North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

I suspect that the reason that copper fireboxes may not last as long when oil fired is related to the fact that oil burns hotter than coal and copper melts at a lower temperature than steel. That suggests that you would expect the surface of a copper box to degrade faster, and that would over time lead to the plate thinning, more quickly than steel.

 

Does an S160 have a combustion chamber!

Tom

 

Just asking for a friend where you can get diesel at 60p per litre?
Another friend is sceptical a heavy freight loco only burns 3 te coal per day (72 miles) on steep gradients if you include raising steam.

 

When I volunteered with a Dutch club we took over a DB class 42 oil burner. It came from a power station that bought it straight out of service as a standby boiler.
When we eventually got it there was evidence of mattress forming in the firebox. We think the inexperienced power station employees fired it up from cold too quickly.
And that is the risk with an oil burner. With a coal fire you start slowly, but an oil burner gives maximum heat straight away, which is not good for the firebox.
So resist that temptation to gun it when starting from cold.
Because of the firebrick lining the glow is hot enough to restart the fire for several minutes once it is out.
Grey smoke was usual.
A shovel full of sand with the blower on will clean the tubes, but then the smoke is black

 

Sorry to be that person but might be worth creating a new thread for oil burning as the threads deviated a little

 

Latest video update from the MPD is now online:

 

I believe the prime area for degradation in copper boxes are the lap joints where the amount of copper is much thicker than the rest of the box. Although copper is a good conductor, the temperature gradient is fairly constant, thus causing the surface temperature at the laps to be higher on the flame side. This added to the lower melting point of copper increases therate of degradation.

 

Well this is what Swanage posted on their Facebook on Wednesday, so six round trips = 66 miles, so about £22.72 per mile in coal without any big hills and 5 coach trains.

"Did you know it costs around £1,500 a day in coal alone to operate one of our steam locomotives?
Every shovelful of coal costs approximately £5, and our firemen will shovel at least 50 shovelfuls on a single round trip to keep the locomotive performing at its best. That's around £250 worth of coal for a single round trip, before we've even considered water, maintenance, oil, insurance and the many other costs involved in running a heritage railway.
The cost of coal has risen dramatically in recent years. Before the war in Ukraine, we could typically buy suitable locomotive coal for around £100 per tonne. Today, we're paying closer to £400 per tonne, and despite the higher cost, the coal available is often of a lower quality than we were previously able to obtain."

 

That's an interesting question and I don't know the answer. Looking at photos, I don't think it does but that's only a guess.

 

I generally reckoned on 1.5 tons of coal/ round trip on the NYMR when hauling 7 coach trains. That doesn't include lighting up and standby losses and can go up a bit depending on the fireman.

 

Same locos as yesterday in use today. Lucia was in steam at Grosmont yesterday according to NYMR Facebook page.

 

I dont think it does either. There is an interesting website about the current restoration of Alaskan Railways N0. 557, an oil burning S160. It included a video of the laying of fire bricks in the firebox which is clearly without a combustion chamber. Another video shows it being lit up a couple of weeks ago after a decade long restoration so it is nearly complete.

An interesting appendix to their site is a copy of a detailed paper given to the Scottish Centre of the Institute of Locomotive Engineers in November 1945. It is far to technical too a simpleton like me to fully understand but it does list all the S160s on the LNER at the time of D Day, including our own 2253, a Neville Hill based loco during its stay in the UK.

Peter

 

Thanks for that info Peter, fascinating stuff all round.
https://557.alaskarails.org/history/index.html

 

Whilst the updates are definitely appreciated I can't help but feel that they're effectively lumping all traction together and treating them as such. It seems that as long as we have three or four locos, regardless of coal, oil or diesel traction, then everything's fine.

There just does not seem to be any issue at all with having a constant daily roster of two class 37s, a 47 and a 31 - which I could completely understand if imposed due to firecon but the fact of the matter is the maintenance cycles of four steam engines have been completely mismanaged.

I don't know of any other railway in the country with at least four steam locos in ticket during high season that all happen to be out of traffic. As is said in the update 926 still appears unfit for traffic and needs bedding in so that, the 9F and two Black 5s all sidelined. I am hoping the railway reviews it's policy of treating all traction as equal or at least if that is the plan for the future adjusting the timetables to reflect this - showing trains will be diesel hauled and may be hauled by a steam engine as opposed to the other way around.

Reference is made at the end to the train being full which is great to see but how many on that train have turned up expecting a steam loco on the front? And as such how many would be put off returning having spent the day behind a diesel as it will likely happen again?

Again on timetabling - with 29 seemingly available as well maybe a similar shorter local service to what is offered on the SVR could be considered to at least give the loco some public earning opportunities? It's great that the footplate experiences are doing well but again seems very wasteful when on thr likes of the SVR you have 813 hauling a shorter set across the line (even today).

 

No. See attached.

This paper on the site is the copy in Search Engine. Unfortunately Search Engine's copy is missing most of the drawings (the IMechE told me when I enquired that they have no record of this paper).

On the comparative cost of oil firing on the NYMR, without knowledge of quantities used or costs of fuel I am not in a position to comment but the following figures from the BR test report on D8000 may be of help.
Diesel fuel 19,710 BTU /lb i.e. around 50% greater than coal/lb
Fuel consumption per DBHP (lb/DBHP hour) at 30mph - approx 0.53lb
Overall efficiency at 30mph approx 24%

The February 1945 article in the Railway Gazette on British Work on Persian Railways in 1942, although not a technical treatise, commented that one of the major problems was burning of the superheater elements with oil firing, the suggestion being that the normal coal fired elements were too long (i.e. the return bend needed to be further away from the firebox tubeplate) and (or?) were too thin.