Hi , Thomas
Not sure what you mean by statistics , I guess you ask for data & results . I may tell you some ‚echoes’ of the steam freight running days of 614 for these ‚tests‘ :
When my father took me with him to visit the Vienna 150 years celebration of Austrian Rys in the summer of 1987 , we also went for a couple of train rides . On one of the trains headed by freshly restored 310.23 dad got to talking with one thinly silver-haired old engineer of whom I best remember that sharp , narrow nose vivid eyes and low whispering voice , chuckling when he or dad had made a sarcastic remark on something topical as dyed in the wool engineers sometimes do . I was not present during all of the conversation however I later learned this had been Prof A Giesl , the inventor of the known oblong shaped 'ejector' as he used to call his draughting device . Besides other things they had also spoken about ACE , the tests and a certain Argentinean steam loco engineer who claimed he had revolutionized steam loco efficiency . Dad later retold me what Giesl had commented on these tests : principally it summed up to the following :
1 – Loads :
Ok , # 614 did manage to do the jobs asked , however , to quote dad quoting Giesl "only by reckless overcharging and coming razor-sharp on edge to stalling at places" . In spite of long years since passed I'm pretty confident his words very closely were as stated here , I recall what an alarming impression they made on me , instantly I visualized an American steam loco strained to the utmost , yet in peril to lose the battle - and then what ? I probably vastly over-dramatized the situation , they did have constant worries, though , including thermo-mechanical trouble with firebox staybolts .
2 – Traction and Efficiency :
Prof Giesl clearly discarded anything useful could be gathered by these trips : „It’s not edifying in any way“ , only thing Giesl acknowledged : „ALCO had done a good job“ with designing and building this engine ( add =J= : actually it was a Lima engine ) ; on carrying through test runs in severe winter , annoyed : „It was a stupidity! Cannot think of anything useful they have demonstrated by that“ . Interestingly , the runs were done with firing fully left as it had always been – including cinder throwing , black smoke and all . No GPCS or part-gas-production combustion , in case you might think of it .
3 – Measuring :
As told in David Wardale’s book ‚The Red Devil and other Tales of Steam‘ , from which I have occasionally quoted ( and clearly stated so when I did ) , many of the testing parameters could not consistently be collected , on some days of very icy low temperatures , measuring lines were iced up and not working , on other days some calibration was lacking and was mainly replaced by educated guessing . Personally , I think what could be measured must have told of a vintage engine strained to the very limit of its output as regards tractive effort at adhesion limit , including – of necessity – very uneconomic running at long cut offs and lots of wall effect losses in cylinders as the engine creped over the hard parts of the line . If not something really radical had been applied to the cylinders , and I have not heard or read of anything changed , nothing new should be expected from whatever data was collected .
4 – My comment :
In an earlier thread I had commented on these test runs . In fact the runs were more or less a repetition of what most American RRs had regularly done in the late hour of steam traction – to load engines to the nines no regards to consumption or wear as anyways the locomotives were doomed to be phased out pretty soon . Same as back in late 40s all power at speed potential was wasted on slow speed dragging , the very range of traction that inevitably was and always must remain the major weakness of classic steam – i e direct drive – as against any power using full adhesion arrangement with electric traction motors on all axles of powered bogies . Mind , of a total of fourteen axles in # 614 but four were powered , or 29 % ! What can be learned from bidding such an engine against 100 % adhesion modern diesels specifically designed for awesome pulling power and realizing just that , more so when those very steam locomotives had already lost competition against diesels of much simpler technology and lesser power some forty years earlier ?
Overload still was overload forty years later . Although sure enough there were some variations , expectably so , when reading through the ACE chapter in his book I noted Prof Giesl’s viewpoints were by and large confirmed by Wardale’s reporting and summation of this attempt .
Juniatha
edit : one add remark inserted
Ah, David Wardale, "The Red Devil and other Tales of the Age of Steam." Would that a person who did not have that book be able to read it. I have my name and e-mail to the fine folks in the United Kingdom who promise to make another printing of it . . . some day.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul ,
It's quite interesting - especially if you read it in some relation to Giesl's book 'Die Dampflokomotive - international' . Each German language steam loco engineer has - or wished had - written a book by this 'fundamental title' 'The Steam Locomotive' .
Unfortunately , as I was told in Giesl's book a whole lot of tables and calculation examples of the original Giesl manuscript are missing , the editor threw them out on judging "they are not interesting to most readers and only make the book more expensive to print" - a most belated (miss-) judgment fragmenting this tech-historically important book .
Maybe I should write one The Steam Locomotive' too , perhaps with a subtitle 'an epilogue to the type of engine that started it all' …
Juniatha Overload still was overload forty years later . Although sure enough there were some variations , expectably so , when reading through the ACE chapter in his book I noted Prof Giesl’s viewpoints were by and large confirmed by Wardale’s reporting and summation of this attempt .
The question is, what is one trying to accomplish with an ACE 3000 type locomotive?
What was the Union Pacific trying to accomplish with the Big Blow gas turbine locomotives? They were often run in consists with Diesels, and I assume they were restricted to portions of the Union Pacific transcontinental main line, so gas turbines were not going to replace Diesels in the same way that Diesels swept away steam.
Maybe the Union Pacific was trying to reduce the large number of units in first-generation Diesel consists so as to reduce maintenance costs? Maybe they had an eye on fuel costs because even though the gas turbines had much higher fuel consumption, their fuel was Bunker C, at the time an almost waste product of oil refining, or as the story goes, until the plastics industry bid up the price?
So what is the ACE 3000 supposed to accomplish? Lower fuel cost, substituting coal for #2 Diesel fuel in mainline freight operations. It was never going to eliminate Diesels, their servicing facilities and the need for their liquid fuel.
So instead of complicated boiler controls to allow MU operation, how about optimizing the steam locomotive into something like the last generation Big Blow -- a unitary 10,000 HP articulated locomotive with some number of trailing Diesels in the consist? Maybe a Super Challenger? The Diesels can act as booster engines supplying powered axles to get over ruling grades whereas the steam locomotive can lay down horsepower it is able to. Maybe such consists could be optimized with regard to axle count, starting tractive effort, and sustained HP for purposes of reducing the need for oil-based liquid fuel.
Railroads have experience in excursion service with unitary steam locomotives with trailing MU'd Diesels, operated from the steam locomotive cab.
Multi-traction capability with diesels was a major point with ACE3000 , sure , since with diesel traction being the starting point , clearly the state of the art was to slip in a different type of engine without too much irritation .
Imho , clearly too , this was a design challenge never fully met – it resulted in propositions loaded with hitherto untried components or components untried at least in this combination and context . The answer was modular design , accepting to have to replace failed components , aiming at making this as easy as possible .
I believe lower fuel costs than with diesels were aimed at , this would have provided a logic reason for being of a new generation steam locomotives – again I don't see how the #614 hard test runs did provide hope or basis for this .
Optimizing the steam locomotive into something like the BigBlow UP gas turbine engines : as for me , this would reverse design path : Once I got fascinated with increased thermic cycle efficiency promised in a high temperature high pressure condensing steam turbine loco with electric transmission and running of full adhesion bogies ( I had mentioned it in an earlier longer comment ) . I had chosen a BoBo-BoBo wheel arrangement and worked on it in my past time for about a year , while friends spend great times at discotheques asking where and when I had disappeared from view I was torturing my brain on voluntary night shifts over problem solving and finding some elegant solutions for arrangements or , ok half way elegant solutions, too – all for the proverbial 'golden pineapple' so to speak . In the end I threw out boiler , condenser and steam turbine ("hey , it wasn't my fault" she sang out) and replaced it by a gas turbine , beefed up electrical sychronous equipment to meet gas power and – whooosh – there it was : 8000 hp at turbine shaft at 160 t loco service mass .
So , don't ask me for a favourable comment on perspectives of steam turbine loco design : I call it a wonderfully complex and intriguing machine as such – yet not competitive .
UP's BigBlow - yes , I guess they wanted something more akin to BigBoy power at speed they had become used to , without having to pile up half a batch of diesels fresh from assembly line . If bunker oil provided a cost saving I cannot say , although it did do so as late as in the 1970s with oil-fired steam versus diesels on DB and this was the reason why on the Emsland line with heavy traffic from the North sea via Emden to Rheine and Muenster at the south end all freight including heavy ore trains and all passenger trains remained steam until the last six surviving 012 Pacifics fell to the reaper in May 1975 – from what I learned it was an end more of necessity with engines completely run down than a willful stopping steam by pressure of extending electric traction . As it was , oil-fired 042 Mikes and 043 Decapods labored on until in September 1977 the last hoarse cry of whistle from the last 44 class three cylinder Decapod , 043 196 , marked the very end of steam traction on DB .
Optimizing steam from Challenger design on and use diesels as booster power on hard sections - yes , sounds good to me – although , we have to accept this was a concept that could have worked well in an extended lease of life for steam through the 1960s , maybe into the 1970s in America . In the wake of environmental considerations in a world past peak oil having to be careful not to get at war over fuel reserves – which I feel would be absolutely fatal – the engine concept of our wishes does no longer fit modern demands with offering maybe 10 % of thermic efficiency in actual traffic , at best some 14 .. 16 % from heat content of fuel at tender to power output at wheel rim ( leave alone at drawbar with a 500 t machine !) with possible peak efficiency just reaching some 20 % as I have read in a paper on a 4-6-4 29 bar re-superheated four cylinder compound by one of the remaining never surrendering steam advocates .
Regards
Paul Milenkovic Juniatha: Overload still was overload forty years later . Although sure enough there were some variations , expectably so , when reading through the ACE chapter in his book I noted Prof Giesl’s viewpoints were by and large confirmed by Wardale’s reporting and summation of this attempt . The question is, what is one trying to accomplish with an ACE 3000 type locomotive? What was the Union Pacific trying to accomplish with the Big Blow gas turbine locomotives? They were often run in consists with Diesels, and I assume they were restricted to portions of the Union Pacific transcontinental main line, so gas turbines were not going to replace Diesels in the same way that Diesels swept away steam. Maybe the Union Pacific was trying to reduce the large number of units in first-generation Diesel consists so as to reduce maintenance costs? Maybe they had an eye on fuel costs because even though the gas turbines had much higher fuel consumption, their fuel was Bunker C, at the time an almost waste product of oil refining, or as the story goes, until the plastics industry bid up the price? So what is the ACE 3000 supposed to accomplish? Lower fuel cost, substituting coal for #2 Diesel fuel in mainline freight operations. It was never going to eliminate Diesels, their servicing facilities and the need for their liquid fuel. So instead of complicated boiler controls to allow MU operation, how about optimizing the steam locomotive into something like the last generation Big Blow -- a unitary 10,000 HP articulated locomotive with some number of trailing Diesels in the consist? Maybe a Super Challenger? The Diesels can act as booster engines supplying powered axles to get over ruling grades whereas the steam locomotive can lay down horsepower it is able to. Maybe such consists could be optimized with regard to axle count, starting tractive effort, and sustained HP for purposes of reducing the need for oil-based liquid fuel. Railroads have experience in excursion service with unitary steam locomotives with trailing MU'd Diesels, operated from the steam locomotive cab.
Juniatha: Overload still was overload forty years later . Although sure enough there were some variations , expectably so , when reading through the ACE chapter in his book I noted Prof Giesl’s viewpoints were by and large confirmed by Wardale’s reporting and summation of this attempt .
IIRC, you are dead on in regards to the economic advantages of Bunker C when UP acquired the GTEL fleet vs. later as demand from the plastics industry drove up the price of that grade of fuel. I've read in a number of sources that it was the fuel price issue that caused UP to go all diesel..
I was going to quip: "OH NO,NOT ANOTHER BRING BACK STEAM THREAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", but you do raise some interesting points......................................................
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Juniatha does raise some interesting points and does really appear to know what she's talking about.
I must confess that Thermodynamics was not my best subject in engineering college--perhaps that's one reason I became a civil engineer. We deal with things that generally do not move--which is generally much easier to comprehend--though still specialized.
In any case, even if the never-surrendering steam advocate's claims of 20% thermal efficiency could be actually achieved in real life at the railhead/drawbar, sadly the infrastructure to bring back steam power in the form of a high efficiency, even more complicated (than in the past) machine just is lacking, at least in the U.S. And even if we did, the maintenance forces would need retraining or replacement...So while the concepts may be intriguing, may show the best of what might have been, I don't think there's any danger of a "bring steam back" thread.
It's just too late.
John
Juniatha Hi , Thomas Not sure what you mean by statistics , I guess you ask for data & results . I may tell you some ‚echoes’ of the steam freight running days of 614 for these ‚tests‘ : When my father took me with him to visit the Vienna 150 years celebration of Austrian Rys in the summer of 1987 , we also went for a couple of train rides . On one of the trains headed by freshly restored 310.23 dad got to talking with one thinly silver-haired old engineer of whom I best remember that sharp , narrow nose vivid eyes and low whispering voice , chuckling when he or dad had made a sarcastic remark on something topical as dyed in the wool engineers sometimes do . I was not present during all of the conversation however I later learned this had been Prof A Giesl , the inventor of the known oblong shaped 'ejector' as he used to call his draughting device . Besides other things they had also spoken about ACE , the tests and a certain Argentinean steam loco engineer who claimed he had revolutionized steam loco efficiency . Dad later retold me what Giesl had commented on these tests : principally it summed up to the following : 1 – Loads : Ok , # 614 did manage to do the jobs asked , however , to quote dad quoting Giesl "only by reckless overcharging and coming razor-sharp on edge to stalling at places" . In spite of long years since passed I'm pretty confident his words very closely were as stated here , I recall what an alarming impression they made on me , instantly I visualized an American steam loco strained to the utmost , yet in peril to lose the battle - and then what ? I probably vastly over-dramatized the situation , they did have constant worries, though , including thermo-mechanical trouble with firebox staybolts . 2 – Traction and Efficiency : Prof Giesl clearly discarded anything useful could be gathered by these trips : „It’s not edifying in any way“ , only thing Giesl acknowledged : „ALCO had done a good job“ with designing and building this engine ( add =J= : actually it was a Lima engine ) ; on carrying through test runs in severe winter , annoyed : „It was a stupidity! Cannot think of anything useful they have demonstrated by that“ . Interestingly , the runs were done with firing fully left as it had always been – including cinder throwing , black smoke and all . No GPCS or part-gas-production combustion , in case you might think of it . 3 – Measuring : As told in David Wardale’s book ‚The Red Devil and other Tales of Steam‘ , from which I have occasionally quoted ( and clearly stated so when I did ) , many of the testing parameters could not consistently be collected , on some days of very icy low temperatures , measuring lines were iced up and not working , on other days some calibration was lacking and was mainly replaced by educated guessing . Personally , I think what could be measured must have told of a vintage engine strained to the very limit of its output as regards tractive effort at adhesion limit , including – of necessity – very uneconomic running at long cut offs and lots of wall effect losses in cylinders as the engine creped over the hard parts of the line . If not something really radical had been applied to the cylinders , and I have not heard or read of anything changed , nothing new should be expected from whatever data was collected . 4 – My comment : In an earlier thread I had commented on these test runs . In fact the runs were more or less a repetition of what most American RRs had regularly done in the late hour of steam traction – to load engines to the nines no regards to consumption or wear as anyways the locomotives were doomed to be phased out pretty soon . Same as back in late 40s all power at speed potential was wasted on slow speed dragging , the very range of traction that inevitably was and always must remain the major weakness of classic steam – i e direct drive – as against any power using full adhesion arrangement with electric traction motors on all axles of powered bogies . Mind , of a total of fourteen axles in # 614 but four were powered , or 29 % ! What can be learned from bidding such an engine against 100 % adhesion modern diesels specifically designed for awesome pulling power and realizing just that , more so when those very steam locomotives had already lost competition against diesels of much simpler technology and lesser power some forty years earlier ? Overload still was overload forty years later . Although sure enough there were some variations , expectably so , when reading through the ACE chapter in his book I noted Prof Giesl’s viewpoints were by and large confirmed by Wardale’s reporting and summation of this attempt . Juniatha edit : one add remark inserted
Juniatha,
The account of the C&O 614 pulling coal in the ACE tests as told to you was pretty much spot on as I witnessed it myself.
Is the C&O 614 one amazing, rugged and powerful 4-8-4? Yes. Was watching the 614 pull 5000+ tons of coal at 50 to 60 mph impressive? Yes. Was using a Thoroughbred, 100+ mph, state of the art passenger steam locomotive to pull heavy tonnage through the mountains of West Virgina in -20 F weather a smart or even useful thing to do? Absolutely not.
I not bashing Ross for doing this. It is his locomotive, and he can use or abuse it any way he wants to.
The big problem with ACE, was they had no idea what was coming down the pike in a few years with diesel-electric technology. Everyone needs to understand, the locomotive the ACE3000 was designed to compete against was Chessie's "high tech" road unit at the time, the GP40-2. We used them on everything at that point. SDs were primarily used in pusher assignment, and while we were getting the new SD50 at the time, they were junk from the start.
Ross had no idea that a short time later, the super fuel efficient, microprocessor controlled, frequency drive, high horsepower AC unit would become CSX's standard road locomotive. Something that a traditional steam locomotive would never be able to compete against.
If you want to see how abused the 614 was even before the ACE tests, watch this link showing the 614 pulling 24 cars up the 17 Mile Grade (2.6%) unassisted. The blue smoke you see pouring off the front end of the 614 is Ross burning up the cylinders and valves with the 614's 810 degree F Superheated steam.
watch?v=UxdIyihG46U&context=C4e7398bADvjVQa1PpcFOxjCsNFUF9fYJmSUtiVvMfExJ0SUIybo=
Hi SD40-2
Interesting and rational comments – seems like with your mentioned improvements >> coming down the pike in a few years with diesel-electric technology y<< the case would have been more questionable , yet it always was one dependant on volatile fuel costs coal against diesel and these relations appear to have been floating sand banks in a waterway for most of the times .
614 suffering on steep grade ( btw would you let me know the total train mass and actual grades and their respective lengths ? that would be interesting )the speed is much the pace 01 / 01.5 / 01.10 Pacifics usually settle to on grades like 1.5 ... 2.0 percent ; there is an exceptionally steep grade in the Frankenwald the Hof basd 01s had to pass both ways until the end of their working life , it was fittingly called 'Schiefe Ebene' or simply 'the Incline' in a typical Bavarian trist of language since 'schief' means inclined leaning slanting or sloping and ‘Ebene’ means level plain – which clearly it wasn’t since it was a ‘tilted plain’ so to speak . On this climb an 01 usually settled to some ~30 mph , without being exceedingly pressed . There are some quite impressive sound recordings taken at the crossing road bridge at the top of the grade where the grade began to level off and engines would engage in a fierce acceleration – depending on will and skill of fireman and driver – storming past below the bridge , all steam power shouting triumphantly .
. As for mean temperature of cylinder walls rising in # 614 it seemed positively high enough to fully avoid condensation during expansion and exhaust and may have evaporated sprays from priming if so. However if cylinder oil used wasn’t up to it – squearckx !
From the video it might also have been paint oxidizing into carbonized form ., however that should have been but a matter of some miles . Many photos of 01.10 three cylinder Pacifics show paint completely burnt from live steam pipe / cylinder connections , the parts being all light brown from corrosion .Maybe they didn’t dare to stop and risk stalling when trying to restart ..?
I have a recording of a Pennsy K-4s slipping on HorseShoe Curve in the middle of a brave ascent , then gripping and continuing with a squeal by to and back stroke of one piston – obviously a consequence of oil film washed off by water carried over during wheel spin – it’s heart-rending to listen to …
An electronically self-protecting diesel would just ease up, engine idling out “Sorry man , I see your case , yet : no oil – no service !”Steam stolidly struggled on until the engine consumed herself . What about installing and linking up some viciously-clever electronic nerves in a vintage steamer :“Sorry man , I see your point , yet I’ve gotten wise and so : f--- U (*) , I quit !”
*gee*
= J =
(*) says the steamer , not me – whaddaya think !?
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Thanks GP-40, that's a very interesting video. I rode behind 614 back in the 90's when it hauled excursions in partnership with New Jersey Transit, Hoboken to Port Jervis, NY. I got some good views of the 614 and bought the souvenir video, but I don't remember seeing steam escaping from the cylinder housings like on your video. However, the trip I took the second year 614 DID have a breakdown due to a piston ring failure, so who knows? The ring failed just short of Moodna Viaduct, Jersey Transit protection power had to take us the rest of the way.
By the way, I'm not sure of what to make of Ross Rowland. It seems like those who've dealt with him in the past concerning his excursions don't seem to want to deal with him again. Is he a bit of a yahoo, a cowboy, a bit reckless? No one talks about it much. Anyone know?
I like Junatha's "thinking steam engine" scenario. "I THINK I can, but NO I WON"T! SO THERE!"
Paul Milenkovic Ah, David Wardale, "The Red Devil and other Tales of the Age of Steam." Would that a person who did not have that book be able to read it. I have my name and e-mail to the fine folks in the United Kingdom who promise to make another printing of it . . . some day.
I'd never heard of "The Red Devil" until Juniatha mentioned it, now I'm looking. What I do is hit the train shows, antique shows and flea markets and keep my fingers crossed. I've gotten lucky in the past ( I found a copy of Lucius Beebe's "Mixed Train Daily" , the original, not a reprint, at a flea market) and may do so again. Used book dealers are a good source, but from what they tell me rail-themed books fly out the door almost as soon as they get them. Like so many other areas of collecting you've got to get out there, but then, the "hunt" is part of the fun!
That is interesting that you brought up the valve oil burning in that video. I bought several large photographs of the Big boys and Challengers running through Wyoming last year at a train show and saw a old friend who used to be a fireman on the Union pacific Challengers. I was asking him to give me some photo locations as the photos didn't have any listed. He knew all the locations and he could tell if a steam engine was really working by the smoke coming off of the valve cylinder in the photos.
I will agree with Juniatha that the smoke is likely smoking paint in the case of the 614. in other cases I believe it is probably a combination of grease thrown from the side rods and leaking lubrication lines at the valves and cylinders.
I read some news a while back regarding the Georgetown loop railroad and their C&S steam locomotive 2-8-0 #9. Apparently the new operators didn't have much experience with steam locomotives including the basic operation of how one works, and knowingly ran the locomotive with no cylinder or valve lubrication. Needless to say it wasn't long before the piston rings were burned up and the locomotive would hardly move under it's own power since steam was pushing on both ends of the cylinder. Over $200,000 for a overhaul and the locomotive didn't last but one season and is now condemned and sold for display. You can read about the fiasco here... http://georgetownloop.com/#7
The plume of blue smoke coming off the 614 is not from paint or grease. It is the 614's extremely high operating steam temperature burning up the lubricants and causing heavy damage to the valves and cylinders. Ross told me personally that is what happened, and it was a big concern of his when it was decided to use the 614 for the Chessie Safety Express excursion program, especially on the severe B&O grades.
The Lima J3a boiler design not only produces a high volume of steam, but Superheats the steam to well over 800 degrees F. I believe the highest steam temperature recorded on the 614 was 820 degrees F. When the valves and cylinders are exposed to steam that hot for extended periods of time, such as on a long, hard pull, bad things begin to happen to the lubricants. Ross actually looked into using custom high temp synthetic lubricants on the 614, but the cost would have be unbelievable. The ability of the 614's boiler to produce vast volumes of steam, along with it's ability to transfer an enormous amount of heat into the steam is what gives the 614 the ability to perform feats that few 4-8-4s would even attempt. That same feature is also it's Achilles Heel if it is not constantly maintained to a high level.
Boy to think I routinely pushed my Turbo to 1200-1400 Degrees in the 90's and how did I cool it simple Motor Oil and AIR. Yeah there was that one time I had a turbine fail at speed climbing I-70 West in Colorado out of Denver just before the Ike Tunnel and ended up with a hole in the hood of the truck big enough that well lets just say the firework display was IMPRESSIVE. If it can be built it can be cooled hell if they can cool a Jet engine with oil and grease they can cool a steam engine also with the same stuff. 820 is nothing compared to the 1500-3000 that the Steel industry machinces work with DAILY for 24/7/365 cause if they break down the mill shuts down. Or the Glass industry at 2700+ at the hot side where if that breaks your going to burn down your whole plant.
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Hi all
Just to make sure : my writing "From the video it might also have been paint oxidizing into carbonized form , however that should have been but a matter of some miles . " did NOT mean to say I thought it WAS paint . It could have been paint if not it was continuing at much the same rate over an extended distance . Paint usually got burnt at unprotected joints of live steam pipes to cylinders in DB steam locos having high superheating temps : standard engines at nominal ( rather decent ) steaming rates regularly ran at ~ 390°C ( 734°F ) , reaching some 410 - 420°C ( 770 - 788°F ) at mildly forced steaming rates while DB combustion chamber re-boilered engines reached 450 - 480°C ( 842 - 896°F ) as originally rebuilt , engines featuring 480 °C subsequently being cut down to some 440°C ( 824°F ) . That asked for special high quality oil for cylinders however by and large it proved of no problem as long as proper oil was supplied . While it was ok on DB , Eastern DR did experience trouble with 01.5 Pacifics also reaching some 420 - 430°C ( 788 - 806°F ) as oil-fired engines fully applied their ~ 3000 ihp potential . People who have seen DR 01.5 Pacifics in Hamburg-Altona shed ( DB ) , say DR crews from Magdeburg or ( East- ) Berlin picked up DB cylinder oil at the shed for their engines to avoid trouble . Although this was highly unofficial it was both generously supplied by DB staff and seen ( or overlooked ) with a twinkling eye by Eastern Reichsbahn officials .
I wonder oil heat resistance still was an issue in the 1980s with # 614 ...
If cylinder oil gets burnt the engine quickly starts to suffer and this will result in both valve and piston rings wearing quickly , consequently also valve liners and cylinder surface will be roughened by freezing up . After all , this means metallic surface wearing on metallic surface without an effective oil film destroying metallurgic surface structure and finish . This is about the worst of several conditions of lacking oil film ; more often it was oil film washed off by water carry over or priming . While a sudden slip can produce a heavy surge of water threatening to blow a cylinder cover or bending a main rod , even a lighter water carry over can wash oil off valve liners and cylinder surfaces , yet momentarily providing an incomplete substitute and at least avoiding excessive temperatures on these surfaces so that with some luck oil film can be re-established by feeding oil at increased rate for some time and things may be fine again . In a condition causing overheating of these surfaces more oil will only result in more carbonization finally jamming valve and piston rings and causing even more rapid and more uneven wear . If an engine had suffered this effect , even normalizing lubrication conditions after that run will not help because grooves of rings had to be cleaned of oil-carbon and likely rings will show heavy and unround wear pattern , let alone damaged surface conditions . I was told , in the final years of steam DB found steam locomotives could struggle through that and 'self-heal' by subsequent wear re-establishing more-or-less round condition and so-so surfaces of rings . Yet my engineering sense tells me , if at all , that could only work out by allowing heavy steam leakage losses during the 'self-healing' and would never come back to fully sound conditions - in other words it was only possible with excessive steaming making up for high cylinder steam consumption rates for given output - if at all full engine output was still attainable - I have my doubts about it , although steam leakage past rings intriguingly has a positive effect on draughting since there is more steam volume of also higher specific heat content through blast nozzle ( higher spec heat content since the process of leakage is a pressure reduction without work delivered and thus rises temperature of leaked steam mixing with regularly exhausted steam ) . Mind , that beyond a certain severeness of scarring or serration of rings sealing surface , high temperature steam escaping must have produced a violent high velocity stream that might as well cut further into metal thus enlarging gap . In that case no amount of extra oiling could rebuild an oil film since it was constantly being blown off , friction produces spots of overheating , contorting rings - things will only get worse the longer this engine is continued running .
Valve and piston ring lubrication was one of several design issues never adequately solved in steam locomotive development - likewise was design of these rings themselves . That wanting state had been one of several points improved in 3450 Red Devil - yet again Wardale by himself writes it was kind of a prototype design - there was no chance to develop it into full series standard level , he clearly states there was no reason why it could not have been fully developed if there had been an interest in doing so .
Edbenton,
Well – yes and no . It’s not so much the temperature of the media passing through but really bearing surface temperature – which can be kept well below temp of media by suiting design minimizing heat load and maximizing heat discharge and by lubricant circulation , i e lubricant in a pressurized cycle is only exposed to heat a short time while flowing through bearing , taking up heat load and being re-cooled before re-entering . Another parameter is heat energy and thermal conductivity of work media – both of which are high per mass unit in superheated steam as compared to combustion gasses ; further , absolute mass of media passed through cylinders was high in steam locomotives – mind thermal efficiency of an average 300 psi / 800°F simple expansion two cylinder engine unit of a locomotive was only 12 % in the more average to 14 % in the better engines , with a thermo-dynamic efficiency typically ranging at some 67 – 75 % in the more average and in the best of realized engines ( 75 – 85 % in decently good – very good compound engines ) – all that provided a high heat load per unit of lubricated surface area of liners and cylinder walls swept by rings . At the same time , steam locomotive cylinder never had a lubricant circulation but just worked on – sorry – primitive add & consume lubrication where but a minimum of lubricant is being fed ( or else consumption would become fantastic ) and consequently lubricant cannot take up heat to cool surfaces . In contrast , pistons of diesel engines use excess oiling to cylinder walls for cooling with piston rings painstakingly designed to wipe off all but a minimum needed to maintain oil film this again so tightly hugging cylinder wall that its temperature is little higher than actual wall temp so that practically no oil gets burned by fuel combustion process . On the other hand this delicate oil film may get washed off with cold start or much worse with cranking a gasoline engine , pumping gas with lacking ignition – this sort of thing can quickly age an engine more severely than a couple of thousand miles at high speed on the highway .
Still , I agree with you : with modern high temperature grades of oils , let alone modern solid state non-oil lubricants , there should be no problem .. other than costs .
edited and last paragraph added
By 1980 if they had wanted they could have gotten a handle on the lube issues on Superheated Steam. Sorry but with all the engines that run Turbochargers that the temp of the Exhaust Turbines is well over at the time 1000 Degrees and then now they are hitting 1400-1600 just to make the Modern Emmisons standards of the EPA here in the States. Yep you heard me right a Modern Turbocharged Diesel engine on an OTR Truck the Exhaust temp will be over 1400 Degrees leaving the Cylinders and it is nothing for the companies to go 100K miles before changing the Oil on those engines. The modern Core of a 777 Engine is 2200 Degrees and it is lubed up by High Temp oils. Trust me they can find the additives needed to do it. I have a classmate that is at the Local Nuke plant and their Steam Turbines are at around 1200 Degrees for Years at a time as this place hardly Scrams it seems. Last time it shut down was 2 years ago to REFUEL. Well they are always pushing 1400 degrees in a wet enviroment with no bearing issues.
edbentonI have a classmate that is at the Local Nuke plant and their Steam Turbines are at around 1200 Degrees for Years at a time as this place hardly Scrams it seems. Last time it shut down was 2 years ago to REFUEL. Well they are always pushing 1400 degrees in a wet enviroment with no bearing issues.
Ed,
The nuke's currently running in the US are all light water reactors, producing saturated steam at 1,000psig (about 550F).
- Erik MSNE '78 at UCB
Sorry but this guy has been there for 10 years and was hired there right out of the US Navy what was his job in the Navy Maintainance on the Reactors in the Ohio Class USBN so if he is telling me 1400 Degrees is the temp he sees I will tend to take him at his word. His current job Head of Maintaince at the Plant who did he replace a Retired US Navy Master Chief that was his boss there. He knows what he is talking about on his plant and I do not question him about it.
edbenton Sorry but this guy has been there for 10 years and was hired there right out of the US Navy what was his job in the Navy Maintainance on the Reactors in the Ohio Class USBN so if he is telling me 1400 Degrees is the temp he sees I will tend to take him at his word. His current job Head of Maintaince at the Plant who did he replace a Retired US Navy Master Chief that was his boss there. He knows what he is talking about on his plant and I do not question him about it.
Take it from this old Marine, trust what those Navy nuke guys tell you. People think flight school is the toughest school the Navy has. It's not. Nuke school is. After nearly 60 years of nuclear propulsion the Navy has never had a Three Mile Island or a Chernobyl or similar disaster. Not one. Those guys more than know what they're doing.
edbenton By 1980 if they had wanted they could have gotten a handle on the lube issues on Superheated Steam. Sorry but with all the engines that run Turbochargers that the temp of the Exhaust Turbines is well over at the time 1000 Degrees and then now they are hitting 1400-1600 just to make the Modern Emmisons standards of the EPA here in the States. Yep you heard me right a Modern Turbocharged Diesel engine on an OTR Truck the Exhaust temp will be over 1400 Degrees leaving the Cylinders and it is nothing for the companies to go 100K miles before changing the Oil on those engines. The modern Core of a 777 Engine is 2200 Degrees and it is lubed up by High Temp oils. Trust me they can find the additives needed to do it. I have a classmate that is at the Local Nuke plant and their Steam Turbines are at around 1200 Degrees for Years at a time as this place hardly Scrams it seems. Last time it shut down was 2 years ago to REFUEL. Well they are always pushing 1400 degrees in a wet enviroment with no bearing issues.
Ed, I hear what you are saying about the the exaust temperatures in modern turbo-diesels. The high combustion temperature is the primary reason for their extremely high thermal efficiency. But, if you look at the lubrication system in a modern diesel, the high heat is kept away from the lubricants as much as possible to avoid thermal breakdown. That is not true in the design of a traditional steam engine, and I don't know if it would be even possible to engineer such a system based on the valves and cylinders being in constant contact with superheated steam. Dry, superheated steam has no lubricating properties, and is in fact quite abrassive, causing cutting and scoring of non-lubricated steel. Modern steam design such as high pressure coal and nuclear powerplants use turbines to convert the energy of the steam into mechanical or electrical energy. The basic design of a turbine allows high temperatures and at the same time allows the bearing surfaces to remain relative cool with a proper lubricating design.
I used to be a diesel mechanic contractor for General dynamics, working for the US Army a few years ago and I met my fair share of engineers and designers of diesel engines. One such engineer told me that the cylinder head temperature for a diesel engine would rarely reach over 280 degrees. He said the cooling system worked so well that it would rarely if ever go over that temperature. That is probably why on all your temperature gauges around 260 is usually the maximum number printed on the gauge.
I also spent a great deal of time as a welder and a fabricator and I can tell you that heating cast iron above 1400 degrees is dangerous because unlike steel, cast iron is not flexible and will crack if it is not heated uniformly and cooled down uniformly. Over 1400 degrees is also hot enough to turn steel cherry red and more then enough to deform or bend steel.
I find it hard to believe any type of engine would be putting out 1400 degrees regardless if it is a nuclear fuel reactor or a turbo charger. I certainly don't believe it would be possible in a motor as the aluminum pistons would start to melt at 1220 degrees. The cast iron headers also could not take that abuse and would crack. I know there is videos of engines running on dynamos with the headers running red hot. But headers are only 1/16" to 1/8" of a inch thick and you can get the same result putting a pipe in a fireplace for a half an hour at 600 degrees.
I am also puzzled by the statement that this blue smoke is coming from the valve cylinders. If the valve cylinder in enclosed, along with the lubrication, and if it was burning up, it would be going straight out the smoke stack. The only exception I could see to this scenario is if the packing for the valves and cylinders was leaking and the smoke along with the steam was escaping through the valve and piston rods.
Thomas,
Ed is talking about the exhaust temperatures on a turbo-diesel, which are extremely high. But you are right, the cooling and lubricating systems keep the overall engine temperature down, or as you say, the resulting temperature to the metal components would be catastrophic to engine life. Again, as far as the 614 goes, Ross Rowland told me himself that the 614's steam temperature was causing the lubricating oil to break down and become carbonized, thus the blue smoke and resulting valve/cylinder damage.
In any event, the point of my post was to confirm Junitha's understanding that the 614 was run way outside of its initial design intent. The 614 was designed to be a state of the art (for 1948), high speed, high horsepower passenger engine, not to slug 5000 ton coal trains around, and not to pull 24 -26 loaded passenger cars up the like of the Sand Patch and 17 Mile grades unassisted. It accomplished that, but it was like using a Ferrari to tow a heavy trailer around, when a pickup truck would have been a better choice.
The temperature of saturated steam at 1000psia is 544F. 1000 psi is pretty much the standard steam pressure from a US nuclear power plant.The only light water plants to use superheated steam were the B&W plants and the steam was about 590F at ~980psi. On a pressurized water reactor, the primary coolant loop is pressurized to 2200 psi, where the boiling point is just under 650F and VERY BAD THINGS will happen if the primary coolant temperature is allowed to rise to the boiling point (typical max operating temperature is around 620F).
Several of my classmates at Cal's Department of Nuclear Engineering were former nuclear navy guys and not one of them said anything about the steam conditions as stated in the textbooks being wrong. One mentioned that the folks who designed the turbines for nuclear applications had to go back a few decades to relearn how to deal with saturated steam.
There were a handful of plants built using 1000-1200F steam, notably the high temperature gas cooled reactors built by General Atomics (Peach Bottom and Ft St Vrain), both plants have been shut down for decades. The other plants were small liquid metal cooled reactors - it was thought that the larger plants could attain 44% thermal efficiency, but problems with the swelling of the cladding forced a reduction in coolant temperature with consequent reduction in efficiency.
- Erik
Sorry to be so late with this. Out of town the past four days.
The video "The Phoenix Engine" covers 614 on B&O and according to both the liner notes and actually counting cars, 614 took 11 cars plus A-tank up 17-mile grade (Hopewell estimate of 1,200 tons) and 22 cars + a-tank up Sand Patch (no estimate of tonnage). A quick calculation indicates that if 17-mile is 2.6%, 22 cars+a-tank (maybe 1,800 tons??) would have a grade resistance alone over 110,000 lbs, well over 614's total low speed TE of 66,450 lbs engine or 78,850 lbs with booster. Drawbar pull would be about 3,000 lbs less at 10-15 mph. This doesn't include curve resistance which can be significant (as you can hear on the YouTube clip). If this is 17-mile grade (2.6%) , 614 isn't t pulling 24-cars.
'Regardless of the numbers, 614 shows amazing tenacity the whole time, particularly on one of the curves, holding the rail at what must be absolutely full throttle while speed drops to what, below 10 mph? In the pacing vids you can see 614 swinging from side to side under the piston thrust. Simply an amazing performance while doing a job for which it wasn't designed.
This is not related to the 614 but I have heard the term "Over firing a engine". How does one over fire a steam locomotive and how does this cause damage.
Thomas 9011 This is not related to the 614 but I have heard the term "Over firing a engine". How does one over fire a steam locomotive and how does this cause damage.
"Over firing an engine." Probably someone on this site with some hands-on experience could explain it better than I can, but to my knowledge "over firing" means adding more fuel to the fire than it can burn efficiently. Ever see photos of films with steam engines pouring out black smoke, the "Burning of Rome" effect as Lucius Beebe used to call it? This was a dead giveaway of over firing. Tons of black smoke was an indication of poor combustion, usually caused by over firing or over fueling.
Of course, there could be mitigating circumstances, such as a load of bad coal or fuel oil, poor locomotive maintanance, or sometimes the fireman just wasn't very good at his job.
Over firing in itself wouldn't cause any damage, at least I don't think so. I did read a story in "Trains" several years ago where an engine crew used coke (the stuff they use to fire steel furnaces) instead of coal in the locomotive and that stuff burned so hot it DID damage the firebox. Wonder how they explained that one to the division superintendant?
( .. I'd say , the effect 'over-firing' had on a steam locomotive was about the same as 'over-dining' has on us - only in scale 5000 to 1 .. )
Juniatha ( .. I'd say , the effect 'over-firing' had on a steam locomotive was about the same as 'over-dining' has on us - only in scale 5000 to 1 .. )
Oh yeah, except there's no Maalox, Alka-Seltzer, Bromo-Seltzer, Brioschi, Gas-X, or Pepto-Bismol made for steam locomotives. Luckily, us humans are much better off!
Hi Firelock
>> Oh yeah, except there's no Maalox, Alka-Seltzer, Bromo-Seltzer, Brioschi, Gas-X, ...<<
.. or Coca Cola .
... only : why is she holding that Art Nouveau Tiffany glass mobile phone ?
I mean , no doubt we liked chattering back then , Coke or not ...
As in jalapenos, habeneros, chili peppers...
I wonder if it would be possible to get the firebox not enough to initiate film boiling on the water side? That is other than allowing the crownsheet to be momentarily uncovered with the resulting drama.
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