Steam & Excursion > 4005 on Oil

From Kratville's Big Boy book. ©2004 William W. Kratville.

This a brief fair-use excerpt posted for comment and review.

"Soon after World War II, a coal strike plagued the nation, so the UP experimentally fired a Big Boy with oil to see if it could be done in case coal strikes forced the road to expand oil-fired districts. A standard Thomas oil burner was installed on the 4005 because it was due for a shopping. A single burner was used and the only modification was the increasing of primary air around the burner. A special fuel tank was designed at Omaha and built at Cheyenne to replace the coal compartment. The burner was specially ordered and the largest available.

"From a steaming standpoint, the 4005 steamed better than any oil burning power UP men had seen on any road. However, the single burner caused spot heating on the huge crown sheet which in turn, caused it to leak. Every trip was the same — when you looked in the firebox it was just like a rainstorm, with water pouring down so fast that it almost extinguished the fire!"

Kratville also included a few photos of the oil-burning equipment, not that you can see much looking at the engine / tender junction.

The SP Cab-forwards: One burner or more?
Were they known for being short on steam or possess problematic fire-box problems?
WHat was shape (dimensions?) of their brickwork fire-pans?
Did any railroad have larger oil burning engines than the Cab-forwards?
Best fuels?

Wes Camp

I've been told by an old SP&S engineman that the 900 class Challengers had something like two standard burners, one above the other, in the normal location at the front of the firepan. They had two separate firing levers and two atomizer valves. If I remember correctly the lower one was used alone until medium-capacity work or higher was desired, then the upper burner was added. I don't have the dimensions of this firebox, but it had to be ONE OF the largest to burn oil. This would be one option to try. Another would be the fire-box wide flat burner designed at the Grand Canyon RR for the 4960 and 29. It seems to do a much better job of filling the entire firebox with flame, although this particular application is much smaller than what would be needed. Also, as far as articulated's go, I believe the SP cab-forwards just had the standard single burner, but I don't think the firebox was overly large, comparably.

Scott Gordon

I'm sure that Matt Austin, who will most likely be the "outside contractor" for this overhaul, will be more than capable of designing a twin burner system for any 4000 class locomotive converted to oil burning. The key is to pay the price for GOOD QUALITY number 5 power plant oil, NOT #2 diesel fuel just because it could be obtained from the diesel service pits.

Agreed, although good filtered-but-not-treated waste oil would probably work just as well, right?

Honestly, I don't think so. The current waste oils being used the last many years are of course quite good, but when you really have to make horsepower, after a bit the waste oils just can NOT keep up. I have experienced such occasions with 3985, and if you know the railroad well enough, and have yourself in the right position to trade a little bit of water in order to maintain the 280psi pressure, you can get the job done.

However, for longer firebox life on such a huge box as on a 4000, it would be MUCH better to use top quality, HIGH BTU oil.

Just my opinion.

Would the good #5 oil fire about like good #6, but without the need to heat it? I've always been under the impression that a good #6 was the best, although maybe it was just always the cheapest in the old days?

Worse comes to worse you can always add some used hydraulic oil, that should up
the BTU content a bit.

Presumably the oil bunker would be somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 gallons in capacity.

What sort of range on a full oil bunker could be expected? I would expect it would be reasonable to use about 80 to 90% of the supply before refueling.

Would fuel consumption in the area of 60 to 80 gallons of oil per mile be in the ball park?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this topic.

Bob

At the risk of touching a third rail... Oh wait. We're talking steam and not the El...

I've heard a lot over the years about the various problems of getting low BTU bunker fuel. If someone were doing a proper scratch oil burner design, why not size it for readily available fuel? So, used lube oil is probably only 2/3 the BTU content, but vaporization temps are likely slightly lower, it flows better..... And you have a thermal stress issue with the firebox anyhow, why not multiple burners to increase the flow and reduce the thermal effects?

Yes, that also means redesigning the brick and airflow patterns. It's not something you're going to do on the back of an envelope, certainly. But then I think that's the gist of this thread anyhow, that a 4000 series shouldn't be converted to oil lightly in the first place.

Does anyone know if there's ever been an oil burner installation using, (for purposes of chattering), a pair of larger burners at the front, and then a trio of smaller burners about half way up what were formerly grates? The firing balance on this thing is going to be a bit nightmarish obviously, but assume for a moment that some magical black box could control the firing balance...

OK. Maybe I'm getting a little far fetched, but the main thing I'm curious about is whether there's ever been some solid calculations done on what it would take to run lube oil or diesel 2.

HotWater Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Honestly, I don't think so. The current waste oils
> being used the last many years are of course quite
> good, but when you really have to make horsepower,
> after a bit the waste oils just can NOT keep up. I
> have experienced such occasions with 3985, and if
> you know the railroad well enough, and have
> yourself in the right position to trade a little
> bit of water in order to maintain the 280psi
> pressure, you can get the job done.
>
> However, for longer firebox life on such a huge
> box as on a 4000, it would be MUCH better to use
> top quality, HIGH BTU oil.
>
> Just my opinion.

Steve Krause
Chillicothe, IL

I think I am right in saying the oil bunkers on 3985 and 844 hold over 7000 gallons on the same type of tender. I bet Hotwater knows for sure.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/12 18:10 by tomstp.

tomstp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think I am right in saying the oil bunkers on
> 3985 and 844 hold over 7000 gallons on the same
> type of tender. I bet Hotwater knows for sure.

Neither holds quite that much. The oil capacity of the tender on 844 was about 5800 gallons, but was increased by 500 to 1000 gallons (can't remember how it actually came out). The 3985 tender holds about 6000 gallons of oil. For what it's worth, 4449 holds 6200 gallons of oil.

And just as much of a problem on the 4005 was the fact that it couldn't make it between oil tanks without running out. I think this has even been a problem on the 3985 where it couldn't be worked too hard for too awful long because of it's voracious appetite.

Hey -- what about an auxiliary oil tender?
(In addition to the auxiliary water tenders)

Edit: According to steamlocomotive.com, SP's
Cab-forward AC-12 tenders held 6,100 gallons.
Comparing the relative sizes of the firebox
on an AC-12 with a Big Boy surprised me:
an AC-12 has a grate area of 139 sq ft vs
150.3 sq ft for a Big Boy. But a Big Boy is
much longer than a Cab-forward: 117.57 feet
for a Big Boy vs 106.44 feet for a Cab-forward.
(FWIW, SP men called these glorious locomotives
"back-up Malleys".)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/12 21:32 by Margaret_SP_fan.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The SP Cab-forwards: One burner or more?


Just one. Originally they were equipped with a then-standard Von Boden-Ingles burner where the oil just dripped onto the steam that actually sprayed the oil in a fan shape into the firebox for combustion. In 1951 the Gyrojet burner became standard and was installed on locomotives as they came into the shop for repair. It was a much better burner. This Gyrojet burner produced a cone shaped flame where the oil and steam were mixed inside the burner before entering the firebox. The Gyrojet was a Southern Pacific patented burner.


> Were they known for being short on steam or
> possess problematic fire-box problems?

Most of the guys that I worked with liked the cab forwards. I never heard anybody saying that they were poor steamers or hard to fire. You, as a fireman, had to be on your toes and be one step ahead of the engineer as there was a little lag time from the time you increased the oil flow to the burner for a hotter engine until you actually saw that the boiler pressure was increasing.


> Did any railroad have larger oil burning engines
> than the Cab-forwards?

Sure. The Big Boys were bigger in the respect that they were heavier and had a higher starting tractive effort. I would imagine the Virginian articulated engines were bigger and more powerful too though they were coal burners. There's probably one or two other engines that were bigger than the cab forwards but I'm not sure.


>Best fuels?

The cab forwards, and I assume other railroads that used oil burning locomotives, used Bunker "C" oil for fuel. This was basically what was left over after the crude oil had been cracked, or made, into other fossil fuels. At ambient temperature it was like tar and sticky. The oil had to heated up to about 160 to 180 degrees so the oil would flow from the tender to the burner. The oil tanks on the cab forwards were sealed and had about 5 pounds of air in them so the oil would flow a little easier to the burner.

JDE

up421 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Presumably the oil bunker would be somewhere
> between 4,500 and 5,000 gallons in capacity.
>
> What sort of range on a full oil bunker could be
> expected? I would expect it would be reasonable
> to use about 80 to 90% of the supply before
> refueling.
>
> Would fuel consumption in the area of 60 to 80
> gallons of oil per mile be in the ball park?
>
> Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this topic.


The number that sticks in my mind for the 3985 was 20gals oil and 200gals water per. mile at full tilt. I'm sure Bob or Jack can verify or correct that.
Steve
>
> Bob

I believe SP also burned crude oil.

Not long ago I read an interesting book about oil refining that did a great job of explaining all of the processes in understandable terms. As I recall, refineries equipped with all the bells and whistles no longer put out residual fuel oil aka bunker fuel because even that thick stuff can be processed into more valuable products. That's why you can't easily find it anymore let alone cheaply.

Someone above referred to "low BTU bunker fuel." I don't know if they actually meant that or if it was a typo but pound for pound bunker fuel has the highest heat output. The lighter the oil the less energy content. You can see a list here: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuel-oil-combustion-values-d_509.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/12 22:44 by filmteknik.

tomstp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think I am right in saying the oil bunkers on
> 3985 and 844 hold over 7000 gallons on the same
> type of tender. I bet Hotwater knows for sure.


Unless other changes were made after I left the two locomotives hold approximately 6700 gallons of oil in their tenders after the expansion mods were done.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/12 06:26 by Bob3985.

Steve is correct yet that figure is, as I recall, 15-17 gpm on 844 and around 20 on 3985. Drifting throttle was 7gpm on 844 and 11gpm on 3985. When we shoved the stalled train from Burns, WY to Archer with 844 we consumed 52 gpm.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

That 52 gpm in btu content converted to boiler hp comes out to 13,046 which would
indicate a good deal was going out the stack at a rapid pace!