Steam Locomotives & Alternative Fuels?

[IDM1991]

Suppose steam was to make a comeback.  Coal, oil, and wood, the traditional fuels for steam locomotives, would no longer be in use.  Would it be possible to fire a full-sized steam locomotive on some kind of alternative fuel such as alcohol or ethanol? 

[DMUinCT]

IDM1991

Suppose steam was to make a comeback.  Coal, oil, and wood, the traditional fuels for steam locomotives, would no longer be in use.  Would it be possible to fire a full-sized steam locomotive on some kind of alternative fuel such as alcohol or ethanol? 

Comeback, no, the June issue of "Trains Magazine" answers that Question, page 58.

Dave Conrad, is an expert on steam locomotives and is the Chief Mechanical Officer of the Valley Railroad in Connecticut,   He indicates the cost of operating one of there steam locomotives at $2,000 a day vs a diesel switcher at $400 a day.  He sites the Maintenance costs and coal at $238 a ton.

Valley Railroad hauls the Tourist Trains with steam, a 2-8-0 or 2-8-2 (a second 2-8-2 is being re-built) and uses diesel on the Dinner Trains.

www.essexsteamtrain.com

 

 

[arkady]

It's already been tried, using either piston-drive or a steam-electric drivetrain:

http://paintshop.railfan.net/images/moldover/ace3000-4.html http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ult.html

I have no idea where the ACE3000 project stands today.

[fredswain]

A truly modern steam engine, if ever such a thing could exist, wouldn't look anything like what we think of in terms of steam engines as efficiency would be key. It would be a closed loop steam system and rather than having the steam directly press against cylinders coupled to the drive wheels, it would instead turn a generator that charges batteries and powers traction motors. It would resemble the diesel engines of today far more than the steam engines of yesterday. Everything would be computer controlled and it would probably still be fueled by an oil. Since that really just brings us to the current engine design but with the diesel engine removed and substituted for a steam generator, then it comes down to the economics of each prime mover compared to each other. The steam system will be more complicated and less efficient which is why we don't see it used today, regardless of the fuel used.

The ACE3000 project is long dead. Even with it's advancements it would still be less desireable than just a pure steam generator powering electric traction motors. A set of large coupled drive wheels will never have the adhesion control that independently control axles does. L.D. Porta, the main design engineer, died several years ago. One of his prodigies though, David Wardale, is still trying to revive a newer form of steam engine but one that still looks and works like the traditional engines that we know. It can be seen at www.5at.com

[phillyreading]

Alcohol or ethenal would be very dangerous for use on a steam engine, oil would be much safer. Another factor is that steam engines need water to use, that was why there were water towers every so many miles years ago. Today you would have to haul an extra tank car full of water as no water towers are around.

With a diesel engine you just need to have diesel fuel for use.

Lee F.

[servoguy]

What killed the steam engine was primarily two things: High maintenance costs and poor thermal efficiency. Also, the steam engines could not be MUed, and had to have two men in the cab v. one for a diesel. The best thermal efficiency that a steam engine ever achieved was 9%, if my information is correct. Diesels are achieving 50% thermal efficiency. That means a diesel uses less than 20% of the fuel of a steam engine. Stationary power plants do not achieve 50% thermal efficiency, but are closer to 42%. The design of a 2 cylinder steam locomotive involves too many compromises. The simple expansion, counterflow design cannot achieve good thermal efficiency. A unaflow design will have an efficiency of about 24% if the design is done correctly. The best unaflow engines were made by the Skinner Engine Company. Here is a good discussion of the Skinner engines: http://vaporlocomotive.com/site/wp-content/uploads/VLC_Data/Manuals/Skinner/Skinner_Operation_Maintenance.pdf There is more information on this web site so dig around a little. Here are some good pictures of a Skinner marine engine: http://vaporlocomotive.com/site/wp-content/uploads/VLC_Data/Manuals/Skinner/Skinner_Operation_Maintenance.pdf There are Skinner engines still in service that are 50-60 years old. If an engine of this type were used to power a locomotive, the numbers might work. The engines are ultra-reliable and will run forever. If they are run condensing, then feedwater should not be a problem. Non-condensing, then feedwater becomes a serious problem not easily met in the drier parts of the country. It would probably be best to run the engine condensing to solve the feedwater problem, and use an electric motor driven blower to provide draft for the firebox. However, the efficiency of these engines was 24% at their best, and this was at steam pressures that were never realized in a steam locomotive. Bruce Baker

[IDM1991]

Steam is created, of course, by heating water.  Is it possible to fuel a steam locomotive with something environmentally-friendly?  I recall reading of miniature steam locomotives fuelled with some variety of alcohol.  This is nothing more than a fanciful, speculative question.  I too doubt that steam will make a comeback. 

[servoguy]

You can use a lot of things for fuel, but can you meet the environmental requirements? The modern diesels are very good about emissions. No stink or smoke. The fuel pressure for the injectors is up around 10,000 psi atomizes the fuel very well. Ethyl alcohol can be made from corn or other bio products, but I believe it takes more energy as oil as fertilizer to make the alcohol than the alcohol has energy when the conversion process is all finished. Plus you can feed cattle corn and corn cobs and make steaks. It seems a terrible waste to burn corn when we could have steak for dinner. Just MHO. Also, this country is not running out of oil at all. We have more oil than the middle east. http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911 I have been corresponding with a couple of guys that think they are making viable steam engines. However, Mr. Chapelon said: "Thermodynamics, more thermodynamics, always thermodynamics." This must be the principle tenant of steam system design. The "best" mechanical design is a failure without good thermodynamics. The guys who are designing these engines don't understand thermodynamics and the idea of limited cutoff or what a unaflow (or uniflow) engine is all about. Bruce Baker Bruce Baker

[balidas]

For several years I was involved in a project restoring a steam locomotive to operating condition. Having been built in 1924 it was diesel fired. I had asked similar questions. The only response I got was a shrug of the shoulders and a "what for?"

 I also feel this corn fuel is a total waste of time, effort and resource.

[servoguy]

The Santa Fe and SP used oil for fuel because it was readily available in the southwest and coal was not. So now it really boils down to thermal efficiency. When the diesels were available after the war, SF and SP couldn't dieselize fast enough. Santa Fe had some interesting steam engine concepts which never got built prior to the dieselization. These were articulated engines with as many as 5 engines and articulated boilers. They would have dwarfed a Big Boy. However, efficiency would still have been an issue. To achieve good thermal efficiency, the steam pressure needs to get up around 700 psi, which can't be done with a fire tube boiler. So I think a return to steam engines is a dream. Biodiesel can be made from a lot of different types of biomass, but there isn't enough biomass to satisfy the energy requirements of this country. Interestingly enough, there are 18 applications with California to install solar farms to generate electricity from sunlight. And who is holding up progress? The environmentalist. I say, "Bring on the bulldozers." Bruce Baker

[IDM1991]

What about wood?  Yes, it would require locomotives to carry along with them a massive tender, but wood is renewable, unlike coal.  Environmentally, I'm not sure what compromise would have to be made...

[servoguy]

Wood is far too valuable to use as fuel for a steam engine. Coal has a much higher heat content due to the high concentration of carbon. Bruce Baker

[Timboy]

 

[ben10ben]

phillyreading

Alcohol or ethenal would be very dangerous for use on a steam engine, oil would be much safer.

 

What would be so dangerous about using alcohol?

[servoguy]

Alcohol is far more flammable than diesel oil. You can throw a lit match into an open container of diesel, and the diesel will not catch fire. Try that with alcohol. Also, the heat content of diesel is much higher than alcohol because alcohol is partially oxidized and contains only 2 carbon atoms. Diesel is pure hydrogen and carbon and because it is a longer carbon chain, it contains more carbon in relation to the amount of hydrogen. The carbon atoms provide the majority of the heat when they burn to carbon dioxide. TimBoy, this is the same problem with using CNG. The heat content of natural gas is not as high as diesel,, and so you need more CNG. Also, I wouldn't be real keen on having the CNG tanks on a train just due to the safety issue. The CNG tanks are also big and heavy and necessarily spheres which don't pack together too well so the engine would need to be larger and heavier. Natural gas has plenty of good uses that don't require it to be liquefied, and your new gas furnace is a good example. And yes, this country has an abundance of natural gas. Bruce Baker

[arkady]

servoguy

Alcohol is far more flammable than diesel oil. You can throw a lit match into an open container of diesel, and the diesel will not catch fire. Try that with alcohol.

Not only that, the alcohol will burn with a pale bluish flame that's nearly invisible in daylight, but just as deadly.

I might add that natural-gas drilling is no less destructive to the natural environment than oil drilling, as many residents of northern Pennsylvania are discovering:

http://www.tiogapublishing.com/articles/2009/10/14/opinion/doc4ad6310d2523a867330664.txt http://www.tiogapublishing.com/articles/2010/03/19/opinion/doc4ba12ebe4126c304513746.txt

[servoguy]

I have no way of knowing, but it appears that the designers of the ACE 3000 ignored the unaflow concept for their steam engine. The Skinner engines routinely achieved 24% thermal efficiency under most load conditions which a turbine can't do and a counterflow piston engine can't do either. The downside of a unaflow design is that the cylinder gets longer and the piston gets longer, but the efficiency is worth it. If you read the stuff on the ACE 3000, they expected an efficiency of 15% (maybe), and that is a long ways from 24%. The thermal efficiency affects the size of the boiler directly. The 614T that was tested as part of the ACE 3000 program achieved thermal efficiency between 3 & 4%. That is pretty miserable. Think about this: If a uniflow design were used, the boiler size would have been 1/6th of the size for the standard counterflow design. That affects not only the boiler size but the size of the condenser, the amount of fuel that must be on board the loco, the fuel consumption, the power used for the fans to create the draft, and on and on. If you read the stuff about the Skinner engines, you will get the understand that the Skinner engineers really had their stuff together. They were building stationary engines and marine engines which is a little easier than locomotives, but I really think the locomotive engineers missed a good bet by not learning from the Skinner engineers. There are still several Skinner engines in operation including one in a great lakes ship which was installed in 1950. The engines require a low level of maintenance and are very reliable. For a ship, they have the advantage that they can be reversed quickly. I have talked with the guy that bought the remains of the Skinner company, and he and I both believe that if Skinner had modernized their designs and increased the operating speed of the engines and thereby reduced their size and cost, the company would still be alive today. There is a German company, Spilling, that still makes steam engines for cogeneration: http://www.spilling.de/english/produkte.php. In the ASME paper that the ACE guys wrote, they claimed that they had designed the engine so it was inherently balanced. However, I don't quite believe them as the main rods were connected to different drivers, and so any vertical force would not have been balanced. It is possible to overbalance an engine so that there is no vertical force on the driver, but it doubles the longitudinal force. However, if they balanced the longitudinal force, this may have given them the result they claim. Bruce Baker

[IDM1991]

I suppose the question would be worded as follows:  what is the best type of fuel for a steam locomotive that achieves the greatest thermal efficiency and is nevertheless renewable in some form?  Would some kind of vegetable oil be feasible?

http://www.martynbane.co.uk/modernsteam/nday/mw/ndaymw-biodiesel.html

[RockIsland52]

Fascinating and educational discussion, and I am enjoying it!  Thanks.  Jack.

[cabbage]

Well speaking as a child who grew up with railways... Steam locomotives have burnt Coal, Wood, Sugar cane waste (Bagasee), Dried Banana & skins, Cocoa beans, Coffee beans, Llama dung, Cow dung, Chicken dung, Elephant dung, and of course Peat... I also grew up with diesel engined locos that used a combination of cane spirit (ethyl alcohol) and castorl oil(!) -You name it it has been burned to drive locos!!! regards ralph

[DMUinCT]

Do not forget the Federal requirement for Steam Locomotives. After 1,472 days of operation, the locomotive must be torn down for the FRA Inspection.  Check the boiller and tubing, fire box and stay bolts, safety valves and injectors, etc.   And who does it?  As I remember, after the Gettysburg boiler explosion, the government had to bring in "experts" from the Strasburg Railroad and Essex's Valley Railroad to show them how things should be done in today's limited steam use.

That's a lot of labor.   Also, unless a LARGE number of Steam Locomotives were built, the cost of replacement parts would be "off the wall", much of the time hand made.

[HighPlains]

IDM1991

Steam is created, of course, by heating water. 

 

And the big problem with water is its quality and how much and how rapidly it builds up scale in the boilers.

Mike

[servoguy]

This was a real problem for the western rail roads. The Santa Fe had a chemist for each division to keep an eye on the water quality. It would be a real trick to get the railroads to go back to a non-condensing steam engine. Bruce Baker