last night I watched a DVD of the SantaFe 3751 making a trip from LA to Chicago a number of years ago. This was right after it's complete restoration.
I think the trip was 2400 miles one way. What puzzled me was that on numerous stops along the way the tender was filled with water but never any mention of adding fuel oil. Was the tender large enough to have enough fuel oil to make it all the way to Chicago without any refueling
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last night I watched a DVD of the SantaFe 3751 making a trip from LA to Chicago a number of years ago. This was right after it's complete restoration.
I think the trip was 2400 miles one way. What puzzled me was that on numerous stops along the way the tender was filled with water but never any mention of adding fuel oil. Was the tender large enough to have enough fuel oil to make it all the way to Chicago without any refueling
No, the tender holds about 5800 gallons of oil fuel, but the ratio of 10 to 1 (water to oil) consumption, may have required them to take on water during the day, but NOT fuel (note they did NOT have an auxiliary tender for additional water). During each overnight stay, the fuel oil would be replenished in the tender from a highway tank truck.
Obviously, none of this would have been done in the "old days" of steam, since water and fuel stand pipes were strategically spaced.
Thank you for the clarification.
Oil burners were more common during the steam period than most people realize. It was much easier and more economical to use fuel oil in areas far removed from a source of coal. Also in areas where oil was produced (think California, Texas, and Oaklahoma) the use of fuel oil (bunker fuel) was cheaper than coal. Railroads often purchased refinery bi-products and used them for fuel. Historically railroads started using oil in western Pennsylvania in the nineteenth century. In some oil producing areas the crude oil just out of the ground could be used as bunker fuel with no refining necessary.
Some railroads owned their own oil fields and refineries to fuel their railroads and provide lubricants for the whole system.
I would like to see the manufactures of model trains make more tenders to model fuel oil usage. You would have to be a rivit counter to know the difference between a fuel burning locomotive and a coal burning one but the tender is obvious. If they don't make a complete engine/tender for fuel oil they should at least make a tender shell so that we can convert to fuel oil on our models.
I would like to see the manufactures of model trains make more tenders to model fuel oil usage. You would have to be a rivit counter to know the difference between a fuel burning locomotive and a coal burning one but the tender is obvious. If they don't make a complete engine/tender for fuel oil they should at least make a tender shell so that we can convert to fuel oil on our models.
Sunset/3rd Rail, MTH, and LIONEL ALL have offered CORRECT oil burning steam locomotive models for those railroads that extensively used Bunker C, such as the SP 4-8-4s, Cab Forwards, UP 4-8-4s, and Great Northern 4-8-4s, 4-8-2s, and 2-8-2s, and of course Santa Fe 4-6-4s, 4-8-4s, and 2-10-4s. Obviously all SCALE products, however.
The Weaver Canadian Pacific 2816 has two inserts for the tender. Coal or oil, choose the one you want.
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