North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

I thought the S160 was running on rape seed oil not diesel?

 

They have been using both.

 

Thanks Kje7812 I thought I had missed something. Is this to compare running cost between the two fuels or just the availablity of the rape seed oil?

 

The original plan, as I understand it, was for the Railway's Footplate Inspectors to be trained up on the oil firing and then to cascade it down to the remaining footplate volunteers. At the moment that training is very much in the first phase and I'm not sure that any of the Inspectors currently have the necessary experience. As the Inspectorate is essentially made up of volunteers the training has to coincide with their availability. I think 'Piglet' is the only person with significant oil firing experience of the type fitted although others in the engineering department have been involved with the installation and trials and obviously have some knowledge.

 

Reports from whom? I can't dispute it because I don't know actual facts but I'm dubious. It's not in daily use for reasons I've explained in other posts.

 

I am not so sure. This is based on a few minutes on the internet only so could be wrong but:

Coal produces about 9000kWh per tonne. Diesel about 12700 and Rape oil about 10800.

On the assumption that the loco would burn 3 te of coal @£400 per tonne is £1200 per day.

Diesel roughly £700/te. Rape oil is roughly £1000/te. But you need less of both.

The equivalent to the cost of coal (3te / day) for diesel is £1500 and rape oil £2500.

If I am approximately right, then diesel would probably be an affordable alternative to not otherwise running steam due to fire risk. Rape oil much less so, unless they have a a source that is much cheaper.

 

Good loadings today. I saw plenty of people coming off the 1555 arrival at Pickering. The station was busy earlier. It's the first Thursday running of the season and I did wonder if the NYMR had missed out on quite a bit of custom by not running 7 days from June 1st.

Just over a carriage and a half of passengers on two Whitby trains every Thursday and Friday for the six weeks since June would, perhaps, have brought in £116,400.
I'm sure more than that number would've travelled had the line been open.
Is the management keen to make money?

And how about a sign telling everyone 'Trains running daily'? Quite a few locals seemed unaware it was open today.

 

I guess it is not beyond the realms of possibility that, given it is early days, crews are still finding the most efficient way to fire the loco, so conceivably costs are higher now than they might ultimately be. But (assuming the "12 tons of coal equivalent" figure meant price) it is hard to imagine that they are still burning 2- 3 times more oil than the thermal figures would suggest is required. If nothing else, I think the only way you could burn that much oil without creating steam would be if the loco had permanent clouds of black smoke, which I don't think the visual evidence supports.

Tom

 

Regarding smoke Tom, on all the clips I’ve seen the exhaust is a good bit darker than I’d be happy with on coal. If it were coal fired you’d say the fireman had just put a heavy round on. As it’s oil I’d assume there’s less such fluctuations as it’s a continuous (though variable ) feed rate?

 

V2 of the timetable up for today. 31466, 37688, 47077 and 37264 out. No steam. No explanation.

 

I'd agree with that, most videos of the loco working up the gradients has a pretty solid grey/ black exhaust. You don't tend to see this in the U.S on oil fire locos.

I'm guessing an element is crews getting used to the loco.

 

Very amateurish! No wonder the railways going down the pan

 

I agree that the exhaust is generally on the dark side. I suspect that there is still some tweaking to be done rather than crew inexperience. The fuel oil essentially needs to be burnt before the gases hit the tubes so dwell time of the flame within the 'box is important. If the flame is longer than the box then you will end up with smoke even if you have sufficient air in theory.

 

Oh no? This is the UP Challanger coming over the brow of the Continental Divide at Creston, Wyoming in 1995 - it could be seen coming for miles

This is it a couple of minutes later


That said, I have no idea what grade of fuel they were using.

Peter