Steam & Excursion > Oil fired steam locomotives

Does anyone know when the first oil burning steam locomotive was build? More specifically when did SP start using oil?

Around the mid 1890s. Thats about when SP started using oil successfully.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/07/10 22:35 by PlymouthJLA.

I've got a very thin rule book from the SP dated June 1 1905, Rules for Firing and Handling of Oil Burning Locomotives. I think it was the first such rule book for fuel oil locomotives.

The first experiments with oil fired locomotives were conducted by the Santa Fe working with Union Oil Co in the mid-1890's

Union Oil was based in Santa Paula, CA which is on the SP line that then went to Santa Barbara. They took locomotives to Santa Paula for the testing.

Both Santa Fe and SP soon adopted oil fuel.

Today Santa Paula is on the Fillmore & Western Ry. The original Uhion Oil headquarters building is now a museum located a short walk from the Santa Paula Depot. They have an exhibit on theses experiments.

There was that narrow gauge cab forward that North Pacific Coast did, that might have
even predated that slightly. The locomotive (#21) was scrapped in 1905 and the conversion
done around 1901.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/10 11:36 by rehunn.

The Von Boden-Ingles burner, SP's first successful design (and the system-wide standard to the end) was patented in 1904. Britain's Great Eastern Railway had an oil-fired road engine in service by the early 1890s, and I've also heard A.J. Stevens, Central Pacific's master mechanic, even flirted with the idea of oil firing in the mid-1880s - though can't recall if any experimentation actually took place.

As one of my mentors once said on my first day firing, "The SP was the first big railroad to burn oil, and they were also the last. Something to remind your dirt-burner friends!"

I would have to think that during most of the 20th century, NO railroad burned coal in California.

During the 1960's and 70's, a museum group stored E. J. Lavino 10 (0-6-0T, Alco, 1923) at Orange Empire Trolley Museum (now Railway Museum) (Perris, Southern Calif.). They actually had it running for a few weekends. Since it was originally from Pennsylvania, it was a coal burner, and they obtained a pile of coal to fire it up. It was probably the only full-size coal fired locomotive to run in California for decades. It's now on static display at Campo (east of San Diego).

I worked on that, cool little piece, helped do the hydro.