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.