In 1945 the AT&SF purchased 3 L-1 class 2-8-2’s (#'s 882, 883, 884) from the Pennsylvania RR. Does anyone know if the Santa Fe converted them to Oil burners? The reason I ask, is that my small freelanced road set in the west and using oil burning steamers needs a small switcher. I really like the Bowser A-5 0-4-0. Would it be okay to slap an oil bunker on the tender? Or does the Belpaire firebox prevent this? I figure if a prototype Western Road can run an Eastern steamer then so can mine. Thanks for the help.
Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail includes a diagram of Santa Fe class 882, OIL BURNER, built Baldwin & PRR 1917, REBUILT TOPEKA 1945. Oil capy 4000 gallons. Used Santa Fe tenders when in service on Santa Fe. Original PRR tenders went with them when scrapped, ATSF tenders retained by ATSF.
I am NOT a steam expert on Santa Fe but I do have The Book in my collection.
Oil or coal firing in no way affects the locomotive other than the coal stokers in the cab are not needed for oil. Even the PRR had some oil fired engines used primarily around Washington DC due to smoke ordinances.
Thank you for the replies. Based on what you have told me, it would not be unreasonable to believe that my short line bought an Ex-PRR A5, and converted it to oil. I appreciate it you help guys.
I have one more question on this topic and instead of starting a new thread I thought I would add on to this one. When the Santa Fe converted the 882 Mikes to oil burners did the locomotives retain their Belpair fireboxs?
Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail p. 180 shows photos of #882, 883 and 884, each with Belpaire firebox. #883 and 884 were modified with Santa Fe pilots, #882 was not.
As I said before, I am NOT a steam expert on Santa Fe but I do have The Book in my collection.
Thank you for the help leighant.
FWIW Great Northern steam engines mainly used belpaire boilers too, and many of them were oil burners, so there’s no reason you couldn’t have an ex-PRR engine burning oil.
There is a guy selling on ebay who has an oil conversion for some mantua/Tyco/Bowser/Penn Line tenders. I won’t swear to it but I think he has one for the slope back Tyco/Mantua shifters.
I think he goes by Yardbird or Yardmaster. Just go to HO and search for Mantua or Varney and his stuff will come up. He has a lot of Varney and other older mfgr parts. He also has done some neat stuff with those old parts by doing some mods and then casting them. One example is the standard pilots for the Tyco/Mantua 4-6-2/2-8-2. He has done different mods by removing the airpump shield and making a flat deck, removing everything and adding an air reservoir, adding new airpumps without the shield, etc.
Roger
To show you what I know, I would have guessed that they converted them to rubber-band drive!
Correct, Yardbird Model Trains. Tehy have a website too, and theyre the one’s that sold the pieces to make Cab Forwards out of anything.