Is there any way steam locomotives can be modified to burn natraql gas?
an
This was taken up in considerable technical detail as part of the ESC correspondence early in the T1 Trust development.
You should learn as much as you can about how Porta's and Wardale's GPCS is supposed to work... and what it actually does... before taking up CNG or LNG in a 'typical' Stephenson boiler arrangement.
In a nutshell, CNG doesn't have the energy density to produce combustion mass flow adequate for a locomotive-scale boiler using proportional induced draft. I consider it unwise, if not long-term suicidal, to use a combination of 'forced draft' and superatmospheric CNG admission pressure sufficient to yield the desired mass flow, inside a typical radiant/convective/recovery exchange boiler.
LNG is a bit 'less impractical' especially if you use Rankine-cycle recovery to preheat the fuel. But still suicidal to use it in a boiler with the turndown and swing on a typical locomotive.
At present, the limitation on both practical unit horsepower and effective range is water. For 8000hp used as such, the effective range on PRR (for Q2s and the derivative to be used in the early V1) was in the 130-mile range. I suspect practical gas capacity might actually start pushing this range unless you had multiple FEC-style 'tenders'.
Not that it 'can't' be done. The original thought was to use gas for inside display, firing up or boiler tempering, etc. where the load is not extreme or the benefits superior, or as transient extra firing or superheat if needed operationally, over a base fire on the 92' grate (a number of engines cofired oil over a solid-fuel base, which was the original premise of effective locomotive oil firing in the 1880s) but this was not adopted by the Trust for initial developing (or multiphysics modeling).
To an extent you can get around some of the mass-flow issues with a 'great multiplicity' of strategically-placed and angled proportional burners (as in some incinerators). The issue then becomes boiler structural longevity, in a number of pretty significant respects.
For what it's worth I've seen amusement park live-steam locomotives fueled with propane. Mind you, these are small narrow-gauge (36 inch) types.
I wouldn't assume it would work with the really big ones. It might be more trouble than it's worth to make the concept work, it'd be much easier to go the fuel oil route.
As Wayne mentioned a lot of park and small live-steam engines run on propane. Stanleys and presumably most other steam cars use gasoline or other liquid fuels lighter than diesel. It's all about the burner design and firebox arrangement. But just like gasoline, I don't think I'd be comfortable using fuels with such high and rapid vaporization characteristics in a conventional steam locomotive firebox.
Propane is a lot easier to handle than natural gas because it can be compressed into a liquid at ambient temperatures with relatively little pressure, this means that propane tanks and fittings can be lighter (i.e. cheaper) than the same equipment for a compressed natural gas setup, and liquid natural gas systems also need a refrigeration plant.
FWIW, Union Pacific converted one of their gas turbine locomotives to run on propane in the late 1950s. It ran fine but was soon converted back to heavy oil, and the experiment was not repeated.
If the rationale behind moving away from heavy fuel oil is environmental concerns, perhaps biofuel would be a better choice. The Grand Canyon Railway has been burning recycled waste vegetable oil (i.e. filtered, re-refined used cooking oil) in their steam locomotives since 2009.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70Dude... If the rationale behind moving away from heavy fuel oil is environmental concerns, perhaps biofuel would be a better choice. The Grand Canyon Railway has been burning recycled waste vegetable oil (i.e. filtered, re-refined used cooking oil) in their steam locomotives since 2009.
How much can our waist lines withstand to produce sufficient quantities of waste cooking oil?
Maybe someone can convert mammal flatulance into transportation fuel.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD How much can our waist lines withstand to produce sufficient quantities of waste cooking oil?
Our species's love of fried fast 'food' seems to know no bounds, certainly in your country.
Let's see here there's enough for some trucking companies to buy a 20 percent biodiesel blend of fuel to run on. We carry that in our tanks at our terminal and save about a buck a gallon over 100 oil based diesel. It's enough that companies bid on the contract to haul it away from the big boys in the industry like McDonald's or Frito Lay's. You get that contract your set for a while. The normal potato chip fryer in a factory holds somewhere around 800 gallons of oil. Most chip plants have 6 to 10 lines and the oil is changed weekly.
WVO was a really great idea in its early days... if you owned an older indirect-injection style of diesel that in particular could tolerate the little grit particles from grill scrubbing bricks. The problem was the giant sucking sound when there were several or more people looking to score the 'free' resource (of saving restaurants the disposal charge, etc.)
If you look at the fuel-consumption rate of a locomotive, you need an awful lot of WVO. Which gets expensive fast if alternative uses develop -- see what happened to UP turbines when their heavy oil became a useful feedstock...
A more useful (if less fragrant) source is waste motor oil, from all the little places that gather it and have to figure out how to dispose of it without falling foul of the EPA or equivalent. The problem there is that what railroads buy isn't just motor oil. It can include coolant, brake fluid, hydraulic or power-steering oil... extreme-pressure additives. Things that make firing difficult and emissions nasty.
There are actually systems that batch-treat waste oil. One effective style washes the oil, then separates the water centrifugally. A plant that does a couple hundred gph looks like it is a long way from filling a large oil-burning lovomotive's bunker, but it can run day and night whereas excursion traffic is usually intermittent by comparison. (And you can run multiple lines 'in parallel' if you want more mass flow of fuel at 'peak demand' times (like Polar Expre$$ $ea$on) but economy at other times. It is not difficult to make one of these rigs fully portable, on a skid, swap-body, or dedicated chassis.
The Russians were looking at Gas fuelled turbine locomotives about ten years ago.
This presentation gives some interesting figures...
https://uic.org/events/IMG/pdf/03_rzd_natural_gas_trains_ivanov.pdf
The TEM19 might be a diesel or other internal combustion locomotive, since turbine locomotives tend to have "G" or "GT" classifications.
Turbines are more economical than steam locomotives, but not as economical as diesel locomotives in general. Reduced emissions would be the most likely reason for converting to gas fuelled turbine locomotives.
Peter
OvermodA more useful (if less fragrant) source is waste motor oil, from all the little places that gather it and have to figure out how to dispose of it without falling foul of the EPA or equivalent. The problem there is that what railroads buy isn't just motor oil. It can include coolant, brake fluid, hydraulic or power-steering oil... extreme-pressure additives. Things that make firing difficult and emissions nasty.
I know I've mentioned this in the past, but the Morris County Central steam tourist line in New Jersey back in the 60's and 70's (They closed in 1980) ran their steam locomotives sucessfully on waste motor oil they got free from area gas stations who were thrilled to have someone take it off their hands. And apparantly they never had a problem with any contaminants that might have been in it.
Of course that was then and this is now. Whether gas stations would give it away today is another matter. Or maybe they would?
I think a fundamental assumption about the GT1s is much the same as STEs: the power is calculated to justify a relatively larger amount of required equipment to make a 'unit' work.
My understanding from the translated Russian, which may be defective, is that these are not combustion turbines but free-piston machines that have been made -- finally! -- to work. That would explain the 'gas piston gas turbine' in the description. Russia was not only the land of the 'taiga drum' but also at least one preternaturally loud free-piston experiment, with which I think Mr. Clark is much better acquainted than I am.
Judging both by the emissions graphs and the colorful supergraphics on the test locomotives, I think 'lower emissions' is indeed an important part of the picture. If 'zero carbon' comes to be as much a priority in Russia as in some other countries, a free-piston engine may be a likelier means of using zero-carbon fuels with "railroad"-level flexible turndown than combustion turbines would, and might be interestingly cost-competitive with fuel cells for using carrier blue hydrogen with sequestration...
TEM19, surely one of the best modelable prototypes ever made (right up there with the GM10B in my book) would be a converted diesel. I am not sure if that little tank actually contains LNG. What I expect is that this mirrors current United States practice in using about 5% diesel fuel as a promoter and polynucleate 'flameholder' to ignite the natural-gas charge in a converted compression-ignition engine without supplemental ignition; the engine may run well on diesel or alternative renewable (perhaps up to B100 with suitable treatment and additives, given the desideratum of lower maintenance in the graph for the GT1s) without modification when not on 'gas'.
If I remember correctly, Russian TE is diesel engined, and TEM would be modified. Again Mr. Clark was a large part of my education on this a decade ago, so I defer to him.
In the olden days, service stations burned waste motor oil for heating the service-bay area. All the exotic additives then provided were cheerily combusted and exhausted. At some time EPA put a stop to that practice; I think I remember reading about it in a couple of the magazines catering to the repair-shop trade (common waiting-room reading material in many shops I have frequented over the years!)
I expect it would be no more 'given away' today than WVO is; the major sources now are oil-change chain stores and big-box facilities like Walmart, and I believe there is all sorts of transfer paperwork and promises to keep even traces of oil out of the environment -- I looked at this many years ago during a 'project' to design an advanced steam-locomotive conversion, which is coincidentally how I know about systems to clean and treat waste oil, but my memory and notes are both defective on many details, and there may well have been new legislation in the intervening years.
Why not use fresh cooking oil?
GM 209Why not use fresh cooking oil?
Fresh oil of virtually any variety costs more than that same variety of oil as waste.
The whole point of WVO or 'waste' motor oil is that it is "spent" for its original purpose, and has costs associated with both its physical removal and environmental costs related to its disposal as liquid. If you look at the cost of, say, Frymax, and factor out what the average fuel burn... keeping in mind that vegetable oil has disadvantages in most 'legacy' steam locomotive oil-firing systems... will involve. There is an additional premium involved in most food-grade material as well.
With waste motor oil, we used to be able to deal with the 'wash waste' from centrifugal purification -- that is now a hazardous material in its own right. To the extent additives like ZDDP or MoS2 are present in the waste oil -- and I assure you that no railroad is going to regularly get a Blackstone-type analysis of their waste oil -- there are emissions issues that at any time might become heavily enforced, probably with strict scrutiny a threatened consequence. I don't need to add that if you started sourcing fresh motor oil (as opposed to a comparable grade of fuel oil or other bulk stock) your expense account may not take it well.
There is an issue involving biodiesel manufacture that mirrors your question. The basic stock is somewhat akin to syndiesel, if the correct 'clone' of oilseed is used (this is a reason why rapeseed is a popular stock) BUT steps of chemical treatment need to be applied to the resulting pressed oil to suit it for operation in modern injectors and pumps. That is the reason that B100 is not commonly used in present 'commerce', even though it can technically be made to be equivalent or better in actual service...
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