Sitting here thinking of that clusterhump conversion, I wonder how they got it past the FRA?
It was just wrong in so many ways.
I have also heard over the years that #1R siderod is bent.
Be thankful the grates are still in there, who knows what kind of destruction they could have done putting a floor in the firebox.
Be thankful no disaster occurred from the fuel supply/burner setup.

The railroads did not care about you leaving your ashes on their track?

Free ballast!

Seriously, the railroads used to use coal ash as fill and ballast in yards and on light duty track. In some areas you can still find cinders and pieces of clinker all over the ground.

Every photo and video I saw of it running in Washington it had a diesel assist.

Ferroequus is Latin.

It would be very interesting to learn what the good folks at the American Steam Railroad Preservation Association will come up with for an oil firing system for that big firebox.
I mean this seriously, and not to be smart. It would be fun to follow along with what the Association's mechanical staff do. One suspects there could be some trial and error.
Can anyone involved keep us informed of the process? That would be appreciated.
Again, best of luck with the project and for many years of happy railroading.

Diesel locomotive was for HEP power. It did assist in getting up the hill. During some of the early testing the steam locomotive tried to get up the hill, unassisted, and was stuck at the curve at the bottom of the hill spinning wheels.

In the interest of bringing a more technical perspective into the discussion, the "large firebox" shouldn't be an issue.  If you look at the firebox grate dimensions (Source: https://www.americansteamrailroad.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/reading-2100-report-web.pdf), the firebox is 108-1/4" Wide x 126-3/8" Long (94.5 sq ft grate area).  For comparison, Santa Fe's oil burning 4-8-4's had larger fireboxes (108" wide x 144" long, 108 sq ft grate area), so firebox area is not necessarily an issue.

I can't speak to Canadian practice, but based on western road practice (AT&SF/UP/SP) there are a few key observations about the "failed" arrangement on the 2100:

- The "flame length" of an oil burner is relatively long; especially with large fires on the road, the flame needs enough time and length to burn completely before hitting the flue sheet.  Western roads solved this by placing the burner below the throat sheet, facing backwards.  This gives the flame enough time to reach the door sheet (which is protected by firebrick), "curl over," and fully burn before entering the tubes and flues.  Without the brick arch in the 2100, the maximum flame size is probably limited, as large fires would get "choked off" by the rear tube sheet.

- The oil feed arrangement looks to be a limiting factor.  Typical oil burners are "gravity fed," and the flow of oil from the tank to the burner is driven by the weight/head of the oil.  In a typical oil burning arrangement, the oil feed valve is located below the cab; in the 2100s arrangement, the ball valve is much higher, which means less head/pressure, less flow, and less heat (I don't know if the 2100 had any type of fuel pump to compensate).  The ball valve itself could also be an issue.  Firing valves are typically designed with a plug that provides variable feed control (i.e. fine adjustment at low fire, coarse adjustment at high).  Admittedly, some ball valves are designed with ports accordingly, but it's hard to judge based on photos alone. 

- Proper drafting is also key.  Without any context of what's in the smokebox, not a lot to comment on here, but the key to burning oil is that the draft openings in the firepan need to direct the air through the flame, not around it.  A poorly designed firepan will result in cold air bypassing the flame, potentially causing thermal expansion/contraction issues, and subsequently leaky stays and tubes.

- I don't have any comments on the siphons.  I know Santa Fe used them on and off, but they were typically limited to the combustion chamber.  Circulators seemed to be a better approach for oil burners, as they likely provide a less restrictive flame path, while also allowing more even water flow around the firebox.

FMW solutions seems to have a pretty well established track record so far, and it will be interesting to see what they come up with.  Hoping for the best for the 2100 crew.

CaliforniaSteamin,
Great post. Very informative.
From the International Library of Technology, Locomotive Operation, 1925, there is a discussion on the first oil burner systems. Evidently, early on, the burners were placed in the rear and the flame projected forward toward the tube sheet. However, until they perfected the brick work, "the oil spray and gases would enter the flues before being completely burned" under heavy loads and drafts.
There were also dual burner systems with burners front and rear.
All very interesting. As said before, it would be interesting to watch the process with 2100 - the ideas, calculations, etc.

Yer making sense, Mr CaliforniaSteamin. Why didn't I think to compare dimensions ?? Since I'm completely unfamiliar with Wooten fireboxes, I just figured they were super gigantic, and our existing setups couldn't possibly work. I was told by the Fireman on AT&SF 3751 that they had no problem filling that firebox with fire from a single Van Boden burner (bet it's a pretty big one) mounted as you say, under the throat sheet aimed at the sweet spot on the flash wall midway between the firedoor and the mudring.

Agreed, a ball valve is a poor substitute for a real firing valve with a big handle and a quadrant arrangement. I'm GUESSING that they can scrounge a suitable firing valve, handle, quadrant, and burner from a park engine somewhere.

The AT&SF 4-6-2s I've monkeyed with had a 2" blower line with a ring around the nozzle, under the petticoat pipe. One of them had a baffle and some netting in the smokebox, why I do not know. They used a regular oil burner firedoor. The fire pan was level, and provided with dampers which were opened while the fire was lit, and closed at shutdown.

My GUESS is this same arrangement ought to do the trick for 2100.

No doubt FMW Solutions will install a firing system which will be vastly superior to the FERROEQUUS one, whether it is or isn't like the one I just described. I join all who wish the best for ASR 2100 and her crew, and I have great confidence in the leadership of this project.

VIVA ASR 2100 !!!!!

Going from old memories of CNR No. 6060, and memories are not so great anymore. I did ask a friend who fired her once.
In the Canadian system of oil firing in 6060, I believe the burner (no memory of what the burner looked like) was below the fire door, in the area where the stoker would have been, but low. It flamed on a slight upwards angle. About 3/4 of the way forward in the firebox was a barrier wall, likely made from a castable refractory. The flame was dispersed by this barrier and then travelled over a short brick arch into the rear head (tubes). That all gave plenty of time to burn and without smoke -- CNR used diesel fuel. The only opening in the fire door was behind the little flipper cover for sanding the flues.
The folks at the Rocky Mountain Rail Society are working on the firebox:

https://6060.org/current-times/inside-the-fire-box
https://6060.org/

Perhaps someone from that group is watching here and can chime in -- or someone from the Canadian Pacific Railway working with No. 2816?
I remember brick servicing being done on 6060 in the Spadina roundhouse in Toronto, but that's about it. In operation, there seemed to be few problems with firing, or the firebox, even with less experienced crews.

Let me add a few items.

The story as I heard it (third- or fourth-hand at best) was that the oil-firing system on 2100 had been designed and installed according to industrial-boiler principles. If that is true, you might have a system developing a relatively transparent flame expecting to 'see' a long travel through multiple passes, whereas on a locomotive you WANT a luminous flame for radiant uptake in the firebox and chamber, but just burning the carbon particles to CO2 as the plume reaches the rear tubesheet. (There is a little residual oxidation going on in the first 6" or so of the tubes, but for all intents and purposes combustion of carbon particles substantially ceases thereafter, only to be resumed in the smokebox or ejected plume (or just falling out as soot)

Along with this might be the ASSumption that a relatively small number of firing positions might be needed on the oil feed valve -- I can see someone thinking that a suitable stainless ball valve with Teflon would be just ducky for fine control if you only had to set it once... The big problem is that the opening is nonproportional to handle position, which could work if you put a graduated scale around the handle (akin to the calibrated scale on a Franklin power reverse).

Since you want as long a luminous plume as you can get, in my opinion you want the burner at the throat sheet, firing backward under a good refractory arch, with appropriate refractory or thermal coatings in the upper backhead so the plume reverses over the top of the arch. One concern then is that the angle of the arch may not be that best suited for coal -- which complicates the design of arch tubes and circulators (which is how wise people do 'syphons' in an oil-fired boiler...)

If anyone can find the historical material from the latter 1930s on the development of front-mounted coal stoking -- something that started being extensively tried on the B&O around the time of our entry into WWII, and evidently so unfortunate in practice that records of this are almost impossible to find). Many of the arguments made during that system's development would apply equally well to any kind of directed oil firing.

I am personally fond of the approach used in the Dickens-Barker system, which uses what was said to be a Thomas-style burner, but with extremely careful damper arrangements and a divergent set of tuyeres either side of the evolving plume. Note that this provides enough precise shaping of the plume that the locomotive will apparently hold nominal boiler pressure without the blower being cracked. I do not know what arrangements are sued for atomization that fine, but I have seen the results on two occasions I was able to observe the locomotive for a long period.

Syphons are nifty... if you have a clean combustion plume, as with a GPCS, or you can shape the plume so it does not impinge directly on the faces of the syphons. A moment's reflection will tell you "that is not going to be particularly easy" (/s). If the syphons are actually working as they are supposed to, and circulating relatively cool critical water from the lower part of the boiler outside the main convective circulation, you can bet that their ends and flat sides are going to be relatively dark in the infrared. This makes them just ducky for absorbing radiant heat according to Stefan-Boltzmann fourth-power physics... but they're also really good at sucking radiant heat from luminous carbon particles so they go out early, perhaps even as sticky residual hydrocarbon coke, and start making that nice black crap that will have to be sanded (probably via the usual crude methods like a box with a scoop in it that makes a butterfly firedoor a desirable thing on an oil-fired engine so designed...)

Incidentally, all the syphon installations I'm familiar with that have been successful were in the firebox space. ATSF got clever and tried chamber syphons in the late 1940s (as part of the general unsung mass replacement of Certain Alloy-Steel Boilers That Failed To Thrive) and you can in fact see their form noted on a couple of diagrams of the 3460 class... but oh brother, were they removed in a hurry with no one talking about them. They do make a certain amount of theoretical sense in increasing the radiant-uptake area comparatively late in the combustion plume, but I personally have my doubts that they really circulate enough water to make them worthwhile (and, perhaps, even safe...)

The likely more correct approach would be to fit Cunningham circulation on the water legs and use arch tubes and circulators rather than syphons stuck in the combustion plume. The Cunningham system uses a jet pump to transfer water from low points in the convection section to manifolds low in the water legs, to give the effect of greatly increased circulation a la LaMont and avoid DNB going up the pachinko machine of the staybolted legs -- Cunningham doesn't appear to have tried to optimize what happens to the circulated water once it has reached the crown space, but then, neither did the Nicholson people.

Something that might be interesting to design and calculate would be how you implement Snyder combustion preheaters on this style of oil-fired locomotive (you would heat the secondary air through the tuyeres for sure). The Snyder preheaters were designed crudely but efficiently for the era -- they are basically like a brake-air radiator of 2" pipe in a couple of staggered passes, supplied with exhaust steam (or the sort of bypass steam you'd use in an exhaust-steam injector) Anything that staves off quench of the luminous flame is going to help oil-firing, perhaps dramatically.

With all due respect seems to me that a couple of you are competing to see who can make the biggest mountain out of a molehill.

If Tom Payne had a half a brain he would have reached out to one of the successful oil fired locomotive outfits and copied their system. Of potentially greatest value would have been to visit with Rob Franzen at the Grand Canyon RR who had just completed two successful coal to oil conversions.

Instead he installed his monstrosity that was an abject failure and who knows how much damage it did to the side sheets?

Thankfully the whole operation went broke before it caused a tragedy.

Ross Rowland

.

Yet Canadian practice used rear mounted burners and a brick arch with great results for decades. Sulzer uses a cluster of vaporizing burners surrounding a central pilot / spot burner with a steel arch on their modern (1980s) era steam rack railway locomotives. I've also heard some interesting developments about a vaporizing system which heats a firebed of ceramic lumps on a grate to add what's missing in oil burners - hot thermal mass not centered on brick walls - and replicates the "feel" of a coal fire from the boiler's perspective... wish I knew more about this but been away for too long. Not Invented Here a century ago doesn't mean evolution is dead.