Steam & Excursion > Water treatment for Steam Locomotive question.

Is there any place in the country that a railroad running a steam locomotive years ago,  that the water was good enough, that the water was good to go with out any type of treatment what so ever? 
Logger Hogger may have the answer to this one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/16 07:37 by czuleget.

I've heard of outfits not using treatment.  Truthfully there is always minerals and dissovled oxygen in water, both require chemical treatment to extend the boiler service life.

Cass has never used water treatment, and to this day does not.

And, the boilers are in great shape, internally.

As I understand the water used by the Southern Pacific in western Oregon  was as good as any where but they used water treatment.

Treating water in the loco boilers was ALWAYS poor idea.

Stationary boilers recycled the exhaust steam, and re-feed the condensate back into the boiler.  Thus the condensed water vapor comprised over 90% of the make-up water re-fed into the boiler
They used water treatment chemicals in external, precipitating tanks & the chemicals were added to to' soften' the make-up water.
Stationary boilers used this small amount of pretreated water for make-up purposes only.
The  settling tanks were cleaned out and the separated-out solids were disposed of.

Locomotives were most often the victims of over-paid, water treatment products'  sales people.  Great promises, but the results were the rapid accumulation of expensive priced chemicals in the boiler, as well as all the residual solids that were in the water to start with.

In areas of our country there can be groundwater with a high proportion of dissolved 'hard' chemicals.
Most of the dissolved chemicals are calcium & alkaline compounds, as well as lots of iron from the tender cisterns.
Treating chemicals that worked best, were only sparingly applied and were designed to keep the settled solids in a gel-like state until the next boiler flush-out time.

Others can relate stories, pre-1960,  where the feedwater in the boiler was so concentrated with dissolved solids that the boilers had to be flushed on a daily basis.  Mostly to drain the concentrate out, and refill with fresh water.

There never was a 'water treatment' product that was capable of miracles in the boiler.  The best combination was frequent boiler 'blow-down' operations while the boiler was fired-up and operating.  Typically hundreds of gallons of boiler water must be flushed in order to make enough room in the boiler for added tender water, at best you're only diluting the heavy concentrate of crudy water in the boiler.

The best systems used a separating device, mounted boiler-top, that allowed the blow-down water to be separated from the steam plume.  The separators typically had an in ternal cylinder of vertical vanes, (with a disk at the bottom of the vanes, and the disk well up from the bottom of the separator)  that deflected the liquid water, with its entrained solids, from the condensed steam which was vented out the top of the separator, the water and solids were drained to the ground.  

The separator relied on violent centrifugal forces of the blow-down water stream to hold the heavy solids to the whirling in the chamber, while allowing the steam to exit, skyward, through the deflecting vane structure.  The water and solids were vented by the drain pipe in the base of the separator housing, and piped down to the roadbed.

Over time, the internal deflecting vanes could become eroded , worn and not effective at ensuring the separation of the heavier through-put materials.  In a worn condition, separation was iffy....
 The evidendence for worn internal separating vanes is the slow accumulation of a white-ish coating on the external surfaces of the locomotive., tender, etc.  The remedy for worn vanes  is to locate a replacement separator, or open up the welded 'can' and replace the vane separator.

Or, you try to clog the boiler with thousands of pounds of 'treating' chemicals, re-direct the blow-down piping so that it blows directly out the side of the boiler, at the mud ring level, and do routine boiler blowdowns on a rare, if ever basis.  
This latter method has rarely been tried, and has resulted in the boiler becoming a hot water tank, half-full of mud and solidified chemicals.  The loco rolls  to a slobbering stop, unable to make enough steam for propulsion.

Practice cleaning the boiler regularly, use blow-down procedures prodigiously, and keep the separating equipment in good repair.
Try to keep nice, clean water in the belly of your beast...


W.

 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/16 15:20 by wcamp1472.

On the North Shore Scenic Railroad in Duluth, we take Duluth city water which is taken from the cleanest body of water on the planet - Lake Superior.  The only chemical used was a small amount (IIRC it was about 5 gallons per 10,000) of rust preventative.  Engineers were required to blow down once a day.

When SOO 2719 reached the end of its 15 year certificate the internal condition was amazingly clean, and FRA allowed a few months extension to allow finishing an additional season.

In 2017, NSSR is expected to have D&NE 28 in service, and I expect water treatment proceedures will remain as before.

-John

 

OTOH,  I've run two other steamers crosscounty in northern Wisconsin taking water in small towns that pumped their fire hydrants with groundwater with lots of **** in it.  Despite lots of chemicals added, and frequent blowdowns, within a few hours the water in the boiler turned into something more closely resembling milk, and would appear as such in the waterglass.  That milky appearance represents dissolved chemicals.  Remember, water treatment chemicals do not REMOVE c**p in the water - they only discourage it from adhering to metal surfaces.

The trap here is that the engineers only port to view into the boiler to actually see the condition of his water is the waterglass, and this will normally show that the water is pure and clean as a virgin.  That is one of several reasons why engineers are encouraged to make frequent blowdowns of the waterglass, a proceedure which replaces that virgin water with water that reflects the true condition of the boilers water.  It can be a real surprise!

When the water starts looking cloudy after a waterglass blowdown, you have to start making LOTS of boiler blowdowns.  Yeah, it's expensive, 'cause your also dumping lots of chemicals, and there's the risk of running low on tender supply water, but you gotta do it.  Taking care of that boiler is paramont.

Note:  "Blowdown" has two meanings.  (1) Blowing out the waterglass, and (2) blowing out the boiler to dump sludge and bad water.  They are different proceedures.

-John

Not directly answering, but related, Illinois Railway Museum uses a large water softener on their boiler feed water. Water softeners use an ion exchange resin to litterally capture the calcium (and some other positive charge ions) out of the water passing through - i.e. actually removing the primary component in 'scale'. The ion bed is 'holding' a sodium ion that is released when a calcium ion comes by.

That captured calcium ion is flushed out and exchanged with a sodium ion when you recharge the resin bed. The chlorine ion that's also hanging around the salt is also (mostly) flushed away in the recharge process.

The downside is you're adding sodium to the boiler feed water, but to less impact than untreated water.

I don't know what the detailed condition of the IRM boilers is, but since they keep using it I assume it's effective.

SRK

czuleget Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is there any place in the country that a railroad
> running a steam locomotive years ago,  that the
> water was good enough, that the water was good to
> go with out any type of treatment what so ever? 
> Logger Hogger may have the answer to this one.

Steve Krause
Chillicothe, IL

Speaking of water treatment s**t and c**p, I had some personal experience observing the mixing of chemicals for Santa Fe water treatment for steam engines at a station in southern Kansas during WWII.  My dad was a baggage clerk at the station and one of his "other duties as assigned" was regular mixing of soda ash (sodium carbonate) and lime (calcium carbonate) into a big stirring vat with water, which was then pumped into one of two big tanks to mix with the water the Santa Fe bought from the city.  The water was pumped from underground wells and it was harder then he**.  I guess it was calcium and I don't know what else in the water.  But the chemical mixture was pumped into the one big tank.  The water from the top of this tank spilled over in a pipe to the second big tank, which fed the water cranes at both ends of the station platform.  Dad also had to "blow out" the plumbing periodically, which resulted in a small white "Old Faithful" across the tracks.  There was always a small hill of white s**t over there.  When Dad mixed that stuff, the building it was in was completely fogged with dust and he always came out coughing like mad.  I think the water problem for boilers in this part of the country was pretty mild compared to what they had in New Mexico and Arizona.  The Santa Fe used to haul tank cars of water out there from California.  This is one reason the Santa Fe got a lot of the EMD FT's in WWII.  They could move a lot more traffic farther and faster across the desert than they ever could with steam engines, mostly because of the need for usable water.