Back in the steam days, division points were roughly 100 miles apart for both oil and coal-fired steamers. They took water at every division point (every 100 miles) and coal at every other division point - every 200 miles. Coal range was longer than the water range.

Today we have stretched the water range through the use of the Auxiliary Water Tank (A-Tank.) On the 765, adding the 26,000 gallon A-Tank to the 22,000 gallons she carries in the regular tender extends the water range to almost 400 miles. If you do the math, you'll find that water consumption is 120 gallons per mile!

On the 765, coal consumption averages 9 to 13 miles per ton, depending on the type of trip and whether we are being towed. With 25 tons on board and 12 miles per ton, that's 300 miles of coal. Yes, I know the spec says the tender holds only 22 tons of coal, but we have found that if we stuff her to the gills, we can get 25 tons on board. We got almost 30 tons on when we ran with the extender we had on a couple of years ago.

Rich, I would assume the 765 has a mechanical or automatic stoker, right?  Or is some poor soul(s) getting their exercise for the day? 

And not being a Pennsy locomotive, there were no track pans (back in the day), right?

George

G3750 posted:

Rich, I would assume the 765 has a mechanical or automatic stoker, right?  Or is some poor soul(s) getting their exercise for the day? 

First, there is no such thing as an "automatic stoker". EVERYTHING on a steam locomotive is controlled manually by either the Engineer or the Fireman even the steam driven stoker.

And not being a Pennsy locomotive, there were no track pans (back in the day), right?

The Nickel Plate didn't need track pans, as they had big enough tenders designed to run specific territories between Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago. 

George

Water was the controlling factor and explains why the hick town stations of my youth had water but no coaling, towers. However,l think the UP, for one, operated both coal and oil steamers, of same or similar class, and still wonder which one's "full" tender, by same weight?, would get it the farthest without refueling?

G3750 posted:

Rich, I would assume the 765 has a mechanical or automatic stoker, right?

I always get a kick out of the term "automatic stoker." I don't know where it comes from, but as Jack said, NOTHING is done "automatically" on a steam locomotive. And there is nothing "automatic" on the stoker, either.

Yes, the 765 has a stoker. A 90 square foot firebox is much too large to hand fire. The stoker's speed and the resulting coal delivery rate is set with the stoker throttle, under the control of the fireman.

Hi Rich, Regarding automatic stokers, IMHO it probably originated from home-heating stokers, which weren't really automatic either, as the hopper still had to be filled with, surprise, a coal scoop! Many nights in my youth I recall listening to our stoker "chewing coal."     
Kudos BTW on the new avatar.   Don Francis

Don Francis posted:

Kudos BTW on the new avatar.   Don Francis

I thought his old avatar made him look more handsome. Is that weird to say? Too bad.

RoyBoy posted:

Don Francis posted:

Kudos BTW on the new avatar.   Don Francis

I thought his old avatar made him look more handsome. Is that weird to say? Too bad.

My new Avatar shows what I'm doing today as opposed to what I used to do yesterday.

At 70, I think my "handsome" days are behind me. 

Circling back to the original question (nice avatar anyway Rich), one way to compare the ranges of coal-fired and oil-fired steam locos is to simply compare the energy content of the fuel carried in the (same size) tender.  Using Rich's 25 tons of coal crammed into the 765 and using an energy content for Bituminous coal of 28 million BTU's/ton, that's a total of 700 million BTU's.  The bulk density of coal (as opposed to the density of the material itself -- bulk density accounts for the fact that there are air spaces between the chunks) is around 50 pounds/cubic foot (varies with the size of the chunks), so 25 tons of coal is 1000 cubic feet.  That 1000 cubic feet is 7500 gallons.  Residual fuel oil #5 has an energy content of 148800 BTU/gal and #6 is 152400 BTU/gal - so using 150,000 BTU/gal as an average, 7500 gallons contains 1125 million BTU or 1.6 times that of the same volume of coal.

The other part of this equation is the conversion efficiency for burning coal vs fuel oil in a steam locomotive.  I couldn't find anything specific or definitive.  One site had a conversion efficiency of about 80-85% for either fuel in an industrial boiler.  On the other hand, I can't imagine the conversion efficiencies in a 'modern' steam loco would be significantly different - so everything else being equal, the oil-fired loco with the same size tender (equal fuel volume) would have a greater range.  BTW, those 7500 gallons of fuel oil weigh 30 tons... (turns out that residual fuel oil is usually slightly less dense than water). 

BTWx2 - UP's 844, which is now oil fired, holds 6200 gallons of fuel...

colorado hirailer posted:

... the hick town stations of my youth had water but no coaling, towers. ...

isn't that the literal definition of a "jerkwater town"?

What I am reading so far is basically "straight run" mileage figures. Don't forget that there is a "Time" element involved. Factor in the time sitting waiting on another train, any switching and/or setting off/picking up, MOW delays, etc. and your mileage figures go way down. I don't think that the average railfan has any comprehension of the delays to trains for one reason or the other. Very few runs do not involve delays of one sort or the other. Keep in mind that when steam was king the "Hours of Service" for crews was 16 Hrs.!

Good point, Jim. On the 765 we budget 4 additional tons per day for the overnight layover and other incidental coal use.

To what extent would load (consist) or terrain affect these numbers? Speed? I assume this is entirely based on main line service? Although it is useful to compare like-for-like, boiling things down to a single number loses a lot of the nuances that would make a different choice more obvious... For the 765 passenger excursions, I would think those variables don't change much from trip to trip.

What about back in the day when steam was the primary mode of transport? Did the Challengers, for instance (picking something that had both coal & oil fired) have any significant difference when changing the nature of the route around?

Would the quality of the engineer and fireman would also affect water and fuel usage?

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Would the quality of the engineer and fireman would also affect water and fuel usage?

Absolutely yes. In other words, if the Engineer is NOT operating the locomotive efficiently, there really isn't much ANY Fireman can do about it, except keep up the best he can. Many of the top notch locomotive Engineers, could run further and smoother, with less fuel & water than some of the few "not so good" Engineers.

No two trains are never exactly the same... So tonnage would be a be factor in range....A heavy freight is going to use more  fuel.... The road can make a difference... Not every railroad is flat, others  with heavy grades up or down. ....   Yes the crew can make a difference( even with diesels).. Some  hoggers could get you over the road much faster that others. Then we have Passenger. heavy freight drags, switchers ,  Weigh- freights .

Delays    and delays    ,  waiting orders. etc... Getting a 100 miles without refueling  would be a good day on freight for sure.    IMHO.

"tank town" is popular nomenclature for those l picture from my past. Apparently oil will get you further, all else being equal, but that is impacted by availability and cost, explaining the SP's oil use in SoCal and Texas, and the "Road of Anthracite" in Pa.

The articles by Lloyd Arkinstall and John R. Crosby in 1970s and 1980s issues of TRAINS were very informative for me in understanding steam locomotive operations.
Perhaps some other old dinosaurs remember reading TRAINS before the internet age?

colorado hirailer posted:

"tank town" is popular nomenclature for those l picture from my past. Apparently oil will get you further, all else being equal, but that is impacted by availability and cost, explaining the SP's oil use in SoCal and Texas, and the "Road of Anthracite" in Pa.

Don't forget that there was an abundance of oil in California in the very early 20th century, but there was NOT a ready supply of locomotive quality coal on the west coast. Also, back in the steam days, there was no plastic, i.e. no petro-chemical industry, thus the bunker fuel was extremely cheap, even in the early 1900s.

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Would the quality of the engineer and fireman would also affect water and fuel usage?

YES!

Here's a story from my own experience with the 765. I won't use names in order to protect the guilty... 

We were deadheading home from Cincinnati after a series of excursions. Our route was north out of Cincinnati through Richmond, New Castle and Muncie, Indiana and on to Fort Wayne. We had run this deadhead route twice before with no problems. In round numbers, it's about 185 miles...no big deal...an easy day.

I was firing on this move and an inexperienced N&W Road Foreman (who shall remain nameless) was running. This was early in our history (in the 1980s) and N&W did not let our engineers run the engine at this time. They always assigned one of their own people to run. We had 25 cars of freight - a light train.

Shortly after we cleared the congestion of Queensgate Yard, we began to accelerate to track speed. The "engineer" (I use the term loosely here) put the throttle "on the roof" -  wide open. That typically meant a pretty easy job for the fireman because of the tremendous draft on the fire with a wide-open throttle. But things weren't working out that way today.  I was having a very tough time keeping up with the demand for steam and water. I was crowding the fire and making a good bit of smoke. With a wide open throttle, that would normally have the pops lifted in short order, but I was struggling to maintain a pressure 10-15 psi below the pops!

I was also slowly but surely losing the battle in the water glass, too. I had started this move with 2/3 of a glass of water. By the time we hit 25 mph, the water was already down to 1/3 and dropping slowly, even though I had the feedwater pump running almost wide open! What the heck is going on here? The answer came from the Road Foreman.

As we reached about 25 mph, with the engine hammering away and making a LOT of noise, the Road Foreman yelled to me across the cab, "I thought you guys said this engine had a lot of ba**s!  I can't get it over 25!"  With that question I instantly knew what was wrong. I went over to his side of the cab and was astounded to see that he still had the power reverse all the way down in the corner...at 25 mph! To put that in context, a good engineer would have begun to "hook up" the engine by moving the reverse lever back a few notches to shorten the valve stroke before we hit 10 mph. To have it all the way down in the corner at 25 mph was unheard of! The engine was literally fighting itself to run.

I reached over in front of him, grabbed the reverse lever and moved it back about half way. Instantly the engine quieted down a little, smoothed out and began to accelerate. I told him, "You have to hook it up as you accelerate. You can't just leave it down in the corner all the time!" He then said, "Gary Bensman (a qualified 765 engineer) told me you need to put it down there on a hard pull." I said, "We've only got 25 cars! We won't have any hard pulls all the way to Fort Wayne with this light train!" Clearly he had misunderstood what Gary was trying to tell him. I then tried to explain the proper use of the Back Pressure gauge as a help in setting the cutoff correctly. I may as well have been speaking French. The guy had no clue what he was doing.

For the rest of the day he ran the cutoff way too long, not hooking up the engine properly and beating it hard. We made a lot of noise all day, which delighted the people out shooting videos and pictures, but it sure killed our fuel mileage.

How bad did it affect the fuel efficiency? Try this on for size...

We started the day with both water tanks down about 3" which represents about 40,000 gallons of water on board. We had the coal topped off with about 23 tons of coal on board. In the 185 miles of this move, we should have used about 18 tons of coal and about 22,200 gallons of water. How much DID we use? We used 22.75 tons of coal and 38,000 gallons of water!

Here's the math:
38,000 gallons used in 185 miles = 205 gallons per mile (Historical average is 120 gal/mile)
22.75 tons of coal used in 185 miles = 8.1 miles per ton (Historical average is 10.1 miles per ton)

All because a knucklehead engineer had no clue what he was doing and wouldn't listen to advice. If this guy had run the engine like this back in the steam days on the NKP, he would have been fired.

That N&W engineer was also "tearing up" the machinery on the Berk!

While you can certainly mis-handle an aircraft, it's tough to beat on aircraft engines so hard that you almost double the fuel consumption. If you forget to lean the mixture at altitude in a piston engine that will certainly increase fuel flow, but it won't double the fuel flow rate. In a turbine you can use lots of extra fuel if you stay down at low altitude, but that's about it. There's no mixture control on a turbine.

But I get your point.

OGR Webmaster posted:

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Would the quality of the engineer and fireman would also affect water and fuel usage?

YES!

Here's a story from my own experience with the 765. I won't use names in order to protect the guilty... 

We were deadheading home from Cincinnati after a series of excursions. Our route was north out of Cincinnati through Richmond, New Castle and Muncie, Indiana and on to Fort Wayne. We had run this deadhead route twice before with no problems. In round numbers, it's about 185 miles...no big deal...an easy day.

I was firing on this move and an inexperienced N&W Road Foreman (who shall remain nameless) was running. This was early in our history (in the 1980s) and N&W did not let our engineers run the engine at this time. They always assigned one of their own people to run. We had 25 cars of freight - a light train.

Shortly after we cleared the congestion of Queensgate Yard, we began to accelerate to track speed. The "engineer" (I use the term loosely here) put the throttle "on the roof" -  wide open. That typically meant a pretty easy job for the fireman because of the tremendous draft on the fire with a wide-open throttle. But things weren't working out that way today.  I was having a very tough time keeping up with the demand for steam and water. I was crowding the fire and making a good bit of smoke. With a wide open throttle, that would normally have the pops lifted in short order, but I was struggling to maintain a pressure 10-15 psi below the pops!

I was also slowly but surely losing the battle in the water glass, too. I had started this move with 2/3 of a glass of water. By the time we hit 25 mph, the water was already down to 1/3 and dropping slowly, even though I had the feedwater pump running almost wide open! What the heck is going on here? The answer came from the Road Foreman.

As we reached about 25 mph, with the engine hammering away and making a LOT of noise, the Road Foreman yelled to me across the cab, "I thought you guys said this engine had a lot of ba**s!  I can't get it over 25!"  With that question I instantly knew what was wrong. I went over to his side of the cab and was astounded to see that he still had the power reverse all the way down in the corner...at 25 mph! To put that in context, a good engineer would have begun to "hook up" the engine by moving the reverse lever back a few notches to shorten the valve stroke before we hit 10 mph. To have it all the way down in the corner at 25 mph was unheard of! The engine was literally fighting itself to run.

I reached over in front of him, grabbed the reverse lever and moved it back about half way. Instantly the engine quieted down a little, smoothed out and began to accelerate. I told him, "You have to hook it up as you accelerate. You can't just leave it down in the corner all the time!" He then said, "Gary Bensman (a qualified 765 engineer) told me you need to put it down there on a hard pull." I said, "We've only got 25 cars! We won't have any hard pulls all the way to Fort Wayne with this light train!" Clearly he had misunderstood what Gary was trying to tell him. I then tried to explain the proper use of the Back Pressure gauge as a help in setting the cutoff correctly. I may as well have been speaking French. The guy had no clue what he was doing.

For the rest of the day he ran the cutoff way too long, not hooking up the engine properly and beating it hard. We made a lot of noise all day, which delighted the people out shooting videos and pictures, but it sure killed our fuel mileage.

How bad did it affect the fuel efficiency? Try this on for size...

We started the day with both water tanks down about 3" which represents about 40,000 gallons of water on board. We had the coal topped off with about 23 tons of coal on board. In the 185 miles of this move, we should have used about 18 tons of coal and about 22,200 gallons of water. How much DID we use? We used 22.75 tons of coal and 38,000 gallons of water!

Here's the math:
38,000 gallons used in 185 miles = 205 gallons per mile (Historical average is 120 gal/mile)
22.75 tons of coal used in 185 miles = 8.1 miles per ton (Historical average is 10.1 miles per ton)

All because a knucklehead engineer had no clue what he was doing and wouldn't listen to advice. If this guy had run the engine like this back in the steam days on the NKP, he would have been fired.

That's a great story.  Do you think this guy had *any* experience with steam previously?   Or was he a diesel-experienced engineer who just thought you had to throttle up and go?

This Road Foreman talked a good story and claimed he had steam experience. That's why N&W assigned him to the move. However, when it came time to actually perform, he clearly demonstrated that he knew nothing about running a steam locomotive.

That was one of the worst trips I ever had on the 765.

645 posted:

Was it due to this experience and others like it and/or retirement of engineers that did have actual steam experience back in the day that host railroads changed their policy to allow 765 crew operate it under the supervision of a territory qualified pilot?

No, this experience didn't have much to do with it. Two other things changed the landscape here:

1. FWRHS was building a good reputation in the industry
2. Implementation of engineer certification standards under CFR240 in 1992.
   See "Rickey Gates incident" to learn some background on why CFR240 came into being.

Prior to 1992 there was no industry-wide and accepted way to certify engineers, nor did our engineers have any credentials to prove what they knew. Each railroad did its own thing here. Once CFR240 was implemented, ALL locomotive engineers were tested and certified to the same standards. The 765's engineers earned their cards via the various railroads they worked for. That meant they had to learn the same things and pass the same tests as a full-time engineer on a Class 1 railroad. That leveled the playing field and set certification standards for all of us.

The railroads were much more willing to accept our guys as engineers after this. The men who have run the 765 in the years since then have all done a very safe and professional job of running the locomotive. Besides myself, Tom Stephens, Aaron Sherman, Gary Bensman, Zach Hall, Chris Lantz, Bob Saxtan, Doyle Cheatham and a few others have held down the right-hand seat assignments in the 765.

My favorite Railroad book is called "Set Up Running, The Life of a Pennsylvania Railroad Engineman, 1904-1949".  I highly recommend the read. It is a fantastic recollection of stories told by the son of a top Pennsy engineer around Williamsport, Enola, Renovo, Sunbury, the Elmira Branch, etc.  There are many stories about how father was always seeking to increase locomotive efficiency, and get over the road faster, etc.  

My details might be hazy, but one I remember was that the company policy was to have all trains stop and take water before starting a very steep grade on the Elmira Branch (maybe South of Troy, Pa?).  The logic was that otherwise they would run out of water on the slow climb.  Instead, he thought he could save time and crest the hill by approaching it with a rolling momentum, rather than a water stop.  In order to save fuel for the (thought to be impossible) feat he allowed his snappers to do most of the throttle work on the flatter sections, and went full throttle for the climb. It worked in the story, and they made it without running out of water.  But, he was only able to make the climb this way on future occasions where the right factors were correct.  Good steamer, no meets to waste fuel, full water tank, etc.

Another story I remember was when he was an experienced engineer, and was consistently working with new and inexperienced fireman.  One fireman that he worked with insisted on running the fire blower at all times. Instead of learning from the veterans advice on firing effeciantly, the fireman refused and stated that this is how he does things.  By doing this, the fire was not burning effeciantly, and they were burning more coal faster than was needed. IIRC, the result was lots of black smoke and unburned cinders up the stack. The engineer received jeers from his engineer peers about the practice of running then blower, only to retort that it was the doing of his young and hardheaded fireman.

So, related to this conversation, i would think that both the fireman and the engineer can have thier effect on how effeciantly the locomotive is running.

-David

I agree!

OGR Webmaster posted:

This Road Foreman talked a good story . . .However, when it came time to actually perform, he clearly demonstrated that he knew nothing about running a steam locomotive.

And it sounds like he knew very little about running any locomotive.  Heavy load?  25 Cars?  Oh, dear.

I'm reminded of a comment by an old Engineer named Gabby Stratton , about a lightweight Fireman: "That boy's not even fit to run a power lawn mower."

colorado hirailer posted:

I don't like oil-fired steamers, BUT l got to thinking about the comparative range of oil vs. coal fired locomotives with the same size (length) tender...say 30 feet.  Some roads has versions of both, so which one with the same length tender could go the farthest without refueling, given all conditions we're the same?

Oil. Definitely.  A coal fire has to be kept hot while the engine is working, because it can't be quickly changed.  The Fireman on an oil-burning steam engine regulates the burner in anticipation of increased or decreased throttle by the Engineer, and this can be done rapidly.

See RICHS05's post about the BTU's in a similar sized tank of residual oil vs a similar quantity of coal, which even further supports oil firing for greater mileage between refueling.

I cannot comment either way coal vs oil but what was available to the rail road had a lot to do with what fuel the used. The N&W stayed with coal as longs as possible due to it being so viable and a big part of their business. But this post is a great read and Rich thanks for the great story on your experiences with the 765. As an AP/IA I thought the relation you made to operating an aircraft was very interesting. Also the Avatar is great being a Beech guy I like the King Air in the background.

Number 90 posted

I'm reminded of a comment by an old Engineer named Gabby Stratton , about a lightweight Fireman: "That boy's not even fit to run a power lawn mower."

I say, I say, that is something Foghorn Leghorn would say!

LOL!! I gotta remember that one...

Speaking of coal quality, or lack thereof, I remember the deadhead move out of Buffalo with coal that wouldn't burn but just clinker... And the story of the old Conrail (I think) engineer that slipped the drivers on a switch and sucked the fire out of the firebox...