I've been doing some research on steam locomotive oil burner design. The topic of FEC 148 came up in a discussion with a friend. What kind of burner did it have while up here in the Northeast, and does it still have that burner?

The burner in question was circular, while looking at the end. The oil came through the center, while the steam atomizing jets came out around the oil stream; sort of a coaxial design, for lack of a better term. Does anyone have a name for that design?

I haven't seen anything like it in any of my marine or locomotives books. Is it possible that US Sugar put that burner in, and that it is a common design to some of the burners on the boilers that they used for process steam?

Whatever it is, it did work on that locomotive; she did well on the Mainline Steam Foundation trips, the last being the CNJ trip, 46 years ago this week, in fact. Pulling 9 CNJ coaches on the CNJ mainline at 60 MPH was well within that light Pacific's capabilities.

148 originally had a Van Boden type burner, which is pretty standard for "name brand", store bought, American built steam locomotives, and which is still the most common for locomotive service.

Those round ones are made for stationary boilers, water heaters, furnaces, etc. They work fine in locomotives. Many smaller engines in amusement parks, etc use them, especially if they were not originally oil burners. Boiler supply places usually have them in stock in a variety of sizes. The Krupp 2-8-2s that we had in Guatemala were originally provided with three burners of this type, and the old timers told me it worked great with a setup like that. Because of the lack of spare parts , these engines were gradually refitted with the standard setup that Baldwin used. I think that this round type burner might be more common on European locomotives.

We in Denmark actively discuss a future with oil burning. Coal supplies are closing, and we experience the same climate change problems as Colorado.

Some steam operators experiment with modern or high technology burner designs. Is this really worth the effort? Or should we just refer to some old American Southern Pacific or ATSF designs?

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https://cliffside110.forumotion.com/f7- ... on-systems

Lots of information here about differing systems from all over.

The original annular casting was a FEC design with actually 3 cores: the center was atomizing steam, surrounded by an oil passage, all inside a steam jacket to warm the burner to more completely atomize the very thick heavy bunker oil. That may or may not be what you are seeing there today. I worked on 153 and 113 long ago using the original FEC system and it worked well. Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami can help you with information on the FEC practice. The Van Boden flame thrower came from I think the SP originally, and is widely used in the US and Canada but differently. US has the burner under the throat aimed back to below the firedoor, Canada incorporates a brick arch and has the burner under the door aimed at the throat below the arch. Oil drools out of a wide slot into the path of a steam jet emitted from a very thin slot. Also excellent with heavy oil and extremely flexible about fuel condition. Not as good in small locomotives with very short fireboxes - some throw is necessary for the oil fan to spread out before the oil stream can impinge against the firebox wall.

148 burning heavy or waste oil could use the FEC or Van Boden very effectively if the combustion system from the draft through the front end is well designed. Have fun with it. Read Waller and Porta. Take a good browse through Hugh's ULTIMATE STEAM web site. Lots of already invented stuff there to help you get in deeper quicker.

If you choose to burn lighter cleaner grades you can take advantage of vaporizing the oil in a system designed for that purpose for more clean and efficient combustion. Nigel Day prototyped a Van Boden cousin that could vaporize at least some of the fuel, our brothers in the UK and Switzerland have taken it even further in other designs. Kelly's correct but there have been some developments of potential interest over the past century or so that might be of interest. If you start by limiting yourself you'll miss learning a lot - and it's the whole combustion system not just the burner.

Good luck. Do good work.

One of our 1522 fireman was always wanting to experiment and had talked about a Gyrojet like the SP used on some engines. We wouldn't let him, but it was a topic of conversation quite often.
I we had been like the Grand Canyon and been able to run up the line to test changes it would be one thing, but when you head up an excursion, you want to use what's proven and works. Like the Frisco did. Again, why reinvent the wheel or try some wild modifications that may have worked on little peanut whistle engines but when you're on a mainline with the train sometimes above the tonnage rating you don't want to take a chance.

I stand corrected about 148's original burner, thank you Dave.

The Canadian system, as explained to me by former CP Rail steam engineer Ed Dickens, was set up the way it was so that they could more easily switch from coal to oil fuel as needed to take advantage of the lowest fuel prices. The flame path was longer because the burner was pointed generally at the throat sheet, then the draft sucked the fire back toward the door sheet, then it wrapped around the brick arch and entered the tubes. He said it worked great.

In my time firing with heavy refined oil in Guatemala, we didn't need line heaters because it never got that cold there, but we always needed a touch of tank heat to get it to flow. Beginning from a cold start was difficult because we no longer had shop steam, only compressed air to raise draft. We remedied this with a barrel of diesel on the running board, and a small line connecting it to the fuel line ahead of the firing valve. Once we could work the tank heater, this was removed.

Thanks for all the input! Looks like I have a lot of reading and studying to do!

Going back to the 148, (46 years ago), I did fire that engine a bit, but don't remember any dampers, at least adjustable from the cab by the fireman. Yet they show up in various drawings in the 'Cycs. Were there fixed inlets for combustion air, or is my memory that bad?

I should know enough to keep my mouth shut by now, but some engines have dampers that you open from the outside, while standing next to the mud ring. Others have only an adjustable baffle on the firedoor, with a bit of air admited around the burner which can't be adjusted.

And, now that I think of it, besides the exceptional case of former FEC engines, can anybody tell me if there are any oil burning locomotives in the USA that have a different burner than either the Van Boden style, or the off the shelf round type that boiler supply places carry ??

Nigel Day converted one at the Grand Canyon and one at the Cog, not sure either has survived in its configuration. Crown engines used the Leahy burner, and I heard there was a two burner arrangement at Three Rivers but have never had a chance to visit there and poke around. General was converted using a Vapor Clarkson setup in the 1960s, not uncommon and widely supported for passenger car heating at the time.

Can't recall if the FEC engines I had hands on in the 1960s 70s had dampers or not. I do recall a pressure gauge for atomizing steam though, held at 15 for spotfiring and just jerked open and on the top peg when running. If I can find my old paperwork I'll see if it is somewhere in there. If you can remember the late 1960s you missed them.......

Horizontal and vertical drafting - had both varieties on Shays. Neither didn't work.

My oldest son was fascinated by the General many years ago. I found an old issue of Trains that had an article on what they did in the 1960s to run it on diesel fuel. Seems it had a pair of Briggs and Stratton gas engines in the tender. One was for the air compressor and the other to run a fuel pump, so it must have been some sort of pressurized system. Not sure what kind of burner, though.

The O'Conner built Promontory Point engines , Jupiter and 119, had a burner from England, Laidlaw, I believe. There is a catalog page on that particular burner in the online plans for those engines. I believe they have since been converted to coal?

Earl Gil, on the Morris CountyCentral, built his own pressure fed system in the '60s. Again, not sure if he made his own burners, or bought something commercial. He had a pump with two electric motors, one 32 VDC and the other 115 VAC. The 32 VDC came off the headlight generator and the 115 was for shore power, firing up. He apparently went through a few headlight generators, and later had just a Briggs generator on the tank for running the 115 motor and pump.

There were several earlier (and experimental) burner placements, as described by one of his firemen. There were two separate paired burner arrangements. One of them had a burner under the throat, and the other in the fire door. Those two burners tended to blow each other out, if not controlled carefully.

The other setup had a burner on each side, in the old ashpan, aimed up at the crown sheet. maybe at a 30 or 45 degree angle. I was told that this arrangement got the crown sheet too hot, and that there was not very good water circulation.

I got to 'guest fire' one of those engines (4039 or 385, can't remember which-) and by that time it had a burner in the normal position under the throat sheet.

A search of posts in the FB group "Steam Locomotive Builders and Users, Documents and Procedures" for "SP Oil Burner Testing" will turn up three files on a report of SP testing done in 1951 that runs over 200 pages long. Included are some drawings and photos, including the SP Gyrojet burner.

The Southern Pacific set up a GS1 in a Building at Sacramento Shops in the late 1940s and early 1950s and preformed stationary tests with various oil burners and fire pans. The goal was to determine the most efficient fire pans, air opening and burner that would work with using the least restrictive exhaust nozzles. The test results states that the greatest problem was that it requires high turbulence air flows to property mix the combustion air with the oil which necessitated smaller exhaust nozzles thus higher exhaust back pressure. They were doing 6000# of Fuel/Hour tests. The came up with the Gyrojet internal mix burner and a new fire pan arrangement. They Dynamometer tested the same GS1 with the new design, but the locomotive was equipped with Circulators which disturbed the flame circulation and a smaller nozzle had to be installed to keep gases out of the Cab. The circulators were removed for next test series with a improvement of about 5% to 7%. SPCO specs the Gyrojet and firepan arrangement became standard but that was 1951 so was only used on bigger power. 4449 and 4294 still have Van-Boden only the GS at St. Louis 4460 has a Gyrojet I believe. I have digital copies of all these Test Reports for this project from CSRM anyone interested please back channel me and I will send you a online link.
The Southern Pacific also commission a test study with the Battelle Memorial Institute for the Performance of Oil Burning Steam Locomotives in 1946 which study air flows in Fire Pans using a 1/8/scale model I have 2 preliminary reports but not the final report. Battelle Institute is in business but according to the Librarian will only release reports to the company that commission them originally.
I would think the AT&SFRR probably did a lot of tests and research on oil burners and fire pan air flows, but I have never found any of this test information. If anyone has original AT&SF test reports on these subjects, I would be very interested.
Dennis Daugherty

Dick Morris said:
Can you tell me how to navigate to these files, and what their names are?

I get an endless string of files in no particular order whether I try to browse images, files, albums, or whatever.

Incidentally, the burner is von Boden -Ingles, and it was devised on ATSF. Interestingly, no one has mentioned the Dickens-Barker burner (or the damper arrangement used on 4014) which is described as a derivative of a Thomas burner.

I struggle with Facebook and I'm the last person you would want to give you instructions on how to use it.