Steam loco restoration questions.

This is a project in the USA that is working on updating an existing steam locomotive.

Larry

I would imagine that the Lempor attempt on the 3985 will be mentioned here at some point.... Something along the lines of "This may work fine for some little European engine, but not on these big guys"..

Yes. Actually twice, here in the U.S.. The Grand Canyon 2-8-2 #4960 (former CB&Q O1a) was converted to the Lempor exhaust nozzle design, and still has it to my knowledge. UP Challenger was also converted to a Lempor exhaust design, but was darn near impossible to fire and maintain steam pressure when work the locomotive. It was subsequently removed, all in one day, and was deposited in the scrap dumpster at Cheyenne (as I recall, that all took place in about 2009).

They scapped it in one day instead of testing and tuning !?  - Good Grief, (sighs)

No, I stated that it was "darn near impossible to fire and maintain steam pressure when working the locomotive". Quite a number of tests were run with 3985 hauling two diesel units in dynamic brake for a heavy trailing load, plus a round trip to Minneapolis/St Paul. After that long road trip, the Lempor exhaust arrangement was removed and thrown in the scrap dumpster. That "removal" and reinstallation of the original UP twin nozzle exhaust system was all accomplished in "one day".

Respectfully, if you stated that to begin with it would have been clearer. 

That being said, I work with very large combustion systems on a regular basis.  When scaling up designs there are always unforeseen factors.  Scraping a rev 1 design is not the end of the world.  Giving up on a known improvement process however because "we always did it this way before" usually comes off as short sighted or at the very least disheartening.  I hope that all steam program managers are looking at how to get the absolute most out of their respective projects, not simply how was it done before.

Its because of the old UP steam crews lack of knowledge.

I'm sure Mr. Dickens will be able to get this new technology to work on the bigboy.

Quoted from Hotwater:  

" .... the smokebox on any and all steam locomotives is one huge open-on-the-inside cave, so to speak. No mater whether there there are two exhaust nozzles , as on articulateds, or one exhaust nozzle as on two cylinder and three cylinder locomotives, the end result is the exhaust steam/smoke all exists the stack/stacks in unison, i.e. no individual synchronized chuffs."

As far as improvements you are assuming there is inter-generational transfer of knowledge regarding these improvements.

As an example in 1975 the Veteran's Administration pioneered a new surgical technique. In 2015, questioning all physicians at one VA hospital, they had never heard of the procedure.

Then too, restoration costs are always an issue and every dollar above what is the minimal restoration counts. Improved fuel efficiency on a few fan trips may not amortize costs as much as improvements on a line engine running daily 365 days a year.

I understand what you are saying about costs and also frequency of use.  This is why wmsr 734 came to mind, a machine in regular service.  As to cost, the longer the trip the more important cost per mile becomes, so UP engines that run really long distances have opportunity to recover costs better than smaller operations.  

As to knowledge transfer, the possibilities are better than ever.  Due to the dawn of the Electronic age I have access to people and info that would have been impossible a few years ago.   Anyway my thoughts would be that showing company brass that some of the old girls have a few new tricks to learn would go a long way towards helping keep them on the rails.

As I recall from 30-40 years ago, the shortline at Marion, ILL, was using a R&SV 2-8-0 in more or less regular freight revenue service in the 70's.  They too decided that the additional performance added by superheaters wasn't worth the hassle and they removed them.  They got enough power for what they were doing.

Some very smart people in the tourist industry also questioned the wisdom of conversions of locomotives when you consider the locomotive as complete system.  More efficiency and power from the boiler could cause unintended stress or more rapid wear on running gear that wasn't designed for it. 

I reckon Mr. Porta and Mr. Chapelon were probably some of the last engineers to do heavy research and development on steam locomotive performance. It would be interesting to see Chapelon's ideas applied once again today. Anybody who gets a Pacific rebuilt and almost doubles the cylinder HP deserves some attention. 

http://www.internationalsteam....ewsteam/modern50.htm

All the same, I don't know if the kind of performance efficiencies demanded by Class 1-style railroads would translate well to the traditional tourist railroad. Even some tourist lines have a fair smattering of diesel power to even things out in a pinch.

However, given the increasing regulations on sulphur content in fuel for example, (witness the new maritime shipping regs)do we start re-designing traditional-looking steam plants, but for natural gas, gasified coal, water-tube boilers? Even a Lamont style boiler might be adaptable to traditional steam outline designs. 

With the tourist railroad operators, I guess the maintenance and insurance will be the dictator of their fortunes. An central source for upgrades and replacement design would be a valuable resource for them; maybe a technical clearing house supported by memberships?