This weeks Trains and Locomotives feature on RFDTV was about Milwaukee Road #261. They were interviewing the engineer of this loke and he commented that this loke “burned good old American coal; not foreign oil” or words to that effect.
Back in the heavyweight car days in order to eliminate cinders several railroads had their passenger lokes either built as or converted to oil burners. The Milwaukee was, I believe, one of these. My question is this: do any of you do this–run at least some of your passenger power behind oil-fired steamers while your freight operations remain coal burners?
I run both Southern Pacific and Rio Grande steam on my Yuba River Sub, so all of my SP steam is naturally oil-burning. My Rio Grande runs coal (though in reality, my California setting wouldn’t allow it because of National Forest restrictions).
So my engine facilities are dual-service. And my two ‘modern’ Rio Grande passenger trains (“Prospector”, “Royal Gorge”) have been converted to–gasp!–diseasel electric F-3’s. However, my Rio Grande “Scenic Limited” still whizzes along behind a coal-burning 4-8-4.
Railroads burned the fuel that was available, affordable, and permitted. Railroads did not like spending the extra money necessary to maintain dual fuel systems. Some railroads like the SP, GN, UP and so on had both locomotives that burned coal or oil, but this was limited to particular geographical areas of the railroad for a given era.
All my steam locomotives are oil-fueled. No mixing is permitted here.
Here in the fictional (but plausable) world of the ATLANTIC CENTRAL, in 1953, all of our passenger steam is oil fired. We do have a few dual service locos coal fired that sometimes are pressed into passenger service, but all regular passenger assignments are oil fired steam or diesel. Going way back, Baltimore, and many other cities in this part of the world had smoke ordances for non industrial parts of the city that required railroads to use oil burners or electric traction in and out of “uptown” passenger terminals.
As a result, the B&O had a number of oil burners as well as electrics for such locations. The Western Maryland’s intire fleet of passenger power was oil burning. In Baltimore, only the lowly Ma & Pa was small enough to be given an exemption. The PRR was electric in Baltimore.
People tend to think of the East as coal country and don’t realize many oil fired locos where operated by eastern roads. I think at some point the railroads saw the cleanlyness benifit as well.
Edit - One additional note, Baltimore was and is a major oil transport terminal/port so oil was just as readily available as coal.
Oops, I forgot. My Akane SP AC-9 2-8-8-4 is still a coal burner. But I have an excuse–it was on its way to the Modoc line for conversion to oil when the Rio Grande ‘borrowed’ it to augment their own 2-8-8-4’s. So right now, it’s ‘helping out’ until the Rio Grande decides to return it to SP for conversion.
Of course why I didn’t convert all of my Rio Grande ‘California’ steamers to oil is still something that gets a lot of chuckles out of my friends. One would think that by now, I have burned down the entire northern Tahoe National Forest. [:-^]
My excuse is that you NEVER know what steamers either Denver or Salt Lake are going to send out here as they convert their Colorado/Utah lines to diesel.
Those SP cab-backward AC-9 Yellowstones never looked right to me despite their handsomeness, so they’re absent from my roster. Even my “oddball” locos are all oil-fired: former B&M Berkshire (uglier than sin but redeemed by its SP-supplied whaleback tender) and leased UP Bull Moose and Mikado. I’ll be modeling eastern California during a period of motive power shortage, so all locos must be oil-fired. Oh, how could I forget the oil-fired version of Southern’s 2-8-2+2-8-0 duplex destined for helper service over Montgomery Pass?
the Illinois Central was an all coal burning road except for a couple of engines, (i think they were 4-6-2’s) that handled a MP passenger train for a short distance west of New Orleans. perhaps to Batton Rouge or a little beyond. they were never used anywhere else on the system while oil burners.
not exactly related but while on the subject of steam locomotive fuel, can anyone tell me for sure what the difference was between passenger coal and freight coal?
Most of my passenger schedules burn water - the 1500VDC catenary that gets its power from the major hydroelectric developments in the area. Most of the remainder burn oil - in the form of diesel fuel. The comparatively few ‘accommodation’ locals that move behind steam power run behind coalburners - low quality coal, at that.
Interestingly, all of the JNR steam locos have ‘elephant ear’ smoke lifters, and low backpressure steam exhaust which isn’t wonderful about getting the smoke above the cab roof - eapecially downgrade, where the major steam use is keeping the air pressure up in the brake reservoirs.
Somewhere along the line the Federales decreed that locomotives operating in National Forests would burn oil. The Black Hills Mallets, CB&Q 2-6-6-2s, were among the coal burners that were converted to burn oil. They operated between Edgemont and Deadwood, SD, mostly on rails passing through the Black Hills National Forest. To give an idea of the terrain, they were only rated to pull 250 tons. The line was one of the last to use four wheel cabooses, since their light weight left more capacity for revenue carrying cars.
