Electric Steam Locomotive???

I

Infantry99

Member
As of late I have been seeing a lot about these new ECO locomotives, one being hydrogen and the other being 100% electric which is honestly nothing more then a big battery on wheels. But it made me think back on older locomotive designs that could be in any way possibly considered eco friendly and I immediately went to steam locomotives. Which if you think about it steam locomotives are already 50% eco friendly since they already use one type of fuel that is considered a "renewable resource" being water. Which doesn't get used up like gas or diesel and is not dirty when it comes out of the stack as steam. As well as not being hard to find a source or never in short supply or even in high demand like fuels can be.

So basically all that leaves is a way to create enough heat to turn water to steam and anthracite coal burns around 900 degrees while electric heating coils can get up to around 1,200 degrees. That would solve the heating issue and since you would not be using coal you have a big empty space in the tender to put a big battery in to power the heater. I know just having a battery would not be enough and run out quickly so why not have like a solar panel above the battery to recharge it as the train goes? At that point you have a steam locomotive that only ever needs to stop for water.

Sounds like a win to me or maybe I am just trying to find a excuse to bring the old steam locomotives back while keeping everyone happy.



Plus in the amount of time I was thinking this all out as well as out looking on the internet at possible ideas and statistics I came across actual proof that the idea is not so bad in reality. That electric heat to boil water to steam actually works I had came across a old black and white picture of a small swiss 0-6-0 tank engine that had a large pantograph mounted on top of the cab. Ends up this was done due to coal shortages during the war but the country having tons of hydro electric power and in the end it worked very well with a little drop off in steam production all while giving the locomotive the capability to run like a fireless locomotive for 20 minutes.
 
http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/swisselec/swisselc.htm

9hspqwo.jpg


main-qimg-3f26d39a6013468f900d8a5695861303

swisselec6.jpg
 
Last edited:
As I understand it, a steam engine is not very efficient - no matter what the fuel source to heat the water - because of various factors. Heat loss seems to be the biggest drawback but there are others.

https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Steam_Engine_Efficiency_and_Losses

Other types of gas engines are also of poor efficiency because of heat loss (a significant portion of the fuel is spent on heating the atmosphere surrounding the engine rather than doing engine-work). Many also generate vast amounts of pollutants of various kinds.

Electric motors can be more efficient and clean but the overall efficiency becomes more a question of how they're manufactured and how the electricity to drive them is generated, stored and made available. Electricity generated from a petrol engine, stored in a battery requiring dirty-mining & processing of various chemical compounds, or supply to a railway engine via a similarly damaging-to-manufacture and build pantograph system, detracts a lot from the overall efficiency of electric motors using that electricity.

One way or another, engines and the industrial infrastructure that manufactures and uses them are highly damaging things and horribly inefficient when judged on a balance of advantages-provided against the disadvantages caused by the damage-done in making and using them. A railway or road from A to B will be of little advantage when it has to pass through a million square miles of burnt land where the temperatures have become too hot for human life to survive because The Industrial Revolution gave us all faster transport to get to the shops ...... along with all those unintended consequences.

Lataxe
 
Right-ON... With no long term solutions we have simply denied this reality. Denial is a new art-form. Climate change is not real and is a plot to _________________. Fill in the blank and emotionally desperate people will believe it. Without their mothers to reassure them, they turn to demigods.

It is doubtful that production and transportation will every be without a heat by-product. The question is - can we design transportation systems that generate "tolerable levels of heat". Levels that permit the plant to recover. Hopefully, the scientists can develop solutions that place us in this "acceptable zone", before it is too late. Will the "political class" support them. Possibly, if there is "something in it for them". Otherwise, they will deny science, shade the truth, and convince millions of people that the science that gave them Television is now wrong. Those people will then vote for these "truth-tellers", sealing their own fate.
 
Last edited:
Completely Sidestepping...

Completely sidestepping the question of whether CAGW* is a relevant problem, two comments.

1.) Water is not a fuel - it's the working fluid in an external-combustion engine. If you like, air (oxygen) is a fuel, or more exactly, the oxidizer for the carbon fuel (coal or oil). The problem (sidestepping why it's a problem) is exhaust, both thermal (heating) and combustion products (NOx, COx).

2.) If we assume thermal exhaust is unimportant (usually true), the obvious solution is a heat source with no other exhaust. Solar is one, but not really applicable to trains except by the very indirect route of solar-->electric-->thermal-->heat engine (steam), for which you might as well use elctric motors since electricity is so easy and efficient to transmit via high-voltage AC. Though other working fluids are possible (liquid sodium, freon, etc.) water is pretty good as long as you don't work it too hard (it gets corrosive and otherwise nasty at really high steam conditions, though more efficient).

What we're heading toward here is a submarine powerplant, whose only fuel is the radioactive elements in the pile. (Or a space probe type direct radioactive--> electricity, but they're fabulously exotic and expensive.) Pre-Three Mile Island, we might actually have gone that way, but there are still huge problems, mainly the sheer mass of shielding, which doesn't scale: it still has to be x inches of lead or equivalent, and became excessive in even a small nuclear submarine (USS Tullibee). Without new shielding technology (reflectors were once a hope) a locomotive short of Hitler's two-track monstrosities is a non-starter.

Executive summary: The only electric-->steam application that makes sense is in a tunnel, with (alt reality) electric motors unknown. But to generate the electricity for the supply conductors you would have to have dynamos/generators, from which motors are a trivial derivative. So even alt reality doesn't help.

* Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming
 
Last edited:
All we have to do is squeeze through the narrowing door of opportunity and come out the other side as another society, thriving on a revitalized planet. Railroad transport is central to this effort.

As usual society is possibly its own worst enemy. Fear of the unknown will inhibit advances. Mistrust will cast a shadow on our thinking. Politicians could turn science against the human race by releasing a nuclear holocaust. Or, could the robots become too skilled?:eek:
 
Last edited:
Infantry99 said:
As of late I have been seeing a lot about these new ECO locomotives, one being hydrogen and the other being 100% electric which is honestly nothing more then a big battery on wheels. But it made me think back on older locomotive designs that could be in any way possibly considered eco friendly and I immediately went to steam locomotives. Which if you think about it steam locomotives are already 50% eco friendly since they already use one type of fuel that is considered a "renewable resource" being water. Which doesn't get used up like gas or diesel and is not dirty when it comes out of the stack as steam. As well as not being hard to find a source or never in short supply or even in high demand like fuels can be.

So basically all that leaves is a way to create enough heat to turn water to steam and anthracite coal burns around 900 degrees while electric heating coils can get up to around 1,200 degrees. That would solve the heating issue and since you would not be using coal you have a big empty space in the tender to put a big battery in to power the heater. I know just having a battery would not be enough and run out quickly so why not have like a solar panel above the battery to recharge it as the train goes? At that point you have a steam locomotive that only ever needs to stop for water.

Sounds like a win to me or maybe I am just trying to find a excuse to bring the old steam locomotives back while keeping everyone happy.



Plus in the amount of time I was thinking this all out as well as out looking on the internet at possible ideas and statistics I came across actual proof that the idea is not so bad in reality. That electric heat to boil water to steam actually works I had came across a old black and white picture of a small swiss 0-6-0 tank engine that had a large pantograph mounted on top of the cab. Ends up this was done due to coal shortages during the war but the country having tons of hydro electric power and in the end it worked very well with a little drop off in steam production all while giving the locomotive the capability to run like a fireless locomotive for 20 minutes.
Click to expand...


I think it all comes down to efficiency. If you have electricity available then it is much more efficient to use it directly in a motor rather than to heat water to create steam. Water isn't a fuel by the way, just a way to convert the heat from burning something else into rotary motion.

Cheerio John
 
Fuel for steam locomotives was actually wood, coal, or oil. But you need water in the tender as well. In the 1940's railroads saw diesel electrics as a cost saving measure and less maintenance. Also, electric locomotives were used in areas like the northeast US on the PRR which is now Amtrak. Electrics can go into tunnels and underground stations in cities where diesels cannot go if there is insufficient ventilation. Ross Rowland tried the new steam locomotive argument in 1985 when he tested C&O 614 on Chessie by pulling coal cars for a new steam locomotive concept.
 
Last edited:
9hspqwo.jpg


What you have to remember with the Swiss example is that they faced a difficult problem during WW2. They had almost no access to coal, but they had plenty of electricity due to hydroelectric generation as well as an established catenary electric network over most of their rail lines. Basically using what they had to hand they converted a number of steam locomotives with heating elements in their boilers to operate from the catenary wires. Possibly it wasn't especially efficient, but it did solve the problem of keeping their railways in operation when materials to build new locomotives were very much lacking.
 
boleyd said:
Right-ON... With no long term solutions we have simply denied this reality. Denial is a new art-form. Climate change is not real and is a plot to _________________. Fill in the blank and emotionally desperate people will believe it. Without their mothers to reassure them, they turn to demigods.

It is doubtful that production and transportation will every be without a heat by-product. The question is - can we design transportation systems that generate "tolerable levels of heat". Levels that permit the plant to recover. Hopefully, the scientists can develop solutions that place us in this "acceptable zone", before it is too late. Will the "political class" support them. Possibly, if there is "something in it for them". Otherwise, they will deny science, shade the truth, and convince millions of people that the science that gave them Television is now wrong. Those people will then vote for these "truth-tellers", sealing their own fate.
Click to expand...


I'll be honest I dont really believe in climate change really and in all honestly I think I was really just trying to come up with a idea to get support those "political class" to bring back the old steamers.

Steam locomotives just have more class and uniqueness to them, two railroads never had the same looking steam locomotives except for wheel arrangements. Nowadays we have the same model diesels that all sound the same engine and horn with only paint to tell them apart. I also know the most common reason for steam locomotives being retired was due to coal or oil prices being too high but if you eliminate that cost then that reason goes away and become invalid right?
 
Last edited:
KotangaGirl said:
9hspqwo.jpg


What you have to remember with the Swiss example is that they faced a difficult problem during WW2. They had almost no access to coal, but they had plenty of electricity due to hydroelectric generation as well as an established catenary electric network over most of their rail lines. Basically using what they had to hand they converted a number of steam locomotives with heating elements in their boilers to operate from the catenary wires. Possibly it wasn't especially efficient, but it did solve the problem of keeping their railways in operation when materials to build new locomotives were very much lacking.
Click to expand...


I know why the swiss did what they did and some areas in the US has the same issue or back in that day to get coal it costed more then it did for other railroads like the RBMN runs right next to the coal fields so coal would be cheapest for them vs other railroads the father you go from the coal field.

Why would making solar powered heating elements not eliminate that issue like it did for the swiss cutting the cost of running a steam locomotive in half??
 
rwk said:
Fuel for steam locomotives was actually wood, coal, or oil. But you need water in the tender as well. In the 1940's railroads saw diesel electrics as a cost saving measure and less maintenance. Also, electric locomotives were used in areas like the northeast US on the PRR which is now Amtrak. Electrics can go into tunnels and underground stations in cities where diesels cannot go if there is insufficient ventilation. Ross Rowland tried the new steam locomotive argument in 1985 when he tested C&O 614 on Chessie by pulling coal cars for a new steam locomotive concept.
Click to expand...

Why has that project never been heard of, it literally proved a steam locomotive burned less fuel the a diesel did. Plus if you go with my idea of electricity you cut that fuel cost to nearly zero and get the capability to run the locomotive like you would a electric one all while keeping the neatness of a steamer
 
Lataxe said:
As I understand it, a steam engine is not very efficient - no matter what the fuel source to heat the water - because of various factors. Heat loss seems to be the biggest drawback but there are others.

https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Steam_Engine_Efficiency_and_Losses

Other types of gas engines are also of poor efficiency because of heat loss (a significant portion of the fuel is spent on heating the atmosphere surrounding the engine rather than doing engine-work). Many also generate vast amounts of pollutants of various kinds.

Electric motors can be more efficient and clean but the overall efficiency becomes more a question of how they're manufactured and how the electricity to drive them is generated, stored and made available. Electricity generated from a petrol engine, stored in a battery requiring dirty-mining & processing of various chemical compounds, or supply to a railway engine via a similarly damaging-to-manufacture and build pantograph system, detracts a lot from the overall efficiency of electric motors using that electricity.

One way or another, engines and the industrial infrastructure that manufactures and uses them are highly damaging things and horribly inefficient when judged on a balance of advantages-provided against the disadvantages caused by the damage-done in making and using them. A railway or road from A to B will be of little advantage when it has to pass through a million square miles of burnt land where the temperatures have become too hot for human life to survive because The Industrial Revolution gave us all faster transport to get to the shops ...... along with all those unintended consequences.

Lataxe
Click to expand...


If everything is never 100% efficient and creates pollution then why not go with something that has style like steam locomotives do??
 
Infantry99 said:
I'll be honest I dont really believe in climate change really and in all honestly I think I was really just trying to come up with a idea to get support those "political class" to bring back the old steamers.
Click to expand...

Ha ha - very droll. That bootleg fire doesn't seem to care what you and I believe in, though. 564 square miles and counting ..... Need we mention the other CAGW events unfolding across the world, from Germany to New Zealand? But this to the side.

Infantry99 said:
Steam locomotives just have more class and uniqueness to them, two railroads never had the same looking steam locomotives except for wheel arrangements. Nowadays we have the same model diesels that all sound the same engine and horn with only paint to tell them apart. I also know the most common reason for steam locomotives being retired was due to coal or oil prices being too high but if you eliminate that cost then that reason goes away and become invalid right?
Click to expand...

Me too (!) :) I confess to loving the look of steam trains, especially the British ilk that seem to have more grace in their design than many of the form-follows-function models of other domains. (Geet ugly things)! There's also a kind of beauty in many automobile designs. Even old buses have their pretty aspects (although I prefer a trolley bus or tram to a deisel choker, having ridden the former in my yoof). However ....

The fact is that all engines other than perhaps a modern electric motor, emit serious amounts of nasty pollutants that kill millions of biological entities prematurely, including several million humans. They also degrade our human existence in all sorts of ways, from reducing the quality of life with toxic air, noise and stink to raping the planet for fossil fuels to the detriment of any organisms living near the pillage-sites. They also make us physically lazy, inept and unfit if we don't compensate for the easy comforts of engine-propelled travel.

I have a friend who loves steam trains and has spent a lot of time and money over the decades going about to photograph them. I've accompnied him on one or two of his hundreds of trips and can fully appreciate the romantic pleasures of a big steam train in full flight. However, get close to one and you'll likely choke on the smoke and be deafened by the noise. So .....

.... obtaining steam train pleasure for me is now only via Trainz. It does consume a bit of lecky, as the GPU and CPU churn away to drive them; but not nearly as much as them real ones.

Lataxe, currently experiencing the historical record of 32 degrees centigrade in West Wales (2nd day of, 2 more to come).
 
Here may lie the solution to the efficiency problem of energy transfer. Using the design of a Garret Steam Engine to form the perspective since it has three major parts, contemplate the following. A designed forward section carrying liquid oxygen and a rear section carrying compressed hydrogen. The two elements are mixed in the center and an electric spark introduced will result in a chemical reaction yielding good old water. There is a resulting power release from this combining of hydrogen & oxygen to drive the cylinders of a steam engine. If the Union Pacific could design a tender for natural gas for their gas turbines, then a safe storage for the gases could be made. The resultant water could be stored in the center section of the vehicle.

Offsite solar power could be used to redistill the water back into the elements of hydrogen and oxygen and stored for use later. Refueling a so powered locomotive would just involve removing empty front and rear sections and replacing with fully fueled replacements. Solar power is relatively clean, the resulting water would be in essence be almost pure and contained.

In reference to the 1985 tests conducted there were still many problems encountered with the use of the 614. Fuel savings were eliminated due to the weight of the connecting rods damaging, both the rails and roadbed and the resultant cost of there upkeep.
 
6Celticdragon2 said:
Here may lie the solution to the efficiency problem of energy transfer. Using the design of a Garret Steam Engine to form the perspective since it has three major parts, contemplate the following. A designed forward section carrying liquid oxygen and a rear section carrying compressed hydrogen. The two elements are mixed in the center and an electric spark introduced will result in a chemical reaction yielding good old water. There is a resulting power release from this combining of hydrogen & oxygen to drive the cylinders of a steam engine. If the Union Pacific could design a tender for natural gas for their gas turbines, then a safe storage for the gases could be made. The resultant water could be stored in the center section of the vehicle.

Offsite solar power could be used to redistill the water back into the elements of hydrogen and oxygen and stored for use later. Refueling a so powered locomotive would just involve removing empty front and rear sections and replacing with fully fueled replacements. Solar power is relatively clean, the resulting water would be in essence be almost pure and contained.

In reference to the 1985 tests conducted there were still many problems encountered with the use of the 614. Fuel savings were eliminated due to the weight of the connecting rods damaging, both the rails and roadbed and the resultant cost of there upkeep.
Click to expand...


You could just go with a simple hydrogen powered engine. Hydrogen doesn't need pure oxygen to burn, normal air contains enough. People are working on creating hydrogen from wind farms it's just getting the cost down at the moment.

Cheerio John
 
Lataxe said:
Ha ha - very droll. That bootleg fire doesn't seem to care what you and I believe in, though. 564 square miles and counting ..... Need we mention the other CAGW events unfolding across the world, from Germany to New Zealand? But this to the side.
Click to expand...


I say that cause you know you'd have support from the steam loving people but then you'd have the people the are all in to climate change breathing down you neck and trying to come up with 50 million reason to stop you, so why not make them happy too and get there support so there would be nothing stoping you? Also whats CGAW????


Lataxe said:
Me too (!) :) I confess to loving the look of steam trains, especially the British ilk that seem to have more grace in their design than many of the form-follows-function models of other domains. (Geet ugly things)! There's also a kind of beauty in many automobile designs. Even old buses have their pretty aspects (although I prefer a trolley bus or tram to a deisel choker, having ridden the former in my yoof). However ....

The fact is that all engines other than perhaps a modern electric motor, emit serious amounts of nasty pollutants that kill millions of biological entities prematurely, including several million humans. They also degrade our human existence in all sorts of ways, from reducing the quality of life with toxic air, noise and stink to raping the planet for fossil fuels to the detriment of any organisms living near the pillage-sites. They also make us physically lazy, inept and unfit if we don't compensate for the easy comforts of engine-propelled travel.

I have a friend who loves steam trains and has spent a lot of time and money over the decades going about to photograph them. I've accompnied him on one or two of his hundreds of trips and can fully appreciate the romantic pleasures of a big steam train in full flight. However, get close to one and you'll likely choke on the smoke and be deafened by the noise. So .....

.... obtaining steam train pleasure for me is now only via Trainz. It does consume a bit of lecky, as the GPU and CPU churn away to drive them; but not nearly as much as them real ones.

Lataxe, currently experiencing the historical record of 32 degrees centigrade in West Wales (2nd day of, 2 more to come).
Click to expand...

Well like I said in a previous response, if everything is not 100% efficient or clean and everything makes pollution then why not do it with some style and personality plus its been nearly 60 years as of now since steam locomotives have been in service so hopefully with some new technology we have you can make it more comfortable for the crew?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
About my payware CN K1D Pacific Class Steam Locomotive
Replies
0
Views
285
JonMyrlennBailey
J
N
Steam locomotive control issue
Replies
2
Views
175
JimDep
J
B
Coal Mines - Diesel or Electric to Power The Mine?
Replies
4
Views
344
JCitron
J
X
Have they fixed the steam locomotives yet?
Replies
14
Views
844
SirGreg
S
M
Reading steam locomotives?
Replies
9
Views
614
rwk
R
Back
Top