My grandfather made steam engines, my father made a scale steam locomotive for taking children on rides in the park and at the fair. Some of my happiest memories as a child were of sitting behind my father in the coal tender, chugging down the tracks, so any picture of a steam engine brings back fond memories.
[ UPDATE: I hadn’t realized it from the photo above until later, but the 4-6-4 “Hudson” locomotive above is the one my dad modeled for the 1/8th scale train of my youth, except his had the feedwater tank over the front like this one. Our family had to sell the train due to financial hardship after his death to somebody in Lebanon Ohio (probably the saddest day of my life). I’ve since lost track of it and would give anything to get it back, but I fear it has been scrapped. I hadn’t thought about this in a long time but the image provoked some long repressed memories. On the plus side, I’ve located a Lionel model Hudson 4-6-4 Steam Locomotive 665 with 736W Tender on Ebay, and exact match to the engine and tender my dad constructed, which I hope to buy so that I can show it to my children, and pass on the story with something to show them, along with the family photographs. I never thought this topic would come up on my blog, but here it is, serendipitously hitting me with emotion. – Anthony ]
When I saw this, all I could think of is how silly this idea is. All the greens seem fascinated with high speed rail due to Euro-envy, and in California they are ramming it down our throat at an anticipated huge loss, even worse than Solyndra. With a forecast price tag in the tens of billions and growing, it is just nuts given the economic climate right now, not to mention we don’t have people clamoring to climb aboard.
In retrospect however, anything that would put a steam locomotive back on the tracks is music to my ears, even if they ran it on used McDonald’s french fry oil like some of those hippie buses we see here in California.
Here’s the strange part, they are converting an oil burning locomotive to run “biocoal”, and somehow they magically think the production process and the burning of it won’t produce any net CO2, saying the process is “carbon neutral”. I think they’ve left out some parts, like the energy needed to produce and transport the biocoal fuel in the first place. Excerpts from the MSNBC story:
A steam train built in 1937 is getting a makeover that will turn it into a “higher-speed” locomotive that runs on biocoal, a coal-like fuel made with woody plant material.
When finished, the train will be able chug along existing tracks at speeds up to 130 miles per hour without contributing to the greenhouse gas pollution blamed for global warming.
…
“Computer simulations already show that the locomotive is about as powerful as two modern passenger diesel locomotives,” Davidson Ward, president of the Coalition for Sustainable Rail, told me Thursday.
“But it will burn carbon neutral fuel.”
The biocoal is based on a so-called torrefaction process pioneered at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. To make it, woody material — in this case trees — are heated in the absence of oxygen. The resulting flaky matter is then rammed together under high pressure to create coal-like bricks.
The charcoal briquettes aka “biocoal”
Biocoal has the same energy density as regular coal, but is cleaner burning, and since trees (the fuel source) sequester carbon as they grow, the system is considered carbon neutral, according to Ward.
…
Today, most higher-speed passenger trains are diesel-electric locomotives, which generate their peak horsepower at low speeds — about 25 miles per hour. Steam locomotives, by contrast, get their peak horsepower at higher speeds — about 40 miles per hour.
“Initial computer simulations suggest that the CSR’s modern steam engine will significantly out-accelerate a modern diesel-electric locomotive to 110 mph,” according to the coalition’s website.
…
I got a big chuckle out of this part though:
If all goes according to plan, they might build a new steam locomotive from scratch, which will have some modern looks.
For example, “no cowcatcher,” Ward said. “You don’t need a cowcatcher today unless you are a ‘Back to the Future’ fan.”
Just wait until they plow into some green gawker driving a Prius, you know it is going to happen.
From the “Coalition for Sustainable Rail” website:
Once its modernization is complete, CSR 3463 will have little in common with the smoke-belching steam engine it once was. Featuring a gas-producer combustion system, improved steam circuit, modernized boiler, low-maintenance running gear and steam-powered electric generator (to power the passenger train), CSR anticipates 3463 will be able to pull a passenger train with electric-like performance for less than the cost of diesel-electric locomotives. In order to further prove the viability of biocoal and modern steam technology, CSR plans to test the locomotive in excess of 130 miles per hour, out-performing any existing diesel-electric on the market and breaking the world steam speed record. In light of this achievement, CSR has named this endeavor: “Project 130.”
Historical 3463 Tech Specs
Locomotive 3463, acquired by CSR through the generosity of its former owner, the Great Overland Station of Topeka, Kansas, is the largest locomotive of its type left in the world and features the largest wheels of any engine in North America. CSR will completely rebuild and modernize the locomotive, doubling its thermal efficiency, converting it to burn biocoal and more. When done, locomotive 3463 will share only the most fundamental resemblance to the engine it once was.
The table below outlines characteristics of locomotive 3463 as built in 1937 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works:
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GlynnMhor
May 31, 2012 8:59 pm
The main reason diesel engines replaced steam ones is maintenance.
A steam boiler has to be torn down and rebuilt about every five years. That’s an issue that no amount of bizarre fuel is going to make go away.
Taphonomic
May 31, 2012 9:06 pm
They can equivocate all they want; but somehow I fail to see how collecting the “woody material”, transporting it to the manufacturing location, heating it, ramming it together under high pressure, transporting it to the train site, etc. can all be considered carbon neutral.
Must be new math.
Go Home
May 31, 2012 9:12 pm
Heck as long as they use that thing to haul coal to electric plants around the country at 130 MPH, I am all for it.
Mark and two Cats
May 31, 2012 9:13 pm
Coal fusion hoax: simply another Solyndra-like scam to get obamabux, divide it up amongst the project perps, then declare bankruptcy and walk away rich.
earthdog
May 31, 2012 9:15 pm
To make it, woody material — in this case trees — are heated in the absence of oxygen. The resulting flaky matter is then rammed together under high pressure to create coal-like bricks.
Pretty sure it would be significantly cheaper to pipe in electrons from some remote form of electron conversion and generation factory and burn those in tiny electron motors in each car, than to have a giant reciprocating steam engine tugging everything around (and dependent upon a charcoal-briquette factory, to boot).
Ah yes. The old conundrum. Heating the woody material in the absence of oxygen. And pray tell where will this heat come from? Will it be from the mystical electricity that runs electric cars that somehow comes from houses without actually being generated from anything as nasty as a coal/gas/nuclear power station. Sometimes I think the media needs a good bitch slapping with a Common Sense Stick but I fear the forrest these sticks came from was cut down sometime in the 1990’s for a solar power station experiment.
Eric
May 31, 2012 9:19 pm
Excuse my ignorance here but….how is burning a tree carbon neutral? The only way it would be carbon neutral is if a new tree grew to the same size as the cut one in the time it takes to cut and burn the first one…correct? Otherwise cutting down every tree in the world and burning them for our energy needs would be the most carbon neutral energy policy ever conceived…
JDN
May 31, 2012 9:22 pm
Many people have been waiting for a steam renaissance. As GlynnMohr mentioned, boiler maintenance and difficult water distribution points killed steam power. It will be interesting to see what modern materials and logistics can do.
Also, compressing charcoal (which is what they’re making) into briquettes takes energy and makes it more difficult to feed to the engine. If anyone knows the engine builders, it would be much easier to use an oil-based charcoal slurry to feed the boiler than using bricks, not to mention cheaper to make. Sure the whole idea is nuts, but since we aren’t going to escape the nuttiness, we may as well do it in style.
Read the previous story about using trees for fuel. They only contain half the energy as an equivalent weight of fossil fuel. Thus you have to cut twice as many trees, do all that energetic conversion to biocoal, and expect to be carbon neutral. These people are nuts!
renminbi
May 31, 2012 9:33 pm
The Gas Producing Combustion System,developed by D L Porta was too late to save the steam locomotive, though it was a great advance permitting a cleaner combustion process. I think steam locomotives are great fun,but any idea that they are carbon neutral is out of la la land.Not that is of any importance, except that thinking so makes it so. Any idea that you will get 130 MPH is also a pipe dream. A two cylinder loco will wreck the track at that speed.
renminbi
May 31, 2012 9:43 pm
My bad. The name is Livio Dante Porta and there is a wiki for him. Steam just isn’t used for transportation except for CVNs, submarine and Natural gas tankers.
William Martin in NZ
May 31, 2012 9:44 pm
Aaaaaaaaaah,I was watching one of these two weeks ago.Burning oil tho.Brought back many memories of yesteryear.Lots of smoke and steam.Restored in Auckland and makes occasional trips pulling passenger carriages.Yep,those were the days,and no worries about global warming.It hadn’t been”INVENTED”then
Desecration of an irreplaceable artifact, if they do it.
Idiots. The passing away of steam locomotives had nothing to do with fuel. No railroad will now allow such a locomotive to obstruct and destroy any mainline trackage. I love steam locomotives, but they existed in the economics of the nineteenth century. Availability is a fraction of that of diesel electric, and cost of operations is multiples of that of diesel electric traction.
Thermal efficiency of steam locomotives is a ratio close to zero, and very far from unity. The double of near-to-zero inefficiency is still too-close-to-zero inefficiency.
Neil Jordan
May 31, 2012 10:07 pm
I am forwarding this to my railroad engineer colleague. Perhaps he will be able to explain to me how this scheme is supposed to work.
“Carbon-free” fuel and “carbon-neutral” promises aside, it is a mystery how they will be able to fire a steam locomotive without creating at least the appearance of a monumental carbon footprint. See the attached links for recent shots of operating steam locomotives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=fiSj47ps3j8
Taking their proposal at face value, presuming that the two preceding examples have purchased enough charcoal briquettes and carbon credits to be carbon neutral, the combustion process itself will be inherently dirty and release clouds of real carbon. It would be a travesty to promise otherwise.
One hundred thirty miles per hour on whose right of way? Even if computer simulations do show that old locomotive could get up to that speed on a long enough tangent without disassembling itself or pounding the track to pieces, it would still be governed by the laws of physics on curves to reduce speed to no faster than any other railroad equipment.
Ben Wilson
May 31, 2012 10:09 pm
The wild claims made in this article border on fraud. Anyone who is familiar with steam locomotives will conclude that the proponents are either ignorant of steam locomotives or of felonious intent.
The only — and I mean only — advantage that steam locomotives have over diesel electrics is they put on a more spectacular show chugging down the track. Diesel Electrics are much more efficient (30+% vs. 10% even for superheated steam locos), much, much more reliable, much less polluting, much more versatile (think using multiple diesel locomotives hooked to each other with only one engineer), much easier on the tracks, and much, much more comfortable as far as the crew is concerned. The water requirements for steam locomotives were a huge headache, and while a closed steam system would avoid some of those problems, it greatly increases the amount of equipment the locomotive requires — adding a good sized condenser system.
By the time you figure in the inefficiencies of producing and transporting their charcoal briquettes — it’s almost as this article was a deliberate spoof to see some naive journalist would bite on it.
Patrick
May 31, 2012 10:19 pm
Number 4468 Mallard is a London and North Eastern Railway Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive built at Doncaster, England in 1938. Recorded a sustained speed of 126mph.
Skiphil
May 31, 2012 10:19 pm
??? “Biocoal has the same energy density as regular coal, but is cleaner burning, and since trees (the fuel source) sequester carbon as they grow, the system is considered carbon neutral, according to Ward.?
======================================================================
It is difficult to believe that they can acquire, process, and burn the “woody material” in a way that is “carbon neutral” compared to leaving the trees growing in place??? Unless they somehow could power all of this with already dead trees, which seems completely implausible.
Also, as others have pointed out, no one but no one is going to run major rail lines with this kind of propulsion in the 21st century. Maybe some boutique tourist ride for “green” lovers of biofuel, but not any major commercial heavy duty rail line.
Kasuha
May 31, 2012 10:22 pm
I can see “back to the future” mentioned in the article. But this all rather sounds like “progress to the past” to me.
BB
May 31, 2012 10:24 pm
So let me get this straight. If poor poeple cut down a tree and burn it to cook their food they are enviromental vandels that must have millions spent on them to train them how to mend their wicked ways, but if wealthy grant mongers cut down a tree, artificially dry it and turn it into charcoal, and ram it into briquettes using fossil fuels and then burn it in totally inefficient methods thats carbon neutral????
USA, putting the “mental” back in “enviromental”
Skiphil
May 31, 2012 10:27 pm
example: I’ve spent a great deal of time in this area, seen this train on its route many times and ridden it a few times: http://hebervalleyrr.org/excursions/scenic-excursions/provo-canyon-limited/#
They have a steam engine, which is beloved by tourists for its historical flavor, but they ALMOST ALWAYS are running the train with diesel engines despite the lack of “authentic” old historic flavor. I assume that’s because the costs and operating efficiencies of using the diesel engines are much better, because otherwise they would love to let tourists enjoy the experience of being pulled by an authentic steam engine.
Lew Skannen
May 31, 2012 10:36 pm
People seem to forget that the US had its minimum number of trees during the period when trains ran on trees. When they moved to fossil fuel the forests recovered.
Eyal Porat
May 31, 2012 10:43 pm
I have found the TRUE perptum mobile!
All you need is just drop the friction part from your calculations…
They have done the same, only they droped:
– cutting of trees
– heating them
– high pressure press
– transporting them
if you leave these tiny parts – then it is 100% carbon neutral.
Larry Ledwick (hotrod)
May 31, 2012 10:43 pm
Fantastic they re-invented compressed charcoal briquettes, and use them to power a steam engine while other eco nuts have tried to tax/outlaw charcoal outdoor grills because of their carbon emissions.
In 2007 Belgium placed a tax on charcoal grilling because of its CO2 emissions. They were supposedly going to fly helicopters with equipment to locate BBQ grills that did not pay their “grilling tax”.
I have not heard much about this since, perhaps they figured out is was stupid or politically hazardous to try to keep people from doing a little grilling on holidays.
Then just a few years later, a company based in the same area, is advertising investment in bio-coal production. http://www.4energyinvest.com/home.aspx?id=1000170&lg=en http://www.4energyinvest.com/home.aspx?id=1000181&lg=en
What is that phrase ?? Oh yes follow the money.
Larry
Locomotive 3463, acquired by CSR through the generosity of its former owner, the Great Overland Station of Topeka, Kansas, is the largest locomotive of its type left in the world and features the largest wheels of any engine in North America. CSR will completely rebuild and modernize the locomotive, doubling its thermal efficiency, converting it to burn biocoal and more. When done, locomotive 3463 will share only the most fundamental resemblance to the engine it once was.
The main reason diesel engines replaced steam ones is maintenance.
A steam boiler has to be torn down and rebuilt about every five years. That’s an issue that no amount of bizarre fuel is going to make go away.
They can equivocate all they want; but somehow I fail to see how collecting the “woody material”, transporting it to the manufacturing location, heating it, ramming it together under high pressure, transporting it to the train site, etc. can all be considered carbon neutral.
Must be new math.
Heck as long as they use that thing to haul coal to electric plants around the country at 130 MPH, I am all for it.
Coal fusion hoax: simply another Solyndra-like scam to get obamabux, divide it up amongst the project perps, then declare bankruptcy and walk away rich.
So… It runs on charcoal?
Yup. No CO2 there.
Pretty sure it would be significantly cheaper to pipe in electrons from some remote form of electron conversion and generation factory and burn those in tiny electron motors in each car, than to have a giant reciprocating steam engine tugging everything around (and dependent upon a charcoal-briquette factory, to boot).
Ah yes. The old conundrum. Heating the woody material in the absence of oxygen. And pray tell where will this heat come from? Will it be from the mystical electricity that runs electric cars that somehow comes from houses without actually being generated from anything as nasty as a coal/gas/nuclear power station. Sometimes I think the media needs a good bitch slapping with a Common Sense Stick but I fear the forrest these sticks came from was cut down sometime in the 1990’s for a solar power station experiment.
Excuse my ignorance here but….how is burning a tree carbon neutral? The only way it would be carbon neutral is if a new tree grew to the same size as the cut one in the time it takes to cut and burn the first one…correct? Otherwise cutting down every tree in the world and burning them for our energy needs would be the most carbon neutral energy policy ever conceived…
Many people have been waiting for a steam renaissance. As GlynnMohr mentioned, boiler maintenance and difficult water distribution points killed steam power. It will be interesting to see what modern materials and logistics can do.
Also, compressing charcoal (which is what they’re making) into briquettes takes energy and makes it more difficult to feed to the engine. If anyone knows the engine builders, it would be much easier to use an oil-based charcoal slurry to feed the boiler than using bricks, not to mention cheaper to make. Sure the whole idea is nuts, but since we aren’t going to escape the nuttiness, we may as well do it in style.
Britain and the math wizzes of the EU are well ahead on this. They are converting coal fired power stations to wood…shipped from Canada and the Southern US in oil powered ships. http://www.pellet.org/environment/3-environment
Occasional hitches as the wood spontaneously attempts to turn into charcoal:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/biofuels/9108965/Firefighters-tackle-blaze-at-worlds-biggest-biomass-power-station.html
It’s all good though. Released lots of global cooling particulates.
Read the previous story about using trees for fuel. They only contain half the energy as an equivalent weight of fossil fuel. Thus you have to cut twice as many trees, do all that energetic conversion to biocoal, and expect to be carbon neutral. These people are nuts!
The Gas Producing Combustion System,developed by D L Porta was too late to save the steam locomotive, though it was a great advance permitting a cleaner combustion process. I think steam locomotives are great fun,but any idea that they are carbon neutral is out of la la land.Not that is of any importance, except that thinking so makes it so. Any idea that you will get 130 MPH is also a pipe dream. A two cylinder loco will wreck the track at that speed.
My bad. The name is Livio Dante Porta and there is a wiki for him. Steam just isn’t used for transportation except for CVNs, submarine and Natural gas tankers.
Aaaaaaaaaah,I was watching one of these two weeks ago.Burning oil tho.Brought back many memories of yesteryear.Lots of smoke and steam.Restored in Auckland and makes occasional trips pulling passenger carriages.Yep,those were the days,and no worries about global warming.It hadn’t been”INVENTED”then
Desecration of an irreplaceable artifact, if they do it.
Idiots. The passing away of steam locomotives had nothing to do with fuel. No railroad will now allow such a locomotive to obstruct and destroy any mainline trackage. I love steam locomotives, but they existed in the economics of the nineteenth century. Availability is a fraction of that of diesel electric, and cost of operations is multiples of that of diesel electric traction.
Thermal efficiency of steam locomotives is a ratio close to zero, and very far from unity. The double of near-to-zero inefficiency is still too-close-to-zero inefficiency.
I am forwarding this to my railroad engineer colleague. Perhaps he will be able to explain to me how this scheme is supposed to work.
“Carbon-free” fuel and “carbon-neutral” promises aside, it is a mystery how they will be able to fire a steam locomotive without creating at least the appearance of a monumental carbon footprint. See the attached links for recent shots of operating steam locomotives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=fiSj47ps3j8
Taking their proposal at face value, presuming that the two preceding examples have purchased enough charcoal briquettes and carbon credits to be carbon neutral, the combustion process itself will be inherently dirty and release clouds of real carbon. It would be a travesty to promise otherwise.
One hundred thirty miles per hour on whose right of way? Even if computer simulations do show that old locomotive could get up to that speed on a long enough tangent without disassembling itself or pounding the track to pieces, it would still be governed by the laws of physics on curves to reduce speed to no faster than any other railroad equipment.
The wild claims made in this article border on fraud. Anyone who is familiar with steam locomotives will conclude that the proponents are either ignorant of steam locomotives or of felonious intent.
The only — and I mean only — advantage that steam locomotives have over diesel electrics is they put on a more spectacular show chugging down the track. Diesel Electrics are much more efficient (30+% vs. 10% even for superheated steam locos), much, much more reliable, much less polluting, much more versatile (think using multiple diesel locomotives hooked to each other with only one engineer), much easier on the tracks, and much, much more comfortable as far as the crew is concerned. The water requirements for steam locomotives were a huge headache, and while a closed steam system would avoid some of those problems, it greatly increases the amount of equipment the locomotive requires — adding a good sized condenser system.
By the time you figure in the inefficiencies of producing and transporting their charcoal briquettes — it’s almost as this article was a deliberate spoof to see some naive journalist would bite on it.
Number 4468 Mallard is a London and North Eastern Railway Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive built at Doncaster, England in 1938. Recorded a sustained speed of 126mph.
??? “Biocoal has the same energy density as regular coal, but is cleaner burning, and since trees (the fuel source) sequester carbon as they grow, the system is considered carbon neutral, according to Ward.?
======================================================================
It is difficult to believe that they can acquire, process, and burn the “woody material” in a way that is “carbon neutral” compared to leaving the trees growing in place??? Unless they somehow could power all of this with already dead trees, which seems completely implausible.
Also, as others have pointed out, no one but no one is going to run major rail lines with this kind of propulsion in the 21st century. Maybe some boutique tourist ride for “green” lovers of biofuel, but not any major commercial heavy duty rail line.
I can see “back to the future” mentioned in the article. But this all rather sounds like “progress to the past” to me.
So let me get this straight. If poor poeple cut down a tree and burn it to cook their food they are enviromental vandels that must have millions spent on them to train them how to mend their wicked ways, but if wealthy grant mongers cut down a tree, artificially dry it and turn it into charcoal, and ram it into briquettes using fossil fuels and then burn it in totally inefficient methods thats carbon neutral????
USA, putting the “mental” back in “enviromental”
example: I’ve spent a great deal of time in this area, seen this train on its route many times and ridden it a few times:
http://hebervalleyrr.org/excursions/scenic-excursions/provo-canyon-limited/#
They have a steam engine, which is beloved by tourists for its historical flavor, but they ALMOST ALWAYS are running the train with diesel engines despite the lack of “authentic” old historic flavor. I assume that’s because the costs and operating efficiencies of using the diesel engines are much better, because otherwise they would love to let tourists enjoy the experience of being pulled by an authentic steam engine.
People seem to forget that the US had its minimum number of trees during the period when trains ran on trees. When they moved to fossil fuel the forests recovered.
I have found the TRUE perptum mobile!
All you need is just drop the friction part from your calculations…
They have done the same, only they droped:
– cutting of trees
– heating them
– high pressure press
– transporting them
if you leave these tiny parts – then it is 100% carbon neutral.
Fantastic they re-invented compressed charcoal briquettes, and use them to power a steam engine while other eco nuts have tried to tax/outlaw charcoal outdoor grills because of their carbon emissions.
In 2007 Belgium placed a tax on charcoal grilling because of its CO2 emissions. They were supposedly going to fly helicopters with equipment to locate BBQ grills that did not pay their “grilling tax”.
I have not heard much about this since, perhaps they figured out is was stupid or politically hazardous to try to keep people from doing a little grilling on holidays.
Then just a few years later, a company based in the same area, is advertising investment in bio-coal production.
http://www.4energyinvest.com/home.aspx?id=1000170&lg=en
http://www.4energyinvest.com/home.aspx?id=1000181&lg=en
What is that phrase ?? Oh yes follow the money.
Larry