7mm American O scale Southern Pacific Motive Power and Rolling Stock

[James Spooner]

Many years ago, as a teenager, I fired oil burners (mainly Linda and Blanche) on the Ffestiniog. We fuelled from a bogie tanker at Portmadog, which had an electric pump. One shift they told me the electric pump didn’t work and we needed to hand fuel.

I didn’t question it then, but to this day, I don’t know if they were winding me up…

Sadly Simon, back in the day, the Ffestiniog was permanently running hand to mouth as any surplus was spent on extending to Blaenau and the railway was then hit with the oil price shock caused by Opec. I can assure you that you weren’t being wound up. It got worse later when the railway was forced to use waste oil as an economy measure, but probably best not to go there.

Nigel

 

[Stephen]

It got worse later when the railway was forced to use waste oil as an economy measure, but probably best not to go there.

Nigel

I went to Cuba many times in the late 90's to see all the steam still working on the sugar cane plantations, they were all fired by very crude waste oil - this stuff was like treacle and had to be pre-heated to 'move' it from the tender to the firebox. You soon learnt that in other countries, there were parts of the tender that were too hot to touch rather than just solely on the loco itself! Inevitably various items of clothing would get tarnished, and in some instances were jettisoned at the end of the trip seeing as nothing would have removed the oil from them.

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[mickoo]

I went to Cuba many times in the late 90's to see all the steam still working on the sugar cane plantations, they were all fired by very crude waste oil - this stuff was like treacle and had to be pre-heated to 'move' it from the tender to the firebox. You soon learnt that in other countries, there were parts of the tender that were too hot to touch rather than just solely on the loco itself! Inevitably various items of clothing would get tarnished, and in some instances were jettisoned at the end of the trip seeing as nothing would have removed the oil from them.

Cheers,

Stephen

Both SP and UP also had heaters in their oil tank tenders to help the oil flow.

 

[Northroader]

I think the oil the Ffestiniog used was a thinner oil than the American usage, if you could move it with an electric pump. Over there its 3500 sec, which refers to the viscosity, extremely thick at room temperatures. It has to be heated, usually with steam coils in the base of the tank, before it becomes runny. It burns well, but the problems with handling it make quite cheap, and price competitive with coal out West.
We heated our shops in Cardiff with it, there was electric trace heaters on the feed pipe to keep it flowing. If there was a fault in the system and it stopped running, you were in big trouble getting it going again. The other place I met it was Ebbw Vale steelworks, delivered in big bogie tankers, then hitched to a steam heater line to discharge. One time the bloody things broke loose in the siding and derailed at the bottom, knocking off the discharge pipe underneath too. Mamma Mia! There was a blizzard going at night, just for the icing on the cake. When the breakdown gang got back to depot, the whole rig had to be scrapped, overalls, boots, vans, it was too far gone to clean up.

 

[James Spooner]

I think the oil the Ffestiniog used was a thinner oil than the American usage, if you could move it with an electric pump. Over there its 3500 sec, which refers to the viscosity, extremely thick at room temperatures. It has to be heated, usually with steam coils in the base of the tank, before it becomes runny. It burns well, but the problems with handling it make quite cheap, and price competitive with coal out West.
We heated our shops in Cardiff with it, there was electric trace heaters on the feed pipe to keep it flowing. If there was a fault in the system and it stopped running, you were in big trouble getting it going again. The other place I met it was Ebbw Vale steelworks, delivered in big bogie tankers, then hitched to a steam heater line to discharge. One time the bloody things broke loose in the siding and derailed at the bottom, knocking off the discharge pipe underneath too. Mamma Mia! There was a blizzard going at night, just for the icing on the cake. When the breakdown gang got back to depot, the whole rig had to be scrapped, overalls, boots, vans, it was too far gone to clean up.

You are quite right. The FR initially converted to oil using diesel and when it went over to waste oil the waste used was as akin to diesel in terms of viscosity, flash point etc as one could get. Of course, dealing with waste, one never fully achieved that and I remember failing an engine because we had effectively filled up the oil tanks with a sort of emulsified water. The whole system needed purging. Now we are struggling with different sorts of coal, partly because of the UK government’s (of different political colours) antipathy to mining the stuff in this country and partly because of overseas sources of good steam coal (notably Russia) being banned as a result of the Ukraine war. Suppliers are experimenting with ovoids and we seem to get some good types of ovoid and some that are less good…

Nigel

 

[simond]

Sadly Simon, back in the day, the Ffestiniog was permanently running hand to mouth as any surplus was spent on extending to Blaenau and the railway was then hit with the oil price shock caused by Opec. I can assure you that you weren’t being wound up. It got worse later when the railway was forced to use waste oil as an economy measure, but probably best not to go there.

Nigel

Thanks Nigel, it would have been 73 or 74 at a guess. There was an initiative for waste engine oil, I remember them collecting it. I do remember that there was an oil crisis, but I guess it was before I was driving, so I don’t recall much about it.

 

[Scale7JB]

You are quite right. The FR initially converted to oil using diesel and when it went over to waste oil the waste used was as akin to diesel in terms of viscosity, flash point etc as one could get. Of course, dealing with waste, one never fully achieved that and I remember failing an engine because we had effectively filled up the oil tanks with a sort of emulsified water. The whole system needed purging. Now we are struggling with different sorts of coal, partly because of the UK government’s (of different political colours) antipathy to mining the stuff in this country and partly because of overseas sources of good steam coal (notably Russia) being banned as a result of the Ukraine war. Suppliers are experimenting with ovoids and we seem to get some good types of ovoid and some that are less good…

Nigel

Couple of shots from a ‘bad ovoid’ induced rescue mission as second man on the WHR, with Vale Of Ffestiniog towards the end of last year.

Driver and I were both hoping for a proper mission into the Aberglaslyn Pass, but we picked them up at Pont Croesor and pulled the train out of section.



JB.