Electric Steam Engine Proposal. Could This Work?

It could work.  How well is a different matter.

If there's going to be a "Genset" onboard, why not just build a Genset?

If it's going to use catenary, why not just build an electric locomotive?

Why don't power plants use electricity to generate electricity?

Rusty

You're not the first to think of this.  Without knowing the details, is it possible? - sure.  Practical? - maybe.  But at that point, why not just tow the steam locomotive around with an electric locomotive on the other end?  And at that point, why have the steamer around?  If there are no railfans, what's the draw?

http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/swisselec/swisselc.htm 

Wasn't this done un WWII by some European countries?  They had a pantograph on the roof of the cab. 

There's a big difference in steam demand between an 0-4-0T (or any steam locomotive for that matter) puttering around on a tourist railroad and the demands placed on a locomotive during mainline operation.

Rusty

There are already a couple of full size "new steam" locomotives that preheat the boiler with integral electric coils and then revert to traditional fuel when in full operation. You have an engineering challenge. Safety would be an issue in terms of electrically grounding the whole shebang as well as tempering the voltage and amperage for overloads. The GG1 used steam boilers. Then there's the matter of circuit breakers attuned to both the genset and the boiler.  The steam production capability of an off the shelf industrial boiler as well as the control of the output matching to the actual engine are two variables depending on the load ( with safety in mind ) that requires safety release valves tuned to the operating pressure, bearing in mind electricity and water don't mix. Another issue is pre-treatment of the water lest the coils get caked. A lot can go wrong. The simplicity of design in a traditional steam engine in operation is it's strong suit but even then.. engineering one is a formidable challenge let alone something that has not been tried before. Get out your calculator.

Fireless locomotives were not rare in the US during the age of steam. there is one at the Baltimore Museum, I believe.

.... Why don't power plants use electricity to generate electricity?

they do...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...age_hydroelectricity

Instead of steam How about a Diesel pusher in the tender like a "TYCO HO train".

Then the locomotive is along for the ride.

That's at the RR Museum of Pennsylvania, across the street from the Stasburg Railroad.

The problem with a fireless is it can't wander far from home.  It's a pressure tank on wheels.  It needs to be near a source of steam to be recharged.

Rusty

The Heritage Museum in Calgary had (or has) an ex-CPR 0-6-0 that was gutted and a Caterpiller diesel placed in the boiler.  It had chain drive to the rear axle and the exhaust was shot up the stack.

Rusty

Originally Posted by Rusty Traque:

.... Why don't power plants use electricity to generate electricity?

they do...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...age_hydroelectricity

If we use that logic, coal plants uses electricity to generate electricity because electric motors drive the coal conveyors.

Sorry, gravity and water are the energy sources of electricity generation in this instance.  Electric pumps only fill the reservoir, much like conveyors move coal into and out of coal storage locations in coal plants.

"Low-cost off-peak electric power is used to run the pumps. During periods of high electrical demand, the stored water is released through turbines to produce electric power. "

Rusty

Blystovski's link shows this Swiss electric steam loco used during WW2 when coal supplies were short, but hydropower was abundant. Not an efficient use of electrical power, but it's not polluting on-site.

If a steam loco with a pantograph looks silly, run it on 3-rail like all of us!

Let's address these three objections...

1. POLLUTION:
   The amount of "pollution" exhausted by a single coal-burning steam locomotive is insignificant when balanced against the big picture, especially in China!
2. OPERATING INFRASTRUCTURE:
   The only infrastructure you would NOT need with an electric locomotive is a coaling facility. Everything else remains...water source, inspection pit for running gear inspections and repair, appliance maintenance (air pumps, injectors, feed water pumps, etc.) wheels, tires, brakes, etc.
   
   However, you will need to ADD infrastructure to support the operation and maintenance of the electrical gear on the locomotive. You'll need a fueling station for the diesel generator, support for the generator maintenance (oil and filter changes, cooling system maintenance, fuel filter replacements, etc.), the heating coils, the electrical control circuitry involved, etc. This is all new ground, with not much technical help to guide you in the design and installation of this equipment.
3. LONG RUN MAINTENANCE COSTS:
   There would not be any significant change in these costs as they relate to the locomotive. By far the largest on-going expense in keeping a steam locomotive running is boiler repairs and maintenance. Those costs don't go away just because the heat source changed from coal to electricity. However, you will have added a lot of electrical complexity to the equation, which will represent NEW long-term maintenance costs that you would not have with coal.
   
   If anything, your long-term maintenance costs will be higher with the electric heat source.

Let me point out one other thing you may not have thought about, the amount of electrical power that will be required to do this. I don't know the specs of your 2-8-2, but let's say she is capable of 2,000 horsepower. That's a nominally conservative figure. 2,000 horsepower worth of electrical power is 152,800 watts. At 440 volts, that is almost 350 amps! You will need at least a 200 KW generator to generate this power and have a power reserve so it is not running at 100% capacity at all times.

How will the fireman control the firing rate? He has to be able to control the amount of heat in the firebox, just as he would by controlling the stoker on a coal burner, or the oil feed valve on an oil burner. Control circuitry for electricity at these power levels is massive and very expensive.

The bottom line is that from a technical point of view, this could probably work, but it may not be practical. It will be cheaper and more efficient in the long run to stick with coal, or convert the locomotive to burn waste oil. If you change to oil, then you can claim a certain amount of "green" technology, in that you can burn waste oil that would otherwise be disposed of.

Ace

looks like you found the answer.

Rusty

Good point
I don't know the range of these engines before requiring a recharge.

I was thinking of a steam plant at each end of the run if it was in the range capability.

To say nothing of the delays encoutered with the "heating coils" warming up and cooling down, plus being jostled about at speed.

If they burn waste frying oil, at least it would smell like French Fries or KFC as it rolls by!

Rusty

But then you would have to name it the 'Wok express' 

The devils in the details and as Rich pointed out, you need an additional investment in infrastructure to support it's operation. The bottom line is alternative fuel to generate heat and the use of electricity is not the only option as the Silverton train is using a wood pellet product that has significantly reduced pollution and there has been discussion of bio-coal, both of which in theory are amenable to stoker fed boilers. Waste oils like vegetable oil is used on the Grand Canyon RR.  Maybe all that Wok oil could be recycled.  The Holy grail was once micronized coal..the DOE even tried to fuel a diesel with it. Same issues of scoring on cylinders as the SAR found with turbine fans. Since that time huge strides have been made in very tough non metallic alloys..who knows? The best book on experimentation in the days of yore..is " Black Gold, Black Diamonds Vol 1" by Hirsimaki ( If you can find a copy) A great read on the enormous lengths the PRR went to remain on coal fuel.

It's difficult to imagine Chinese officials wanting to promote a steam train venture when they have been working for decades to modernize and eliminate steam locos from mainline service. They've had lots of steam trains running in the not-so-distant past, so steam trains aren't such a great novelty to them. China also has serious pollution problems from heavy use of coal for power production and heating.

http://www.david-longman.com/China_Gongchangling.html

Google "electric steam swiss" for histories and pictures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...ric-steam_locomotive

 I like this thread. Gets the ol' brain cells firing.

Seems to me that Swiss 0-6-0T represents the upper limit of a steam locomotive that uses electrcity to make steam. "Fireless Cookers" are essentially thermos bottles on wheels that have limited range and power. They worked where sparks and flames could cause catastrophes. They required frequent recharging from handy boilers, so they weren't suitable for road use.

I vaguely recall that The Best Friend of Charleston had a motor placed in her tender to move her around when she wasn't fired up. But that's a far cry from road service.

Rather than spend time and $$$ converting a 2-8-2 to electricity and trying to make it run right and getting everybody disgusted, I prefer conversion to "green" firing - wood pellets, bio-coal, cooking oil or fuel oil. I think the steamers at Walt Disney World have been so modified. 

Propane is used on many live steam engines. Seems like that or compressed natural gas could be scaled up for a 2-8-2.

John

Put a pantograph on the tender, put high-capacity air compressors in the tender driven by quiet electric motors, use the boiler as a compressed air storage tank, run the "steam loco" on compressed air. Zero emissions, low maintenance, and it still sounds and operates like a steam loco. Need to figure out some details like cylinder lubrication.

Just burn tires.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpTH2h9_WVw

"Let me point out one other thing you may not have thought about, the amount of electrical power that will be required to do this. I don't know the specs of your 2-8-2, but let's say she is capable of 2,000 horsepower. That's a nominally conservative figure. 2,000 horsepower worth of electrical power is 152,800 watts. At 440 volts, that is almost 350 amps! You will need at least a 200 KW generator to generate this power and have a power reserve so it is not running at 100% capacity at all times."

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae66.cfm

Umm, it is 746 watts per horsepower. Thus, need 1,492,000 watts or 1492 KW for 2000 hp. At 440 volts it will require almost 3391 amps to produce 2000 hp using the approximation of V x A = watts. 

Actually, electricity IS used to produce electricity. The generators used in modern power plants use a spinning electromagnet surrounded by the field coils to produce electricity. The use of an electromagnet to produce electrical current helps stabilize the power grid.

I hate to use wiki but wiki gives a pretty good explanation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternator

"Typical alternators use a rotating field winding excited with direct current, and a stationary (stator) winding that produces alternating current. Since the rotor field only requires a tiny fraction of the power generated by the machine, the brushes for the field contact can be relatively small. In the case of a brushless exciter, no brushes are used at all and the rotor shaft carries rectifiers to excite the main field winding."

And exactly where do those electomgnets get their power from?  Is there another generating plant somewhere whose sole purpose is to generate electricity to run other power plants electromagnets?  What is the source "fuel" used to generate it then?

Unless those rotors are spun continiously by electric motors, the primary energy source needed to spin them isn't electricity.  If it was, we'd have perpetual motion and would have little need for coal, gas, nuclear to generate steam or flowing water to spin them.

Here's a quick tutorial on how electricity is generated by coal or gas:

Rusty

Their proposed tourist train operation won't need 2000 HP, just a fraction.

 The provided diagram provides the answer, and since energy is lost at each step there is no perpetual motion.

Electrically generated steam power has already been done in '00' scale. And as Hornby locomotives are built in China, they have the technology to scale it up a tad. 

The video here explains it all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBKxysVQuA8

More ideas.

Cost the same as restoring an old coal fired boiler.
These things are amazingly cheap.  I suspect you could replace an industrial electric boiler every 15 years at least four times for the cost of a serious coal fire boiler restoration and certification. Off the shelf electric boilers come per-certified.

Efficiency compared to a coal fired locomotive?
I have no idea. Diesel to electricity losses?  Heat loss from boiler to cylinders?  Rolling mechanism drag? New heat insulation materials, and more room for them, should minimize boiler heat loss.  Electricity to water heat - no losses, 100% efficiency. (I was surprised too.)

Feed water heating using the 800+ degree diesel exhaust should be more effective than using superheated steam.

Safety would be an issue in terms of electrically grounding the whole shebang
Grounding when on the grid very important for safety. Genset operation, assuming all load feeds are floating, ground not an issue except for fault detection. And there is no crown sheet to dry out!

You will need at least a 200 KW generator to generate this power and have a power reserve so it is not running at 100% capacity at all times.
This is completely over my head. Here is an off the shelf boiler spec: Steam output 1346 lbs. per hour,  471 amps at 480 and 393 amps at 575 V, 150 psig pressure, This is not very big in size so multiple boilers are possible. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that a 300 KVA  genset would work IF YOU NEEDED MAXIMUM CURRENT 100% OF THE TIME,  In fact, in the planned operation, max power would only be needed at start-up,  So a smaller genset to re-charge the boiler as needed, could be used. Note, over here all hotels and many large restaurants have a 100 KVA genset. We have one for our factory.  Larger ones readily available, new or used.

Because there is no smoke or fire box, or compliated internal structure, a large electric boiler is possible which will carry a lot of water, which should translate into more steam reserve.
,
Rich, the BIG question, how many pounds per hour do you think a small Mikado in moderate operating conditions would need?

How will the fireman control the firing rate?

Electric boilers are completely automatic in operation and have multiple safety shut offs and pressure reliefs, like your home hot water heater.  Electricity full on with any drop of max pressure,  Full off when max pressure reached. Water level maintained automatically. Most have a low temp storage mode to prevent freezing. Start up and shut down - flip a switch. Probably some mechanism oiling and wheel knocking is in order. Do they still knock wheels?

You need an additional investment in infrastructure to support it's operation. Water and an occasional visit from a diesel fuel truck, a phone call away.

Another issue is pre-treatment of the water lest the coils get caked.

Frequency of scale removal depends on water quality and can be done chemically.  

There would not be any significant change in long run maintenance costs as they relate to the locomotive.

Due to the nature of the electric boiler's heating apparatus the boiler is longer-lasting and requires less cleaning and maintenance than boilers using different heating methods. Basically plug and play for up to twenty years.  The typical electric heating element, an off the shelf item, is simply unbolted, slid out of position, cleaned or replaced and re-tightened using the same bolts.

Just push a dead engine around with a diesel engine.

Operating STEAM is the attraction. There are lots of folks who are train fans and many many others with money looking for something different to do. Locals will not know there is something different here.  And, until you guys visit, nobody is going to climb up in the cab, see no fire, and want their money back.

Seems like ever since the railroads dieselized, there have been attempts to reinvent the steam locomotive.

All in all, this seems like an unnecessary complication.

Run a diesel genset to operate a heater,

use the heater to boil water to generate steam,

us the steam to drive a piston in a cylinder to move a main rod,

which drives a wheel coupled to other wheels via other rods.

Unless the efficiency of one of these operations is greater than the losses encountered of the others, I see no advantages in operation.

Rusty

Now THAT is the key!  An "attraction", and yet you want to *******ize the poor locomotive from its historical significance?

There is one HUGE difference between your "automatic" electric boiler and a boiler used in steam locomotive service. Those "automatic" boilers are designed for use where the steam demand is relatively constant, feeding a constant load. Firing rates and feed water rates vary over a very small range.

A steam locomotive boiler is subject to drastic load changes from moment to moment. You could be running at 100% of boiler capacity and 30 seconds later have the throttle closed with zero demand for steam or feed water. No automatic circuit is going to be able to keep up with those kind of dynamic load changes on the boiler, especially with the high thermal inertia of an electric heater.

Only full on and full off on the electric heat? No ability to finely adjust the heat level to something less than full on? That restriction and the widely varying demand for steam will mean that you're going to need a huge budget for replacing broken staybolts.

This one is like stud rail.  Far too complicated and expensive when compared to a simple restoration, but as a hobby if it floats your boat, you should do it!

Moderate speed, short train, flat track won't be using nearly 100% of boiler capacity. If the boiler was pre-charged with steam like the "fireless" steam locos, additional steam input from electric boilers on catenary power could give it an adequate range for limited use. The loco would have lower maintenance requirements and zero emissions on-site.

Sounds like you have some experience firing a steam engine with short trains, at moderate speed on flat track. Same here.