bad that they make the things in inches and use whatever parts are spec-ed no matter HOW bad they are, or how much science has advanced.

I might get my head ripped off for mentioning the evil empire, but if grease is such an issue to get, what is UP using? they run mainline speeds on a large loco with high loadings, and they don't seem to leave a trail of fried brasses.

My casual observation has been that most fried brass has been on engines that have been freshly shopped, with new brass installed. It makes me wonder if they are not setting the tolerances TOO tight. Maybe assuming the loco is more precise then it is. Are the rods REALLY the same length as the distance between axles? all of them? to what tolerance? are the pins really all the same distance between centers and parallel? To what tolerance?? etc etc-then add in thermal expansion rates. Some days the tolerances cancel each other out, some days they add up and eat you alive.

Robert

The subject is journal bearings. UP's engines are both roller bearing; no brasses or grease involved.