Member Batman posted a video the other day showing a steam loco raining sparks all over the countryside…and the cars behind it…I am completely baffled by the video…How is it the cars and countryside dont catch fire? I believe in the vid its snowing, but…what am i missing here?
I was gonna post, asking how much clearance is needed for a steam loco to pass under a building(i`m working on model power “old coal mine”), but after seeing that video…
I am no expert in steam locomotives, buit since no one has replied yet… I might as well get the conversation going.
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As far as sparks are concerned, I think this was generally a trait of wood burning locomotives. Coal and oil fired locomotives should have been far less prone to sparks and hot cinders coming from the chimney. However, when the flues were “shaken”, it is my undrtsanding that quite a show of sparks was produced. I am sure there were rules about where and when this could be done.
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Smoke… in reality there should have been very little smoke coming from the chimney during normal operation. Just as in diesel trucks, smoke is just wasted fuel. Since all steam locomotives were company owned (I doubt there were owner-operators like we deal with in trucking), I would guess smoke was discouraged. There are instances, like when the fire is lowering, or maybe in a hard pull, where smoke might be a necessity, but I doubt all that much.
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I have heard stories that in most publicity pictures of trains the smoke was somewhat artificial. They would run the engine producing excess smoke to make the photographs more exciting. Since most of what we know about locomotives comes from these photographs, it seems like they smoke more than they did.
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I know the Tennesse Valley Railway Museum used to run their steam locomotive smoking more than it should because that is what visitors wanted to see.
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That is pretty much all I know.
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-Kevin
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I’m no expert either, but I also read that sparks was mostly a wood burning issue. The video is not clear enough to tell if that one burned wood or coal. Maybe the quality of the coal was poor… One thing the video does show is that it occured in a snowy area. The crew was probably not worried about the risk of causing a fire in these surroundings. In dry and warm climates, locos burning wood would be equipped with fire arresters, which was common in logging operations. Some locos would carry hoses to extinguish fires if that happened. As for the smoke, well, old pictures and videos show that hard working locos produced a lot of it, for going up hills for example…
Simon
Back in the day the railroads had rules about “excessive smoke” and would send assistant road foremen out with camera to record any fireman in violation of course anybody track side with a camera was suspect…
Of course firemen would “sand the flues” in order to clean them resulting with a lot of smoke from the stack but,this was usually done in the middle of nowhere because no fireman wanted a irate house wife screaming to the road foreman of engines about how her washed clothes hanging on the clothes line was soiled by a passing train…
Once the steam has done the job in the cylinders, it is ejected through the blast pipe in the smoke box and then out through the smoke stack. This creates a draft, which “sucks” the heat gas through the flues. That in mind, steam engines will always emit steam - with the “heartbeat” of the cylinder cycle.
Steam engines emit steam, they also emit smoke. Whether the smoke is white or black will depend on how hard the engine is pulling. Coal fired engines emit cinders. I remember riding behind RDG 2102 back in the 1970’s and I had little tiny cinders in all my pockets and my face was covered in soot. If the engine is coal or oil fired the number of “sparks” should be minimal.
PS : Modern diesels also emit sparks, that’s why many non-turbocharged engines were equipped with spark arrestors.
Hi,
I’m no expert either but I’ve seen an awful lot of them in my time - CNW, IC, GTW, and several tourist roads.
Those that burn coal spew the sparks and smoke. Oil burners tend to have less smoke. That said, a working coal burner is a real testimony to the power of steam.
On the tourist roads its the same. The coal burners pop out sparks and cinders, even with the suppressors on the stacks. The C&T had a water train following the excursion I was on a number of years ago, for the purpose of putting out any spark ignited fires. I rode in an open gondola, and experienced a cinder in my eye. That was the last time for that.
The Texas state RR has an oil burner. Its massive and powerful, but the excitement just isn’t there…
Can someone provide a link to the thread that contains the video the OP is speaking about?
The book “The Steam Locomotive by Ralph P. Johnson” has a chapter on “front ends”, that part ahead of the boiler which produces the draft through the boiler and expels the combustion gasses by putting the exhaust steam through a nozzle beneath the stack. It mentions various attempts on coal burning locomotives to cut down on anything expelled from the locomotive that might cause fires along the right of way. There were many different attempts using plates, netting, or a drum that that broke up cinders by centrifugal force.
There is also a chapter on cinders. It mentions: “In tests on the ‘Big Four’ the average maximum height of live sparks measured at night with a transit was 170.7 feet.” It also mentions: “Practically all sparks with sufficient temperatures to ignite combustibles when they reach the ground, fall within the 50 foot zone.” (50 feet from either side of the track.)
This might be it
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Ummm… MODERN diesel engines absolutely DO NOT ever emit sparks. This spark would need to get past the Catalyst Soot Filter (CSF or DPF), and the Selective Reductant Catalyst (SRC or SCR) before being expelled from the exhaust. This should be impossible unless multiple components are compromised.
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FAIRLY MODERN diesel engines in proper operating order should also never emit sparks. Even with a turbocharger, solid partially burned material could get through the combustion cycle and make it into the exhaust where they would ignite when reaching oxygen in the atmosphere, but this would be very rare.
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Only antique, clunky, innefficient, dirty, fuel guzzling, smoke belching, poorly aspirated, polluting, diesel engines could emit sparks. These should all be banned.
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-Kevin
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Well, that explains what the OP was talking about if that was indeed the video. They were intentionally making those sparks. It appeared they where shoveling sawdust or some such material (notice whatever they were shoveling in to the tractor was visible on the camera).
Probably wont be seeing sparks coming from a tier 4 compliant locomotive.
It happens quite a lot to GEs (google GE locomotive turbo fire).
also some explanation here:
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/741/p/254895/2850268.aspx
A little column A, a little column B.
I was wondering what that was
The video is a steam tractor and not a locomotive and there are no cars behind it. As pointed out they seem to be firing it with sawdust which burns but has very little heat value and generally burns as it flies up and out the stack. It creates some awesome fire and sparks but not much else.
I know little about diesels but steam locomotives burning wood can really create a lot of sparks. Many old woodburners had those huge ballon and other fat stacks to contain many levels of spark arrestors to help try to eliminate this. Coal burners could also spark but it wasn’t as common. One reason is the better control of the fire and exhaust. As someone said the “flues were shaken” which isn’t true. The flues were rigidly mounted at both ends…firebox or combustion chamber end and at the smokebox on the other end. What got “shaken” were the grates that the coal bed would ride upon. The burning coal could be mis-managed and for various reasons create a bed that would get hard and start blocking the passage of air through the firebed. This choked off the ability of the coal to properly burn and a big loss of efficiency and loss of boiler pressure. When this happened the fireman would use his long coal rake to try to straighten out the fire. Often this was all that would be needed. If he let the fire get away from him he may then need to rock the grates to break up the clinkers. Usually this was done at the end of the run by the hostlers. When they did that it could create a lot of sparks as well as release a lot of unburned coal, soot, cinders and sparks. In the smokebox they had screens of various shapes and arrangements designed to catch cinders and capture them in the smokebox. These would be cleaned out at the end of the run or during a maintenance visit.
Shaking the grates and even fooling with the fire could create a lot of black smoke. Most railroads were quite sensitive to black smoke, as already mentioned, and they had folks out on the mainline watching f
i’ve read that sparks were common with early locomotives. They caused fires along the track, burned holes is passenger clothing as well as burns to flesh
John White’s book has a fairly lengthy chapter discussing the development of Smokestack and Spark Arrestors
In semi recent history the UP Challenger was resurrected and caused a series of grass fires out West. The UP sought an answer to this rather negative publicity from their Publicity Machine by converting the big 4-6-6-4 to burn oil…end of troubles!
I understand the D&S and C&TS often run a “train” behind their steam excursions to put out the occasional fires they create.
oldline1
Tell that to the short lines and their employees that depends on those “antique, clunky, innefficient, dirty, fuel guzzling, smoke belching, poorly aspirated, polluting, diesel engines” that serves industries remember there’s far more short lines then Class ones these days.
In Switzerland, the Rhaetian Railway operates a number of steam train excursion trains year around. Each train is followed by another train, usually pulled by one of their famous class Ge 6/6 I “Crocodile” engines. The train consists of a water tank car and fire fighting equipment.
The famous Furka Dampfbahn, which operates the steam train over the old Furka Pass Route, has sprinklers installed, which keep the surrounding area wet to prevent wild fires.
I believe this is the scene in question:
Brent had posted it in Waldorf and Statlers Photo Of The Day! some time back.
Regards, Ed