Current and Proposed New-Builds

Can’t see a figure for residual ash percentage in there - it varies depending on the coal, but can be significant on existing locos with small ash pan capacities. We have one of our most used locos that has a standing instruction to visit the yard at intervals no greater than two round trips (44 miles) to inspect and if necessary empty the ash pan so as to maintain airflow and protect firebars.

Tom

 

Is it the O1 Tom? Just out of interest?

You make a very good point there. On a loco with a big ashpan - possibly even rocker bars/grate - it could be a moot point. Potentially doable for a loco the size of a Pacific, if available in enough quantity and at price too.

 

Also River Esk
S160 No 5820 on the KWVR
I think the Bure Valley Railway have some too

 

....and the light hitting a very dry surface in the summer mounths. I `m wonder if using Biomass will increase the risk of lineside fire from a steam locomotive more than a coal fired one?

Knut

 

Good question. I can't see the answer from a quick google search but suspect you are right to raise that. Could be "solved" with a better spark arrestor but then we're getting into a bigger development of the front end as well as the back end of the locomotive.

 

Beatrice on the Embsay & BAr, and Eventually 72010 Hengist, fngers crossed.

 

The NYMR was given a couple of tons of regurgitated wood to try a while ago. I'm not sure exactly what it was. Apparently it burned very hot and was OK for steam raising but, when the loco was moved around the yard and as soon as the drain cocks were shut, the fire effectively went up the chimney. I'll try and remember to seek more detail.
As for firing locos on lumps of wood, I can vouch for the fact that Cl.4 tanks go well on it but the rate of consumption would require two firemen stuffing it in the firebox and a third transferring it from the support wagon being dragged behind.

 

Do say more, a trial or ran out of coal?

 

The O1, yes.

Interestingly, the H class has a nominally identical boiler, but a deeper ashpan, and can generally run a whole day without emptying, but the O1 is always required to come into the yard for a check after no more than two trips.

Tom

 

Running out of coal. The first time, when the loco was newly restored, I asked the question if it would do three return trips on a bunkerful of coal and was told yes. It didn't. The second time was when I took over the loco from another crew. There wasn't much coal in the bunker and the nearest supply 18 miles away. No other loco running to pinch some from. Fortunately, on both occasions there was plenty of old sleepers lineside and, even more fortunately, plenty piles with bits small enough to fit in the firebox! I've also run out of coal with LHJC 29, again having taken it over at the wrong end of the line. Armed with this experience, I always keep a mental note of where there are good piles of timber lineside!

 

On the Benguela railway one of the earlier big Beyer Garratts was wood burning and in the early i950s the lcomotives were estimated to be burning 400,000 tons every year.
Eucalptus wood "blue gum" , grown by the linside with several fireman to pitch it in on the main line engines.

 

Very much like this firing peat in Ireland during 194os during "The Emergency" certainly on the narrow gauge. You had a truck of turfs behind a tank engine and the bunker replenished with somebody throwing them in on the move. You needed a good quality turf and you needed to throw them down onto the grate otherwise they tended never to touch it and just
sail past and out through the tubes.




s

 

I seem to recall seeing photos of locos in Java burning something that I think might be a by product of the sugar cane industry. What might that be?

 

Bagasse. So sugar cane stalks soaked in oil.

 

Thats whats left of the sugar cane after you have crushed all the juice you can get out of it.

Damp, bulky, not a high calorific value, can be burnt - giving sparks - in locomotives.
You need space one way or another -often a tender - to stow the bales of the bagasse and a spark arrestor.
(There were some industrial loco builders who had a speciality in engines for this. I suppose particularly Fowlers.)

Plenty of it at mills and more or less has to be burnt to get rid of it.
Usually burnt on special grates and under boilers to provide heat and power for the mill. Typically - as electricity - there would be an energy surplus to export.

 

I'm not sure about the "soaked in oil" bit - all the ones I saw in the Philippines burnt the bagasse just as it came out of the crushers (also steam powered) albeit dried. The locos had huge bogie tenders to carry this low calorific value fuel and an assistant fireman was stationed in the tender to tear up the large bales and pass the pieces forward to the fireman. ISTR that some mill locos could be converted from oil to bagasse and some were oil only.
Cheers,
Ray.

 

Wow, that was a really cool engine!

Thanks for posting this photo!

Knut

 

There is a power station in Sleaford, opened fairly recently that burns straw bales.

 

It's one of a pair of Baldwins originally built for Hawaii that ended up at the Hawaiian Philippines Co. mill on Negros Island. Sometime in the 90's they were purchased and shipped to California for restoration before going back to Hawaii for a tourist railway being built there. Unfortunately the restoration stalled and the last time I heard they were for sale. Pity as they are nice looking locos as Knut says.
Ray.

 

Thanks for your interesting information Ray!