Steam & Excursion > reducing steamer's voracious appetite for maintenance

Maintenace requirements is perhaps one of the main roadblocks in the way of steam locomotives in revenue service ever being more than a pipe dream. I'll dwell here on one particular item that's near the top of the list, steam cylinder oil. Mr. Petitjean of Lubrication Specialties has set forth on these pages some time back the restrictions cylinder oil places on loco operation and maintenance. Many of the last steam designs to be built and perhaps all of the proposed 2nd generation designs produce steam temperatures of 750 to 850 degrees farenheit. The best cylinder oils, including Mr.Petitjean's, havew a flash point no greater than about 600 degrees F, and so steam temperatures at the steam chest cannot exceeed 700 degrees F in a counterflow engine without problems with the breaking down of the oil and it's lubricating film, leading at best to much premature wear and at worst to piston or valve seizure. Then there's the fact that it is "total loss" lubrication; the oil is used once then is blown out the exhaust stack or dropped on the ground. Besides being expensive, the EPA takes a dim view of machinery shedding all that used oil into the environment. They could, in the future, propose regulations restricting how much could be released into the environment. One possible answer is to use solid lubricants that are embedded into the wall of the cylinder and valve liner. There are 3 solid lubricants that could be used in forming such built-in films in superheated steam. They are: 1. MoS2- molybdenum disulfide, the same chemical used in so-called "mloy" greases. I could be used at temperatures up to 750 degrees F. 2. WS2- tungsten disulfide, usable at temperatures up to nearly 1000 degrees F. and 3. Graphite, which becomes an excellent lube only in the presence of water vapor. It is usable at temps up to 1100 F. In each case, it would be applied to the cylinder surface in such a way as to form a composite with the top layer of cylinder metal. This coating would be expected to last several thousand miles, hopefully the full distance between shoppings, and be maintenance free during this time. No steam cylinder oil needed. No resevoir to be kept full. No used oil over everything. no constant checking of the lubricator to see if it's working. No oil "emissions". Most likely it could be applied by the patented "microseal" process that embeds the lube in the cylinder wall by high speed impingement.

With the few steam engines running today don't look for anything to change. Especially to anything new and costly to address.

Although EXXON no longer produces their very high temp synthetic steam oil, Sylestic 1500, they have allowed a small company (in Denver I thought), to re-produce the product for the Union Pacific Steam Program. Yes, the minimum purchase was LOTS of 55 gallon drums, but at least both the UP Steam Crew and the 4449 crew still have ample supplies. Some 15 to 20 years ago, EXXON offered the fully synthetic Sylestic line in both 1000 and 1500 degree temp ratings.

Ever since the 4449, 844 and 3985 started using the EXXON Sylestic 1500, I am not aware of either ever having ANY valve or piston lubrication failures, related to the EXXON product. If your steam oil supply system FUNCTIONS PROPERLY, i.e. the steam oil actually goes into where it's supposed to, the Sylestic 1500 sure does the job!

We used Interlube Steam Cylinder Oil on 1522 and had excellent luck with it. No carboned up rings or nasty cylinders inside.

"Think outside the cylinder."

Pistons have a lot of other drawbacks than cylinder oil. Some other technology may not. Or it may have had it in attempts in the past that would not necessarily need to be repeated verbatum to produce the same failure.

How about a steam (or gas) turbine loco? Too slow to load? Well, how about making it a hybrid with a box of batteries to add a little quick kick when you slam from idle to run 8? Recharge them when the engine is spening its average 8 hours a day idling, or use a few percent of the generator to recharge even though you are in run 8. Seems to work for cars, might work for trains too.

I suspect though that turbines don't like bad track very well. This could force the RRs to spend more on trackwork (and probably increase the speed, safety, and revenue opportunities for the line). Or far more likely it would simply doom turbines again since the idea of doing anything different doesn't seem to sit well with the industry. (I find that interesting, since the change from TO to TWC operation was a major, major, huge, change in the industry, but was apparently almost completely unnoticed by everyone.)

All this is well and good, but railroad steam engines had two fatal flaws, when compared with diesel: boilers, and the maintenance that went along with them, and a voracious appetite for fuel, owing to the poor thermal efficiency of the engine, and the boiler when fired at high rates. Neither of those problems was entirely solved. If they had been I suspect we'd still be seeing steam on the rails in revenue service.

Actually, I would beg to differ strongly with the idea that boiler maintenance costs have forever relegated the steamer to the ash heap of history. In fact in this area is one shining example of what is possible. There is available a boiler water treatment regime developed by the late great Mr. Porta. If you think the figures I am about to quote are "pie in the sky", just try googling "Porta water treatment". Figures on the cost of boiler maintenance from Ralph Johnson of the New York Central in his book "The Steam Locomotive", and from Mr. Porta's work himself, conclude that, absent this water treatment, the costs for the boiler upkeep and repairs amount to 92% of the total cost of running a steam locomotive. But under Mr. Porta's treatment regime, using only 4 common, non-hazardous chemicals, the number of boiler blowdowns are reduced from an average of twice a week to 2 times every 6 months, scale formation is virtually eliminated, so boiler washouts average once every 6 months to once a year, not the once every 2 weeks that is common practice, and internal corrosion is virtually eliminated. And instead of the boiler needing heavy repairs every 2 years, the boiler would last for the life of the locomotive. Therefore boiler maintenance costs would be reduced by 90%. Now if you reduce 92% of the running costs of a locomotive to one-tenth of what it was, well, you get my point!

There's a lot more known about water treatment (at least for stationary boilers) now than there was in the 1800s and early 1900s. But there was a lot known by the late 1930s, at least outside the RR industry. (A whole lot of industries used boilers, and scale was a BIG problem). Anyone rational that seriously wanted to run steam these days would have roadside treatment plants to tweak the water chemestry, and they would probably have electronic boiler water chemistry monitoring on the engine, possibly with some sort of injector that could add small amounts of 'make-up' chemicals if required.

That should significantly reduce about half the maintainance problems. The other problem is sooted flues, boiler cracks from heat cycling and uneven heating, and similar problems. Assuming the engine was to be fired with some sort of liquid or semi-liquid fuel (which could be very finely powdered coal) then a proper engine would have automatic stoking, and automatic, to the greatest extent possible, fire management. If you keep the fuel-air mix correct you should be able to minimize if not completely eliminate sooting. That will also help a lot with engine maintanance.

But all that doesn't help much. You are still throwing thousands of gallons of treated boiler water overboard every time you go a hundred miles or so. Water just ain't that cheap any more, expecially if you have to treat really crappy stuff to turn it into good boiler water, as you will have to do in a lot of places. That is going to cost more than running one of the infernal new contraptions that don't toss overboard thousands of gallons of water on each run.

And there is still the minor point that the heat recovery from the fuel is somewhere between very poor and piss poor. Again, when fuel was 'free', this didn't matter too much (not ALL of the steam railroads went bankrupt). But at $100 or $160 a barrel for crude, fuel costs are a lot more interesting to the bean counters.
The new things are a lot better at heat recovery. Stationary boilers can be even better at heat recovery, largely because they don't throw the water away on each cycle.

Your typical Diesel engine gets about 20 hp-hr in Run 8 per gallon of fuel. (This holds true for just about any make, model, or HP of engine.) Assuming you need 3000 HP for an hour, that is going to cost you around $450/hour in Diesel fuel costs, assuming $3/gallon for fuel. Now HP is a little difficult to convert into steam engine terms for comparison. But that is probably around 14,250 pounds of drawbar pull. How much is it going to cost in coal/bunker/Diesel to run an equivalent steam engine, just considering fuel cost and nothing else?

Re: Groucho5... (above)...

You make good points; however, 2 book references are mis-attributed.

Ralph Johnson was the Baldwin Locomotive Works author of "The Steam Locomotive".

Paul Keifer, Research Engineer For NYC RR, wrote the smaller book: Motive Power of New York Central.

Overfire Jets.

Oops! And a couple of other corrections ,too. It was 92% of maintenance costs that are attributable to the boiler, not running costs. And one thing I failed to explain about Porta treatment. Once you have added enough of the chemicals to bring the water in the boiler to the proper chemical state (including a very high ph) you only have to add small amounts occasionally bring the numbers back in line. Why? Because the chemicals you add don't evaporate with the water. They stay in the boiler. So once the proper chemistry is established it only has to be regularly checked.
On the subject of fuel use and computer control. It is a given that to be economically viable the combustion process and the boiler water feeds would have to be under properly programmed computer control, eliminating the need for a fireman. Today's computers have ample capacity to handle all of the variables involved, including the ability to "learn" how to do it's job better as it repeatedly handles certain sets of circumstances. For instance, by keeping track of the grades, the tonnages, and a particualr engineer's unique way of train handleing, it can adjust it's programming to suit. Also it could translate the engineer's throttle and cut-off settings into the proper throttle notch for mu'ed diesels. It could also translate a lead diesel's throttle signal into the proper throttle and cut-off settings for it's engine, as an unmanned trailing unit. Plus several other functions, like automatically positioning the unit under the water spout for a refill. to be continued...

In reply to Iwilton; I said at the very beginnig that the only place where a modern steamer would make sense is in it's ability to use solid fuel. It takes a lot of energy to produce a suitable liquid fuel out of biomass. Also, it takes quite a volume of plant material to produce one gallon. With a steamer,2nd generation, to use Mr. Porta's terminology, one could reasonably assume an overall operating efficiency of 10%,(assuming it is correctly driven by the engineer and properly maintained). This includes idle time. The diesel's overall efficiency would be around 30%. But when you add in all the costs of producing a liquid or gaseous fuel from a solid, it still costs less to fuel the steamer.
But I want to go back to a basic point if you want to develop a market for the steamer; what business model do you use? One problem with the ACE 3000 project is trying to meet all the railroads demands for the new design. That is the model followed by all the steam builders in the past. EMD changed that somewhat when they first developed the machine, then went about the business of convincing the railroads that this standard design is what they really wanted. But it was still "sell it to the railroad and let them maintain, or fail to maintain it, use it or misuse it, etc. I know Mr. Porta once said "build your design and tell the railroads to take it or leave it". Unfortunantly for the steamer it would go something like this; After taking delivery, the railroad would misuse it in a type of service it was not designed for (C&O's H-8 alleghenies being a case in point, try to feed it dirt cheap coal that was exactly that, mostly dirt, improper fire handling leading to loss of power and road failures, and, when any of the new design feature needs repair or adjustment, the shop forman just orders the offending part bypassed. Feedwater heater not working right? (Because of improper handling of the controls) Then just bypass it. Superheated not working right because of improper maintenance? Just bypass it. After having ruined the functionality of several of the design feartures, the rr management comes back to you with a unit that barely resemble the one you delivered to the and says"This thing won't pull half the train you said it would and it used twice as much fuel to deliver half the power, and is always in the shop! Take your locomotive, we want our money back!" So, outright sale of the steam locomotive to the railroad is not the right business model. Instead I would propose using a model that is a modification of what is known in the trucking industry as the "full service lease". to be continued....

You may be overlooking the basic difference in physics between the reciprocating steam powered locomotive and the diesel electric locomotive.

1) The reciprocating steam powered locomotive is basically a constant torque, variable horsepower machine.

2) The diesel electric locomotive is a constant horsepower, variable torque machine.

Thus, the steam locomotive has essentially a constant torque, i.e. tractive effort, with variable HP (increasing) with speed increase. In other words, the reciprocating steam driven locomotive is able to accelerate its trailing load, if it can just get it started. The best steam locomotive was at best 10% to 12% efficient at the rail.

The diesel electric locomotive, especially the current AC traction units, have essentially constant HP through out their speed range, but torque (tractive effort) INCREASES as speed reduces. The modern AC traction diesel electric locomotives, with starting tractive efforts exceeding 150,000 to 175,000lbs, at a 4000HP rating, exceed 60% efficiency at the rail.

The reciprocating steam locomotive has approximately the starting/continuous tractive effort of a 1500 to 2000HP four traction motor, DC diesel electric locomotive.

Just my opinion, but I sure wouldn't call that very competitive!

In my previous reply, i was basing my 30% figure for diesel locomotive efficiency on how much of the total energy present in the fuel gets converted to useful work. I don't know where you're getting 60% unless that's the efficiency of the electrical transmission, but then I think that efficiency is much higher. In the diesel prime mover itself, the modern ones convert about 40 to 45% of the energy in the fuel to crankshaft output. Some of the latest, particularly the engines used in gensets may be knocking on the door of 50% but that is only at an optimum speed and power output, and that is about the absolute limit of modern diesel technology. In my 30-35% figure i was including time spent idling and doing low speed highly variable output work. In the steamer I am using a maximum conversion efficiency for a 2nd generation design, a compound, as estimated by Mr. Porta at 15%, and I take his figures as highly reliable. I reduced that figure to 10% to include idling and working at less than optimum output.