I love oil burning steamers. And thats what my railroad burns is oil. But I also appreciate a short tender heaping with coal. Would it be very prototypical to have coal and oil burning steamers out on my main line? Jason
depends what railroad you’re modeling and when . i doubt the conversion was instant , there was probably a time when both were used while switching from coal to oil , but it would probably be a very small overlap
Rather late in the steam era, Pennsy (which was purely coal fueled) acquired some 2-10-4’s from the Santa Fe. They were delivered as oil burners. Someone more knowledgeable than I might know if they were converted to burn coal. I seriously doubt that they were, since the conversion would have involved installing coal grates, an ash pan and a mechanical stoker at minimum, rather expensive for power meant to be used as a temporary stopgap.
The SP’s AC-9 skyline casing ‘cab normal’ 2-8-8-4’s were built as coal burners, since coal was cheap and plentiful on the route they were built for. When they were moved elsewhere, they were converted to oil.
Several class 1’s had both oil fired locos and coal fired locos. Presumably, they also had specific terminals where both were serviced, oil burners leaving in one direction and coal burners leaving in the other. The local switch engine(s) presumably burned whichever fuel was cheaper at that point.
Then there is always the possibility of a trackage rights agreement where two companies of totally different characteristics run on the same tracks, each with its own locomotives and crews. The Utah Railway used the D&RGW route over Soldier Summit to reach its UP connection at Ogden, UT. While the Utah dieselized early (with snow-white Alcos!) it could just as easily have “Soldiered” on with coal burners, since 99% of its carloads were coal. Since it didn’t share terminals with the Grande, the Utah really didn’t care what the other road burned, or even what type of locos it ran.
Of course, if you can’t find a prototype you like, invent one!
Chuck (who didn’t invent his mining route, but did transplant it to a different part of the country)
Uncle John did it - they ran coal between Kaycee and ChiTown - oil burners and coal burners rubbed shoulders at Argentine.
Back in about 1963 Trains Mag did a dedicated issue on Uncle John’s 2-10-4 Classes - these were designed and built to be oil burners but the article pointed out that the tenders were perfectly capable of handling coal and conversion between the two was a simple matter of installing or removing an oil bunker - when the cost of bunker C became prohibitive the railroad did not hesitate to yank the oil bunker and go to coal. They may have done this with other locomotives besides the 2-10-4s but they are the only ones I am aware of. They may have operated as coal burners when they were leased to the Pennsy in the mid-50s.
When Espee dieselized the Golden State Route in the mid-50s AC9s (coal burners) were bumped over to the Modoc Route in California and Nevada where they rubbed shoulders on a daily basis with the other ACs (all oil burners).
There is one other circumstance where you are going to find coal and oil burners operating over the same route - you must remember that in the days before air conditioning a lot of passenger cars operated with the windows open. Cinders were a distinct problem with coal burners and so SOME railroads, particularly in the west, used oil burners as their passenger locomotives - this cut down on passenger complaints. (Women wore dresses/skirts and hats when they travelled in those heady days of yesteryear; hats carried pretty hefty price tags and the ladies did not like to arrive at their destination with burn marks on them!!!) The Onion Specific was a coal burning railroad - they had on-line resources in southern Wyoming - but the FEFs were designed and operated as oil burners.
You have to remember one thing there, jguess733; if you are going to do what you want to do you have to provide both coal and oil servicing facilities at your terminal(s); oil burners look
Changing a steamer over from coal to oil is NOWHERE as easy as "just yanking the oil bunker. You need to add slope sheets back into the tender, add mechanical stoker machinery to both the engine and tender, remove the fuel oil pump, hoses, fittings, and sprayer, add ash pans and rockers to the steamer, and fiddle with the gauges. It’s about a three day’s job in the shops, which is why it rarely happened, unless an engine was being assigned to a new division that used the new fuel source.
Why not? Aren’t you the one paying for everything?
Railroads such as the Western Pacific used oil for fuel in California but switched to coal burning power over in Nevada. The division in Nevada to Utah used coal so that division point had both oil and coal fired locomotives at their terminal.
The Santa Fe did the same thing out of California in the early days and switched to coal in Arizona in the early 1900’s. Later on they used oil more system wide but still had coal powered steam out of Illinois. California had a lot of oil being pumped and the fire danger from cinders mandated the use of oil for the railroads.
Oil was used more in the west and southwest since that is where is was found along with cinders causing fires. It is your model railroad and you can mix the fuel used for many reasons.
Prototypically, I believe that either coal or oil would HEAVILY dominate on any given line or division, usually but not always to the extent of 100%. But there are situations where you would see some mixed use. In addition to those mentioned above, the Western Maryland, which was otherwise all coal fed, had several of its K-2 Pacifics (passenger service only) converted to oil in order to satisfy anti-smoke ordinances in the city of Baltimore.
In most cases, coal was the preferred fuel. The BTU output of coal was better than the typical ‘Bunker C’ fuel oil product. That said, oil became the preferred fuel in many western areas due to a number of issues:
o - US Forest Service regulation in National Forest areas(mainly the Pacific Northwest).
o - Lack of ready available coal deposits(cost of moving the coal cost more than using oil).
o - Municipal smoke regulations.
The FEC used fuel oil in Florida, but it may have been more of a ‘clean burning’ promotional trick. On the other hand, fuel oil prices there might have been better than delivered coal. As memtioned, converting engines was more than a ‘just a day out of service’ operation. Also, many engines had reduced output when using oil fuel. IIRC, the UP experimented with a Big Boy conversion, but was not able to stuff enough fire pots under the boiler to generate the same amount of steam as with coal fuel.
Jim
The Union Pacific used both oil and coal. It depended on the Division. In the Northwest we used oil and had no facilities to use coal. But in 1948 when my family moved to Oregon all engines in the Nebraska area were coal. I have both on my roster. My loggers still burn wood because I think the stacks are good looking and the wood piled on the tender is neat. TARP