I know on deisels they moniter fuel consumption along the lines of gallons per ton/mile or similar, but how did they handle the steamers?
Was it miles per ton of coal or miles per ton of coal per gallon of water?
Or did they just focus on moving the darn thing from point A to point B regardless of fuel needs?
Tons of fuel per train/mile. It was assumed that the locomotive would be loaded to its tonnage rating. If it wasn’t loaded to its tonnage rating, then the railroad was wasting crews and engine-miles. The human factor (engineer/fireman) had far more of an effect on steam locomotive performance than locomotive design. Railroads paid a great deal of attention to steam locomotive fuel economy because it is a variable cost they could influence, whereas so many of the costs of railroading are essentially fixed.
Water useage was usually not tracked by locomotive.
Interestingly, it’s not much different on diesel-electric – one of the Class Is in a recent series of exhaustive tests was very surprised to learn that the difference in gallons/train-mile between the “best” engineer and the “worst” engineer was 30%, which is an immense number. That opportunity can and will fund some expensive improvements in train-control systems.
RWM
The advertising for locomotive appliances, like stokers and feed water heater systems, often touted the fuel and water savings available when these devices were installed. I don’t think that water useage was tracked in the same manner, but it still had to be taken into account, as water needed to be available before the point that any locomotive on a division would run out of it. In some places where water was especially scarce, locomotive exhaust was passed through a condenser and returned to either the tender or the boiler.
Wayne
Doc
I have to question your last statement. The steam would have to be recovered before it was mixed with the stack gases. Otherwise, it would be too contaminated to be of any use as feed water.
On steam ships and large stationary steam boilers, steam was indeed recovered and condensed for use as feed water. The fire exhaust was kept separate from the steam, and in most cases it was turbines, not reciprocating engines. But on steam locomotives with their horizontal boilers and relatively short stacks, the exhaust steam was used to promote a reasonable draft through the boiler and finally up the stack.
Perhaps you are thinking of feedwater heaters with mixed flow and injectors where small quantities of steam were recycled back into the boiler. But this is not large scale condensation of exhaust steam to replace water consumed.
I’m quite willing to accept examples of where I’m wrong, and large on-board condensers were used by railroads. But I don’t know of any myself at this point.
always open to learning
Fred W
South Africa to my knowledge is the only railway system to deploy condensing steam locomotives on better than an experiemental basis, on the Class 25C. The condensing apparatus had persistent maintenance and operating difficulties and eventually was removed.
http://www.stanleys-steamers.gen.nz/Class%2025%20-%20an%20analysis.htm
RWM
Thanks for that link RWM, those are the locos of which I was thinking. Nice to see an explanation of how they dealt with the draught issue, too.
Wayne
Very interesting read. A lot of problem-solving engineering involved. I learn all the time. Thanks, RWM for the link. Thanks Doc for bringing the subject up.
Fred W
The Deutsche Reichsbahn ran condensing variants of the Class 52 2-10-0s during WW2, to cope with the lack of watering facilities in the USSR. The Metropolitan Railway in the UK had a variety of condensing tank engines which were used on London suburban services. So did the Mersey Railway in Liverpool. There were condensing versions of the JNR C10 and C11 tank engines. There are other examples, but I’m away from home, so I can’t refer to my reference library.
Cheers,
Mark.
Oh yeah, I forgot the really obvious examples - steam trams. Literallly hundreds of condensing steam tram locos were built by builders such as Kitson, Merryweather, Green, Beyer,Peacock, Breda, Krauss, Henschel and SLM. They were widely used throughout the UK and Europe.
Cheers,
Mark.