Well, there I was leafing through my copy of Ron Zeil's "Twilight of World Steam", and on page 45 in the Italian section I came across two of the weirdest looking steam locomotives. "Mamma mia, what'sa dat?" The things looked like they had missile launchers mounted on the boilers and two smokestacks in front of the cab like campaniele. "Aha!" says I, "They're Franco-Crosti boilered locomotives!" I'd heard about them, but not a whole lot.
Anyone know anything about the Franco-Crosti system? It was supposed to be pretty efficient and may have had a major effect on steam locomotion if steam lasted past the '60s.
There is a bit of information on the Doug Self site, along with a bunch of other "loco locomotives".
erikem There is a bit of information on the Doug Self site, along with a bunch of other "loco locomotives".
Grazie, Signor Erikem!
This system was an economizing system, recovering Rankine-cycle heat from the combustion gas that would otherwise be ejected from a conventional front end. The most interesting application of this was made on a Belgian locomotive that looked like something out of a nightmare, if you think the Italian locomotives were strange.
There's a lot to be said for recovering this heat, but there are concerns with how the exhaust is routed if it is to be used to induce draft at the end of the Franco-Crosti exchanger tract (you will note where it is on the BR 2-10-0s, looking somewhat like the stacks on those WWII Japanese carriers).
But the big problem involved sulfur in the coal. When the heat exchange takes the flue gas down below the dew point of sulfuric acid/sulfur trioxide, fantastically rapid corrosion of conventional duct materials takes place. In between the replacements and the road failures -- "where's my big savings?" from the thermodynamic efficiency gain (seen in fuel cost and water rate). Cost issues generally precluded the idea of corrosion-resistant steels, or passivated coatings.
In somewhat more modern design form, the idea of reflex economizers is combined with air preheat and flue-gas recirculation (FGR), the external-combustion version of EGR on an automobile.
Ah Overmod, I see this was a case of something sounding good in theory, but not working out in practice.
If you watch the movie, "Von Ryan's Express," the Germans are chasing them through the Alps using a Franco-Crosti locomotive, deliberately chosen by the studio because it looked evil, according to the supplementary material on the DVD.
Well thanks 54light, next time "Von Ryan's Express" is on I'll have to take a look, but quite honestly I've never cared for the film. The novel was a WHOLE lot better.
Yeah, I liked the book better myself. But, I do love any movie with trains in them, like of course, "The Train" or "Dodge City" which has the mother of all saloon fights. I just watched the Ealing classic, "The Ladykillers" and there's quite a bit of railway action in it, being filmed in London at Copenhagen Fields, just north of King's Cross. Next time I'm in London, I'll have to visit that area.
Oh yeah, "Dodge City"! Errol Flynn, Alan Hale, Guinn Williams, Olivia DeHavilland (a MUCH better actress than her sister Joan Fontaine, but don't tell Lady Firestorm that!), and Bruce Cabot. THE greatest bar fight ever filmed. It's not for nothing 1939 has been called the "Watershed Year", greatest year in American filmaking. How did the people at the time get to see them all? How did they choose?
Ol' Errol did pretty good for himself. His sword fight with Basil Rathbone in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is the best sword duel ever filmed. Nothing since has come close.
Whoops! Drifting! Back to trains....
Well, "Union Pacific" came out in 1939...
Ah yes, Errol in Robin Hood. If you look closely in one scene you can see Olivia's "carpet" making an impression on the fabric of her outfit. Yes, 1939, what a year! the skies were filled with Zeppelins, there were monocle shops on every corner and every kid in Europe was learning the new dance called "The Funky Goose-step Polka."
My mother told me she practically lived in movie theatres back then. A great way to get the kids out of the house for an entire Saturday. She said how her mother would come and drag her home for dinner when it got dark after parking her there at noon. So did every other mother back in the day. Double features, newsreels, cartoons, shorts all for about a dime. Yes, back to trains. I'm having a hard time finding "Union Pacific," I wonder if it's on Netflix?
Another interesting thing about "The Ladykillers," to perform the robbery they use a 35 or 36 Packard limo with right hand drive and a left hand drive bullet-nose Studebaker!
To get this discussion back on the right track, here is a reference from the ineffable Douglas Self showing the Belgian locomotive's somewhat checkered history. (Note to those who are familiar with the Self site: he has added what is surely the European moral equivalent of Henderson's quintuplex to the end of this description, apparently taken from a booklet by the Belgian syndicate responsible for the thing...)
In my opinion, there are significant thermal advantages from recovering combustion-gas heat, and at least three approaches that can be used to mitigate or eliminate the corrosion issues. As I noted in a different context, you'd likely combine the straight economizer function with air preheat and FGR if you implemented this on a modern locomotive design.
Fascinating. Weird looking, but fascinating.
The Irish "Turf-Burner" reminds me of a line from the song "Juice of the Barley"...
"When I was a gossoon of eight years or so, with me turf and me primer to school I did go.
To a dirty old schoolhouse without any door, and a lady school-master blind drunk on the floor!"
I guess the Franco-Crosti boiler wasn't a success but it wasn't for lack of trying. A turf burning locomotive must have smelled like a fine single-malt.
54light15 I guess the Franco-Crosti boiler wasn't a success but it wasn't for lack of trying. A turf burning locomotive must have smelled like a fine single-malt.
Thank God something like this wasn't tried here in the Old West with buffalo chips as fuel.
Maybe if it burned corn it would have smelled like Bourbon? There are some mighty strange locomotives on the Doug Self website. I guess anything went back then when the technology was fairly new.
Firelock76 54light15 I guess the Franco-Crosti boiler wasn't a success but it wasn't for lack of trying. A turf burning locomotive must have smelled like a fine single-malt. Thank God something like this wasn't tried here in the Old West with buffalo chips as fuel.
Johnny
Here's an accurate description of life on the 'ol prairie:
Hi folks ,
harumph - I will better not remark a word on this 'covered wagon' roll ..
As for the Franco-Crosti combusion gas two stage preheater : a later version 'discovered' that it was a step towards the right direction not to split up the reversed gas trail but put one single drum below the boiler's and then exhaust from it on just one side - preferably the fireman's in this case . To this version - the Crosti , duly sans Franco - a couple of engines were rebuilt : some British Railways 9F and some 50 class by DB . In both cases the engines looked like 'pregnant' - and you know what that could only mean for steam in the 1950s - Basically , after the corrosion problem had been largely overcome in case of the DB 50-C afak even by using stainless steel , the engines proved 'it could be done' yet lacked most of that sparkling advance so much promised by the Italian inventors . In Italy , some 740-FC 2-8-0s suvived for quite some time , even into the mid 1970s . The slanting of the gas-heater btw was thought essential by the inventors to keep tubes clean - or rather : to make them corrode somewhat less and become choked with soot and cinders less quickly .
There would be more to say on that in view of some boiler design incorporated in my layouts after a certain point when a few more ideas had hit me - however no-one had asked about it back when I had posted my 2-8-8-6 modified SE Mallet and I think it would carry things too far to extend on it here .
Regards
Juniatha
Deggesty Firelock76 54light15 I guess the Franco-Crosti boiler wasn't a success but it wasn't for lack of trying. A turf burning locomotive must have smelled like a fine single-malt. Thank God something like this wasn't tried here in the Old West with buffalo chips as fuel. How, then, did the people crossing the plains by wagon stand it? During the day, chips were gathered and tossed onto cloths that were slung under wagons; the chips provided fuel for the cooking fires.
Well fair enough, but can you imagine those same buffalo chips with a hard forced draft under 'em, THEN roaring through boiler flues with hurricane force (talk about corrosion issues!) THEN mixing with exhaust steam and condensing into a "gentle rain" that falls along the train AND drifts into open windows?
"Hey Conductor, gimme m' money back for that ticket! I'm walkin' from here on!"
"Walkin"? Here to Californey?"
"Why not? I walked from Ohio to Gettysburg to Appomattox!"
I can remember one of these locomotives in Milano Stazione Centrale when I ran the USA Army RTO there back in late 1964 or so, a 2-6-2 as I recall. Almost all steam was gone from the Ferrovia dello Stato but there were a few still left. There was also an 1880's 0-4-0T that switched Ferrovia Nord's Milano station which is on display near the Amarone factory.
Puffy, are you new to the Forum? I don't recall seeing you here before. If so, welcome aboard! If not, welcome back!
I see you've been busy today!
I was in Florence in the summer of 2004. Sitting just outside the station on a stub-end track was a 2-6-2 in good condition, not a derelict. Probably used for excursions. The funny thing, the infrastructure of steam was still present, a water tower and several water columns were there also. I remember seeing water columns in other small stations as well.
Probably easier just to leave them alone rather than to go through the trouble to rip them out. Besides, you don't know, "Maybe the steam engine he gonna come back!"
Could be worse...
For a period during the 19th century, Egyptian railroads supplemented their fuel supply by burning mummies...ewwww!
Have fun with your trains
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