A freind and I had a talk the other day about how long from dead cold does it take to fire, build preasure, and operate a steam loco.
I worked in and around boilers for a good number of years, but these were natual gas fired, and took up to about 3 hours on the small units.
So how long would it take to get a steamer going, be it coal or oil fired.
ICRR1964
This was extensively discussed on one of the Trains forums, but on the locomotives I fire, we like to take about 8 hours from dead cold. Of course it can be done faster but we are very concerned about the metal in the firebox and boiler
dd
You might want to check out the San Diego Rail Museum site. They have the complete procedure.
Chuck
There is no set answer. It depends on the size of the boiler, the temperature of the water, the ambient temperature, and how careful you want to be. The faster you heat things up, the more you stress the metal.
The previous post about 8 hrs is probably not a bad place to start, but it’s only that.
There was an article in Trains a year or so ago about the smallest Shay, and the owner puts a space heater in the firebox the night before to warm things slowly.
At the other extreme of anecdotal evidence, read an account of the WWI Battle of the Falkland Islands. The boilers in large warships make steam locomotive boilers look like home hot-water heaters. The British got caught with their pants down, in a Falkland Islands harbor with minimal steam raised on their (coal-fired) battlecruisers and cruisers. Upon receiving a report of an approaching German squadron, the Brits lit off the boilers using some, um, unorthodox measures, including putting oil on the coal, rather like lighter fluid. The Germans saw the resulting belches of smoke and thought that the locals had put fire to the Royal Navy’s entire (substantial!) coal supplies on the islands to prevent the coal from falling into German hands. No doubt what the British did was very hard on their ships’ boilers. Butfor all that they raised steam very quickly–like in a couple of hours, instead of, IIRC, twenty-four hours. Before the day was out, the British sank both of the German armored cruisers and two of the three German light cruisers. For this action Vice Admiral Sturdee got made a baronet, but one can imagine that some of the boilermakers at the Royal Navy dockyards wanted him dealt with somewhat more severly.
I have read a credible account of a cold boiler being warmed by a tiger torch shot into the fire-box for a couple of hours, and when the pressure in the boiler was sufficient to atomize the fuel oil for the burner, the hostler ignited it and had the engine ready about four hours later. So, that’s about six hours. Personally, I think that is lots. It depends, though, on the gradient established in the heat transfer to the various parts, the age of the boiler, the metal, its overall condition (particularly the flue pipe welds, stay bolts, etc.).
A gentleman who rebuilds steamers and operates them in Australia, marknewton who frequents the prototype forum for modelers and the general discussion next door at model railroader magazine, feels that the more time you take the better it is…all things considered.
A local railroad used to do it in about 3-1/2 hrs from cold boiler to full pressure (around 180psi IIRC after 40 years). They’d start with a wood fire and then add coal. If the engine had been run the day before it would still be warm and would raise steam in 1-1/2 hr or so. They used house air for the blower until there was enough steam to use for the blower. Once the blower was switched to steam the pressure would come up pretty fast.
Doesn’t seem like much time to throw all that heat into the boiler, but guess they made out all right doing it that way.
I guess it would be about the same time as a boiler in industry. I had to fire one up in a place I worked in for a good number of years, it was natural gas fired. After sitting all weekend we would have to fire it from cold, and try and get it up to temp and psi as quick as possible. Even with water treatments and scale remover, It took longer some days for some reason or another.
Thanks for the answers guys, sounds like quite a job to do from dead cold though.
After cold servicing of an engine.
Couldn’t they have use preheated water or steam to preheat the boiler jacket?
Most of the round houses were steam or hot water heated.
Yes. If a servicing facility was of the type (large enough and busy enough) to have its own stationary plant, then that steam could be used to bring a boiler up or to maintain a boiler while the fire is out for firebox maintenance. Roundhouses of any substantial size had their own boilers for this reason…among others.
From my experience with locomotive boilers, it took about four hours to raise steam in the larger boilers (2000 horsepower) from dead cold. Sometimes for no apparent reason it could take much longer. We had an older loco (built 1910) with an all copper boiler which raised steam at an unbelievable fast rate. Somewhere about ninety minutes to two hours was not uncommon.
Regards, Malcolm.
I have a book at home about the battleship Washington, the one commissioned sometime between 1938-1940 IIRC (it preceded the Iowa-class battleships). Again, IIRC it could go from cold boilers to full steam in 1 to 2 hours, but that was a tremendous strain on the machinery so was very seldom done.
I do not believe a destroyer could get any steam pressure from cold in less than 6 hours.
Then boiler jacket held a great deal of water, plus all the steam piping could not handle the steam that quick.
Steam piping needs time to accumate to the temper change.
Totally different breed of boiler. Locomotive boilers have fire tubes surrounded by water, while marine boilers more recent than the 1900s have water tubes surrounded by fire.
I have been told about boilers which were damaged in combat, where the steam pressure and temperatures changed radically over a very short time. They could leave the water tubes sagging like a mess of cooked spaghetti. Re-firing one of those damaged boilers was, to put it mildly, an adventure.
Chuck (long-ago engineering department cadet)
towikawaTT wrote
Totally different breed of boiler. Locomotive boilers have fire tubes surrounded by water, while marine boilers more recent than the 1900s have water tubes surrounded by fire.
I have been told about boilers which were damaged in combat, where the steam pressure and temperatures changed radically over a very short time. They could leave the water tubes sagging like a mess of cooked spaghetti. Re-firing one of those damaged boilers was, to put it mildly, an adventure.
Chuck (long-ago engineering department cadet)
It does not matter how or with what you heated the water. The physics is the same. Steam is not as easy to handle as hot water is.
The amount of water heated on a ship is a great deal more than railroad engine.
Yes people can do stupid things. Then they hire lawyers to make someone else pay for the stupid thing they did.
G’day Crandell,
You’re spot on - the longer you take to raise steam from cold, the better, I reckon. When I was running 38ers, I used to start lighting-up about 7.00am the day before a run. I would use house air to start with, but only enough to keep the smoke out of the cab. I wouldn’t go onto coal or use the blower until I had at least 75 pounds on.
Another post in this thread talks about raising steam from cold on a large loco in four hours. This is quite possible, but I reckon anyone who did that on a regular basis wasn’t fit to be called a fireman.
Cheers,
Mark.
Bollocks. The physics may be the same, but the physical characteristics and behaviour of different types of boiler differ greatly. So do firing rates for different fuels. If you had any practical experience on loco or marine boilers you’d know that.
FWIW, one of the reasons that water-tube boilers became the norm in naval/marine applications is that they could be force-fired up quickly from cold if required, without suffering as much damage as fire-tube boilers. But as Chuck correctly notes, they could still suffer damage if badly mistreated.
Cheers,
Mark.
Yes Mark I will concede that sometime can be done.
I will also bet you more that enough people suffered from attempting.
I would really like to see any documentation and not stories of someone firing up a dead cold battleship in 2 hours.
In the Victorian Railways it was common practice to light up and raise steam in four hours. Often straight after a boiler washout. To raise steam at a lower rate may be beneficial on some types of boilers. Locomotive boilers are built to handle rapid temperature changes. To light up the day before is unnecessary, bordering on the ridiculous.
Regards, Malcolm.
Yes, I’ve seen it done at Bendigo loco. The loco - a “J” IIRC - was blown down, immediately washed out with HOT water, immediately refilled with HOT water, and then was re-lit. The thing never got cold, so a four-hour light up was quite reasonable. But look at the original question, which asks how long to light up from “dead cold”? Four hours from dead cold is not good practice, even in Victoria.
Its beneficial on all types of boilers.
Only up to a point. Once you start breaking stays you know you are in trouble.
When you are lighting up a loco that has been out of traffic and is dead cold, it’s both necessary and sensible. If you’re advocating otherwise, you should surrender your boiler ticket.
Cheers,
Mark.
(ex-NSWGR boilermaker and boiler inspector)
re: “I would really like to see any documentation and not stories of someone firing up a dead cold battleship in 2 hours.”
The account I mentioned of the WWI Battle of the Falkland Islands comes primarily from Bernard Edwards, Salvo! Classic Naval Gun Actions (2000), which although not intended to be a true scholarly work, seems to be generally accurate. The largest (roughly 20,000 tons displacement) warships involved were the battlecruisers H.M.S. Invincible (1909) and H.M.S. Inflexible (1908), which were roughly comparable in size and powerplants to contemporary battleships. Read the accounts. They were coaling at at about 8 a.m. with few boilers lit, and raised sufficient steam to begin their chase about 10 a.m. Remember, the Germans had a two hour head start with a lot more steam up at that time, the British had an advantage in maximum speed of only roughly 3 kts, and the British had about twelve or thirteen hours of daylight in which to catch and sink the German ships. So basically, the British went from probably around 10-20% steam production rate to probably 80% or better in two hours. And remeber, that was primarily bringing more boilers from cold to steam-producing; whatever boilers were already lit could not have generated anywhere near the necessary steam.
Now the Invincible class battlecruisers were somewhat smaller than U.S.S. Washington (1941), which also used a smaller number of larger boilers. Also, I am not saying their boilers were “dead cold”–I just do not know. But my understanding is that, at least by WWII (again, admittedly usually involving a smaller number of larger boilers), the Admiralty’s standard practice was to bring up large warship boilers from cold over a period of 24 hrs.
I guess the point is, all else being equal (and not that it is), the faster you go from the first fire to full steam, the harder you are on the metal. Period. As to what is reasonable, or&nbs