Saturated and piston valves:
Valley Railroad (Connecticut) 2-8-2 #40, Alco 1920
All the US Army WW2 0-6-0 tender engines, such as Morris County Central 4039, NH&I 7 and 9, etc.

Howard P.

My understanding was there was not a definite birth of piston valves as a result of the advent of superheating. Lots of experimentation was going on with every bit of locomotive hardware at the time..... superheating demonstrated the need for a better grade of steam oil than animal fat in water which broke down easily at higher temperatures and with less condensation to emulsify and carry through the circuit. Valve transition from slide to piston seemed more related to growth in size and higher pressures which made dealing with adjusting cutoff difficult - more surface area of the valve for a higher amount of pressure shoving it down against the surface on which it rode. Piston valves didn't have that problem and had been developed and were a ready answer.

Jeff,
thanks for finding the pics in Astoria. I was always to lazy to browse their hundreds of restoration photos.
Yes it looks like NOW it has flues for superheater tubes.

But that did not convince me that is was build this way in 1925. Within almost 40 years with SMV
it could easily superheated sometimes. Not a big deal. Class I railroads did this with thousands of locomotives.

If the engine has flawless maintenance records and there are in possesion of the current owner that should be
easily found. Especially a mandated boiler/superheater test with a DATE!

All factory documentation say not superheated.
I know, I know there are failures within Baldwin records but mostly numbering issues.
I doubt with ICC, federal and state requirements and tests that an issue like boiler superheating was forgotten!

Sierra #34

I am sure all engineers and fireman within the preservation community ran that engine
with 200lbs boiler pressure since the 1960s and hopefully sometimes in the distant future
(depends on Mr. Kepners ability to "let it go").

BUT it was build and delivered with 190lbs plus the option to upgrade to 200lbs.
What I think Sierra did after 1925.
As I say above if there is a flawless maintenance documentation it is easy to find.

regarding saturated locomotives with piston valves

The most odd one I know of is the Batson & Hatten #12 logging Consolitation made in 1924.
Made for a lumber empire in MS it was equipped with 2 cross-compound air pumps -
what let me guess very heavy trains - but not superheated. Strange!

Interestingly that engine put much more TE to the drivers then the common logging Mikados of that time.
I guess the owner had access to turntables on the end of the railroad.

Right now on display at the Museum in Caldera, AL.

Going from memory which is dangerous for me to do, I think Dave kind of nails it to who, how, when and what was ordered or added retrofit. When it comes to modernization of locomotives. My understanding maybe flawed so I ask someone knowledgeable to maybe add or correct my assumptions. As in educating me and maybe others? My understanding when it came to superheating whether ordering it new at build or retrofitting superheat was often based on use v/s savings. The C&NW R-1s such as #1385, #444 and #175 {surviving and two under restoration} were converted to super heat. I think the #70 {#70 ton logging mike in Wa state and Polson #2 are similar design with the #2 being older. One was superheated and one was not? When the #2 was restored it was decided to keep her saturated and the money and effort to super heat the boiler would of never been justified in its current and probably future existence. A few of us tossed around the idea of not super heating the #1385 as it had originally been a "soak". We had no fingers in decision making. It was a hypothetical discussion of it being worth the effort to build back to being super heated. In this case the retro fit conversion to superheat C&NW did had some issues. So if the head bean counter decided the savings were not worth the expense it might not of happened. Could it be that many people just assume super heating a boiler was always the right thing to do? I am asking for my understanding not trying to be argumentative. I would like some intelligent thoughts from people who understand why in some cases superheating would not be worth it and why in some cases it would. Of course hardly any steam locomotives get used hard enough like they did back in the day when steam was a work horse not a novelty. So it may be an apples to oranges question. Those mikes in question in this thread were awesome looking locos. The #40 out at the Valley is just a beautiful locomotive. Regards, John.

Superheating made a locomotive operate more efficiently when used in robust service. It wasn't cost effective otherwise if we're talking retrofitting and increased maintenance cost. OTOH once it was SOP on the majority of road engine orders, the only added cost of maintenance wasn't as high and it achieved wider use. It simply got more heat into the steam going from the boiler into the cylinders with the same amount of coal on the grates burning. If you really want to make the waters muddy, think about the piston valve retrofits that were done usually in combination with superheat. Lots of ways to try to increase efficiency going on when that was worthwhile. It did nothing in terms of lowering the losses in the steam circuit and at the wall interface of the cylinder and valve, but it raised the temperature higher so those losses being equal left more expansion power remaining in the higher temperature and dryer steam since the added heat made the steam that way to start with after leaving the boiler. Superheating might have actually lowered efficiency in a Newcomen or Watt style atmospheric steam engine...... when you stop and think about it. Unless you cut it off sooner to equalize the exhaust temperature rather than the cutoff remaining the same.

I found it interesting that Sierra #34 and BH&H #300 were being compared here with no one remarking that both of these locomotives have the same owner.

Martin

Greetings:
Sorry to be a contributor to thread drift.
Over twenty years ago or so, I did a cost analysis on converting Valley Railroad No. 40 to superheat using a header from a scrapped South African Railways class 23 2-8-4 which would have fit in 40's smokebox quite nicely.
However, when you added up the cost of the header with shipping to the USA, plus new front and rear tube sheets, superheater flues and units; it just made no sense financially from the standpoint of fuel savings.
I corresponded with Dave Wardale on the subject and he concurred...
No. 40's surviving sister at Woss Camp, BC is superheated, but it received a complete new, superheated boiler when it went to Canada.
J.David

First off, no doubts the SMV 21 was built without superheat. If no maintenance records survive another good place to look would be in Authorization for Expenditure and Equipment Betterment files, if any of those exist, as there should be both for something like installing a superheater.

On the Polson/Rayonier 2 and 70, both are slide valve and saturated and always have been. Baldwin built the #2 first, in 1912 for Saginaw Timber out of Brooklyn, Washington. Saginaw sold the engine to North Western Lumber Company. In the early 1920s Polson was in the market for new power, their master mechanic was familiar with the #2, and he when asked strongly recommended a duplicate to the Saginaw 2, which became the Polson #70 when built in 1922. Polson united the pair when it bought the 2 from North Western in 1929.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

@Jeff
I opened an own topic for Saginaw 2 and Polson 70
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45882

@Martin

I hear about that ownership only once...
I do not post it because I had no confirmation. Your reply confirmed that to me.

B&HS #300: 12-32-1/4-E,94 - EWT 68" 200lbs Boiler, 13' tubes, 52" drivers
display Hattiesburg, MS

is owned by Fred Kepner.

That he owns Sierra #34 is a well known fact here I guess!

Here's the real scoop. The SMV 21was indeed ordered saturated with no superheat. In 1935 when the locomotive was only ten years old, the Capt. had superheat installed at the Southern Pacific LA shops. We have the blueprints by the Superheater Company that detail the installation. We believe that they replaced the entire firebox at that time, as there are now Flannery flexible crown stays and not the Baldwin "expansion" stays that are depicted on the original blueprints. We have replaced the entire firebox as well, making it the third.

The locomotive was ordered with the smoke box lagged and the thickness is 1" which when matched to the 1 1/2" thick on the ajoining boiler course, make a smooth transition.

As mentioned above, the exact phase " as attractive as possible" appears on the Baldwin order form.

Also, the original builders photo shows a much taller smokestack very similar to the other locomotives mentioned above. It seems to have gotten changed during the Superheater conversation.

Hope this answers some questions.

John Niemann - Astoria Railroad Preservation Assn.

John - And in addition to the tall smokestack, she also had a capped stack! Neat!

Good to hear from someone from the ARPA.


Les

John forgot to mention that #21 now rolls.