This page provides news on
working operation of steam locomotives, construction
of new steam, technical improvements to existing steam
locomotives, and similar news items.
Current Headlines:
Recent Headlines
2011
Summary/ 2012 Preview
See the Steam News Archive
for older news stories.
"Red Devil" Reprint
(Reproduced from the 5AT website 30 November
2012)
"The 5AT Group is pleased to announce that a
reprinting of David
Wardale's iconic book "The
Red Devil and Other Tales from the Age of Steam"
is planned for the New Year.
Following negotiations
between Chris
Newman (5AT Webmaster), David Wardale and
Adam Harris, Camden
Miniature Steam plans to produce a new
print-run of the book early in 2013.
For those who don't know,
"The Red Devil and Other Tales from the Age of
Steam" provides a comprehensive account of Wardale's
work in South Africa, the USA and China, and
the principles
of Modern Steam developed by L.D.
Portaupon which Wardale's work was
based.
Information about the
reprinting, costs and availability will be announced
on this website as soon as the details are known. It
is expected that copies of the book may be ordered
through this website, and that a donation from the
proceeds will be made to the 5AT Group for each one
sold through the website.
If you are interested in purchasing a
copy of the book, please notify the 5AT Group
through the webmaster@5at.co.uk"
For more information about this book, see this page
at the 5AT website: http://5at.co.uk/index.php/references/printed-reference-material/red-devil-book.html
White Paper Series from CSR 130
Project
The Coalition for Sustainable Rail, the group
currently working to modernize a former Santa Fe 4-6-4
and convert it to burn biomass-based fuel (see story
immediately below), has just announced a very
interesting effort. Working in conjunction with
the University of Minnesota, the Porta Family
Foundation, and other non-profit rail and biomass
research organizations, they intend to make relevant
scholarly works available to the public through their
White Paper Program. The intention is that
papers will be periodically uploaded to their website
where they will be available for download.
The first of these papers has just been made
available, "the Case for a Better American Steam
Locomotive". This paper was written by Ing. L.
D. Porta in the 1970's in response to the "oil crisis"
of the time when oil-based fuel prices skyrocketed due
to an oil embargo by middle-eastern nations. The
paper was written in response to two articles
published in the U.S. railway enthusiasts magazine
"Trains", titled "the Case for the French Steam
Locomotive" and "the Case for the American Steam
Locomotive". These articles are also available
through the CSR 130 website.
http://www.csrail.org/index.php/the-plan/white-paper-series
While Ing. Porta was a prolific writer (see list of
known papers here: http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/porta_biblio.html),
most of these papers have never been made available to
the public. Hopefully this program by the CSR 130
Project will eventually make many of these papers
available to steam enthusiasts around the world.
Bio-Fueled Steam Project from the
University of Minnesota
A group known as the Coalition for Sustainable Rail
(CSR) associated with the University of Minnesota,
announced this week a project to develop a bio-fuel
burning steam locomotive, using Atkinson, Topeka, and
Santa Fe (ATSF) 4-6-4 number 3463 as the basis.
The 3463 is a "modern" 4-6-4, built for the Santa
Fe by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1937. It is
the only remaining U.S. steam locomotive with 84 inch
diameter drivers, the largest used apart from some much
older experimental steam locomotives.
The project is known as "Project 130" as it intends to
establish a new world record top speed for steam
locomotives of 130 MPH. The current record of 126
MPH was set by the British 4-6-2 "Mallard" in
1937. The fuel to be used in this locomotive is
called "biocoal" produced from "cellulosic biomaterial"
and is said to be "a fuel with the same energy, density
and material handling properties of coal, without the
associated carbon footprint, heavy metal or sulfur
content." This fuel is being produced by the
University of Minnesota's Natural Resources Research
Institute (NRRI) and the locomotive will partly serve as
a showcase for the use of this fuel.
At least a couple of people associated with the project
should be well-known to modern steam locomotive
enthusiasts: Shaun McMahon and Bill Withuhn.
Shaun worked closely with Ing. L. D. Porta for several
years, and has been working on several advanced steam
projects in Argentina since the 1990's. Bill
Withuhn, a Curator Emeritus with the Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of American History, was
heavily involved with the American Coal Enterprises "ACE
3000" project to build a modern, diesel-equivalent steam
locomotive for U.S. freight service in the 1980's.
It is expected that the 3463 will undergo a host of
Porta-type improvements, including the Gas Producer
Combustion System, an improved exhaust system, a
streamlined steam circuit, and others, all of which will
dramatically increase its efficiency and potentially its
top speed.
Read more about the project at the group's website at:
http://www.csrail.org/
Nigel Day- Update from
Australia's West Coast Wilderness Railway
The photo above shows the results of Nigel Day's latest
efforts at Australia's West Coast Wilderness Railway,
where he has just fitted a Lempor exhaust to "Mount
Lyell" No. 1. Note the new tapered stack as well
as some measuring instrumentation attached at the
discharge. Nigel had previously fitted Lempors to
locomotives No. 3 and No. 5 last year with
excellent results. Nigel promises to send
additional information as things progress.
Read more about the West Coast Wilderness Railway
at: http://www.westcoastwildernessrailway.com.au/
Read more about Nigel's earlier work at the WCWR
at: http://www.martynbane.co.uk/modernsteam/nday/wcwr/wcwr-home.html
5AT Project Suspended
Concurrently with the publication of an article in the
April 2012 edition of Steam
Railway magazine, the 5AT Group has announced
the project to build an all-new Second Generation steam
locomotive has been suspended. The chief reason
given for this is the current state of the world's
economy, and hence the difficulty in raising funding for
such a project. More details can be found here:
http://5at.co.uk/index.php/home/alias.html
Grand Canyon Railway Resumes
Steam Operations
The Grand Canyon Railway has announced the resumption of
regular steam locomotive operations on their railway
this summer using modernized steam locomotive
#4960. This engine was fitted with a Lempor
exhaust and improved oil firing system under the
direction of Nigel Day, and was subsequently fitted with
a Worthington type feedwater heater imported from
China. The locomotive has numerous other
improvements to reduce maintenance and increase
avaialability as well. Steam operations began this
year with a special train on 24 January 2012 to
commemorate the 100th anniversary of Arizona's
statehood. Further steam operations are planned
this summer. The schedule can be found here:
http://www.thetrain.com/UserFiles/gcr/gcr-steam-021312.pdf
Second New Steam Locomotive
Completed for the Nilgiri Mountain Railway
A second new oil-fired rack-and-adhesion steam
locomotive was recently completed by the Golden Rock
workshops in India for service on the Nilgiri Mountain
Railway and has since been delivered to the
railway. This follows the first new
locomotive which was completed last year (see here).
photo by M. Moorthy
from the Hindu newspaper site
These locomotives appear to be copies of the SLM-built
X-class locomotives built in the 1950's, altered for oil
firing. Some of the newspaper articles (see links
below) make much of the fact that these Indian-produced
locomotives were much less expensive than the proposed
new locomotives from DLM would have been. However,
they fail to note that the DLM versions would have been
significantly improved with more power and higher
efficiency. Here's an artist's rendering of what
the DLM versions would have looked like:
Read more at these links:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2866671.ece
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-08/madurai/31036753_1_steam-locomotives-golden-rock-railway-workshop-nilgiri-mountain-railway
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article2940512.ece
Update on A1 Tornado Boiler
Repairs
As noted in the news update in 2010 (see news archive), after a
relatively short period in service (the all-new
locomotive was placed in operation around mid-2008), the
boiler of A1 Tornado required extensive repairs and was
returned to the builder, DB Meiningen of Germany, where
numerous welded stays were replaced and cracks were
repaired. The repairs were completed successfully,
the boiler was returned to the UK and the locomotive
returned to service around April of 2011. See story
at the A1 Trust's website.
The locomotive has been successfully operating since
that time; hopefully the repairs and alterations will be
successful in ensuring a long service life for the first
all-new mainline steam locomotive to be completed in the
UK since the 1950's.
2011 Summary/2012
Preview
2011 was a slow year for steam news; let's hope 2012
will be better.
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