I seem to recall that the Cleveland-Youngstown EL commuter train had steam heat lines. So in the event that the car steam lines were frozen solid then what? Ethanol is one solution but you would need a lot of it. From what I understand is that passenger car terminals even small ones like Youngstown had steam plants to keep them warm. For a large terminal like Cleveland that had like 40 tracks there must have been a huge plant just for that.
The Northern Pacific used to run a special baggage car at the head of the North Coast Limited's cars that had a big water tank with a hose running ahead to the F-units to keep them supplied with water for their steam generators I recall reading about a situation where the water line froze, and an NP employee had to kneel down and hang out the front door of the baggage car to repeatedly hit the line with a hammer between the baggage car and the nose of the rear-facing F-unit ahead of the car until the ice in it broke up...while going 79 MPH in below zero weather in Montana.
Considering that HEP has been the standard in the United States since the last steam-heated equipment was retired (NY&LB in the mid-80's), I doubt that this an issue anymore.
CandOforprogress2So in the event that the car steam lines were frozen solid then what?
There's a difference between frozen brake lines and frozen steam lines. There is little way that a steam line would fill with water sufficient to freeze and block flow of steam -- traps might freeze and block condensate flow, but there isn't much more condensate coming down with the heat cut off, and not much likelihood of the trap staying frozen (for too long) with the heat resupplied.
The NP example is water going to the steam generator, not steam in the lines. It would be interesting to see what procedures would have been used to keep this water from freezing in (easily anticipatable) deep-freeze conditions in Montana winters. A low-freezing azeotrope of alcohol and water is one of the few things that might go through a monotube steam generator without problems...
Just for grins: exactly how many threads has Raymond now started regarding the use of alcohol in various types of situation? (And an answer for him, now, in the String Lining thread ... not in any of his, perhaps as not to feed the trolls?)
Seem to recall seeing pictures of some kind of valve on the last car of a train or parked cars that was allowing a little steam to exit so steam would keep line from freezing during winter ?
Guess train man might be able to crack the steam connecting valve a little ?
Late winter of either 1976-77 or 1977-78 Amtrak sent entire trains to Florida to thaw out. Winter 1978-1979 saw some of the first HEP conversions as a result.
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