Just as an update: I have no idea what the proper attribution for this thing is, but it came off a link to 2926's Facebook page:



I would note that the original source for this calls it a 'Wagoner' valve; Porta (and by extension the ACE 3000 patent) probably are describing this with their reference to 'Wagoner' or 'Waggoner' throttles... do not be confused.


RME

Hi Mike:
You are correct,: the Trofimov valves and their associated parts are mounted on the valve rod.
And Hugh is correct too: they are heavy. To support the weight, they have extra long valve rods which are supported by bushings in the front valve heads.
One of the main advantages of the Trofimov valve is that it can be retrofitted to any piston valve locomotive without replacing the cylinders. It is entirely internal. The Wagner drifitng valve as used by the AT&SF (and others) were part of the cylinder when it was cast, therefor could not be retrofitted except by renewing the cylinders.
I would note that when we disassembled our SY, we found that the bushings that guide the floating valve ends to their seated (operational) position were gummed up with carborized oil. However, the locomotive had run 98,000 miles without these being dis-assembled and serviced whereas in China this was done every 100,000 KM (about 62,000 miles), so it was a bit overdue...That said, once all the parts were cleaned up and measured, everything was within China Railway tolerances except for the rings (which we renewed).
J.David
ps: Mike-That was a neat line and so easy to get cabrides (and occationally the opportunity to run). I ran lead engine from JinPing to the top of the grade twice, but never got to handle the train downgrade into Reshui, I wonder why? jdc
J.David

There are othe reasons that such damage can be done to an eliment end. One posibility is that a partly blocked flue can have the cynders burn in the flue and hence the damage. I have yet to see one that has colapsed in by way of a vacuum.
In oil burners the eliment should be about 1/3rd of the length shorter than for coal. It may be that they are hotter than with coal and for such reasons its posible to graft on stainless steel return ends.

Please not that 3540 had modifications to the valve gear most noticably in greater lap and lead which at mid gear drifting is an advantage in smooth running. The main aim being to exclude extra air from the cylinders durring coasting to prevent carbon forming fro the oil. Also and this is some what backed up by resent observations that the oil was reduced at short cut offs.

There is much discusion on compresion or water brakes. Its true that they are advantagous but there are specific points which must be taken into acount.
A pure water brake dose not exist. In any form of such braking its the compresion of air which is the way braking is caused. The water is only there to cool the cylinders which with out cooling can get very hot. I have seen piston rods turn tempering blue when either cooling or lubrication fail. If you do not allow suficent air into the exhaust pipe you will not get the best compresion. Its normal practice to have a valve in the exhust pipe to either direct steam to the blast pipe or shut off the blast pipe and then open to admit air to the exhust pasages. The water for cooling is ushaly sprayed into the exhaust passages on the cylinder. This water can be either seperate cold water or from the boiler water space. ( mention of water treatment on another post is inacurate. I have used locos with treatment similar to Porta's with no adverse efects. Its the Ph which is critical) It is more ushal to use the bolier water with super heated piston valve engines. Slide valves are more ushal with compresion braking as they are tighter than first genaration piston valve rings.
The steam pressure side of the system has a valve off it to allow for the relise of the genarated pressure. the more you open it the faster you go. If you shut it then you stop and if you loco is steam tight then you will go back up the mountain.

The valve gear of mountain locos are designed to have long cutoffs of up to 80 %. This is where the compresion is and bellow 60% compresion is unreliable. If you have no load then you can drive the loco on the reverser bringing it back to mid gear. Compresion is somewhat eratic in mid gear. At no time is the loco taken out of forward gear when running in reverse as if you have a problem then you simply can use the regulator to fill the cylinders with steam and thus the regulator is your best brake. It is normal to run with the brakes fully off and just use them to stop and park the brake.
When you have adhesion for drive you have to keep the loco brakes off so as to prevent the wheels locking up. The train brakes can still be used.
The exsact amount of water used for cooling is decided by watching the compresion exhaust

With costing I see the biggest advantage in having the regulator cracked open to keep the train streched out agenst the brakes.

Would you please post the data to support this assertion. Thanks.

Oh, for heaven's sake, the SHORT LIST of primary authorities for oil firing on modern steam locomotives contains Nigel Day.

Get real. If you can't get real, ask him for details, and don't use words like 'assertion' as if he doesn't "know".


RME

I gave the abbreviated version of the procedure before, just because I didn't want to get too wordy, but the other parts of what they have guest engineers do now is (if I remember correctly):

* As the train stops you are supposed to run the reverse gear to center, pump the throttle once to (I think) re-seat the valve gear (I was never totally clear on why we did that, you're just parroting what they tell you to do in minimal broken English, one thing I really didn't like about the way the Experience works - as a professional I like to understand why I'm doing something).

* Then return the reverse gear to 60% forward cutoff for departure.

The Polish engineers always had us move the screw reverse in 10% increments, I'm guessing because they knew just enough English to say "Fifty", "Forty", "Thirty", etc. I watched when they ran the engine themselves, and they made all kinds of fine adjustments to the reverse gear settings and throttle that we were not allowed to, mostly because they just couldn't tell us what to do. The one senior engineer who spoke the most English, (is it Henri?), allowed me to do more than the other Polish engineers would, including taking the train up to a stop signal in a left-hand (blind side) curve, which really shocked me (meaning I probably wouldn't let someone I didn't know, and couldn't effectively communicate with do that on my train) when I saw where we were. At the end of my time running on that trip he said, "very professional", and he had no idea I was a Class I engineer.

Yanking the superheaters out of a locomotive, lopping off 1/3 if the length and replacing with stainless return bends is an expenditure pushing $100,000 on any sizable locomotive. Such a recommendation/assertion/claim coming from one on "the SHORT LIST of primary authorities for oil firing" carries great weight which might lead someone to undertake this modification.

Since I personally have never heard or read of such a recommendation/assertion/claim in my readings of Railway Mechanical Eng., Master BoilerMakers Proceedings and most authoritatively in this case the Superheater Company Engineering Data book, it is only prudent to ask Nigel to support his recommendation/assertion/claim with engineering data. What has he learned that escaped all the boiler engineers that did this for a living in the last century?

Am I really asking too much?

Mr Austin

I will not enter into an interlectual war of words with you, End of subjuct.

It was quiet common practice for locos to have thier super heater eliments changed for shorter ones when converted to oil from coal to take acount of the higher super heating due to the higher combustion temprature of oil. It is a standard Festiniog practice to fit stainless ends. I give three cases of engines needing or being given this treatment to prevent burning up the cylinder oil. Snowdon ~#8 (1970's) Festiniog (1970's) Australian R class 711.

I keep my postings to a simple level so most people can undertsand them. I also state that I am intrested in the hardware of making somthing work corectly, not the academic side.

I swore I wasn't going to walk back into this, but the bloviating from the other side of the pond and others has finally fried my last nerve.
Nigel: For God's sake, buy the correct steam oil and you won't have that problem.
Stainless return bends. Not necessary and too expensive. What's the purpose?
If it's in the Superheater Co's manual, then it's good enough for me. I would hope that they knew what they were talking about. After all, the built, sold and were responsible for their quality.
So far I've read more different methods of drifting an engine than I could count. Only thing lacking is putting her on center and opening the throttle wide.
How many of you have any practical experience running a steam locomotive on a main line at track speeds all day uphill, downhill, making stops and whatever? After you have plenty of experience doing that, you will find the correct method that will be easy on the engine and lo and behold, it will be what other folks who do the same thing have done.
You can learn all about sex out of a book, but experience shows you what works.
I'm Don Wirth and I approve this message.

Dear Mr. Conrad,

Do you have any suggestions on where we could study more on the Trofimov valves?

Robby Peartree

P.S. I saw SP 3420 in January and she seem to be holding up well. Freeport is interesting in continuing to be a good home to all of the equipment and they did some work on the dinner. I did not see #1 on that trip.

Can anybody explain why you would use stainless steel in a place you want heat transfer?

Robby

Most authoritative? In the Superheater Company's manual?

Perhaps a look at exactly what is IN this 'manual', rather than just posting its title page as if that established anything conclusively, would be in order:

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89089671895

will give you an online copy that anyone here can read. (Note that there is a useful reference, p.31, that describes the function of the 'safety valve' system I was referring to earlier.)

If there is a mention of how far element length should be adjusted for oil firing, I did not see it upon repeated re-reading. Weasel words about 'gas temperature depends on the amount of heating surface passed over by the gases before coming in contact with the superheater units', yes -- but nothing about how this actually varies, or what the outcome would be. Nifty 'standard approximate formula for figuring out any heat transmission apparatus' on p.33, but absent actual value for the weasel K, 'tain't authoritative. Now, you could take information on BTU content from average coal and oil heat content from Tables 71 to 74... but if an average for locomotive coal is about 12,000 BTU and oil about 18,000 BTU, heat transfer in the flues ceteris paribus... I'd have to say that the 1/3 reduction might be something a bit better founded than 'bloviating' -- certainly more than Superheat Engineering Data cares to provide as an actual design.

Actual discussion of locomotive superheater design in this volume almost might as well be advertising copy. The solution to the present question (is 1/3 reduction an appropriate 'ballpark' average value for a conversion to oil firing) could, indeed, be given definitively just by filling out form 228b with the appropriate before and after numbers and mailing it in... to the address shown on the... oh, wait. Might be waiting a fairly long time to get your 'definitive information from the Superheater Company' that way...

Otherwise: it was certainly nice to have all those pages from Machinery's Handbook conveniently to hand, and to have a reference for converting pressure to head in feet of water, and to find that a cord is 128 cubic feet and there are 8 quarts in a peck, and see the reference in Table 46 about feed and blowdown in various seas. But it didn't answer what you said it would answer. (I also thought it pathetic that 'experts' would either not know or deprecate the difference between nucleate and wall condensation, cf. p.11, but that is not a criticism of contemporary applied engineering.)

They do give us one additional piece of empirical information that might be useful: the gas temp around the element should not be more than about 300 degrees (F) hotter than the 'final temperature desired in the steam' (p.45)

Care to try again with a reference that actually tells you how long to make the elements? I'd love to see it.

This thread has 'drifted' too far off the original topic -- if we want to discuss superheater design, it should be in its own thread.


RME

Greetings:
In responce to Robby's inquiry and to clear up a couple of other points, attached are the VRR's instructions to enginemen regarding the basics of the Trofimov valves and handling No.3025.
I wrote this up based on Trofimov's appliction to the British Patent Office, "Directions for Operation and Maintenance for SY Steam Locomotive" supplied with the locomotive by Tangshan Locomotive & Rolling Stock Works and my own experience operating locomotives equipped with Trofimov valves. I would note that I have taken some liberty with the Tangshan document as some of it hasn't translated into English as well as it might.
We used similar instructions when we had No.1647 (now No.142).
In responce to another question, the superheater units on the SY are a typical Schmidt type and when installed, extend back into the superheater flues to about 18 inches from the rear flue sheet.
J.David

Dear Mr. Conrad,

Thank you for your quick response. As I am tired and have dirt tan lines from dealing with contractors all day, I will hopefully read this weekend. I have to admit I like having a trusted opinion on material instead of an internet search with questionable reliability of the source.

Robby Peartree

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