Alternative Fuels

[Gra2472]

That’s what I was thinking Bill! My pellet stove is stoker fed, why not in a locomotive? It’s all academic anyways. As a former 25 year smoker (I know, I know…..) who also spent lots of time on full size locomotives I am not really a fan of breathing in anything that will increase my chances of cancer. But I thought that wood pellets might be fun to play around with on my little railroad.

[Bill Shields]

Not like there isn't enough crap in coal smoke, or the chemicals with which we treat the feed water, or auto exhaust....

My guess is that the only safe thing to do is stop breathing, which will positively prevent me from suffering the long term effects of any of it

[Pontiacguy1]

I always preach moderation in everything... Honestly, how many hours a year are you going to be sitting behind your locomotive possibly breathing what's going to come out of the stack? What, 20 hours for a year, maybe?? 30 or 40 if you are hard-core?? Just a guess there, it varies by person. With all the other stuff out there that you are exposed to, I don't think you should be all that worried about the little bit of exposure you are going to get from your steam locomotive exhaust.

[H&NERY]

I have thought about burning dried shelled corn. When I get my 3/4" Scale Pacific done I will be able to experiment some, my Mogul is alcohol fired and I intend on leaving it that way. I have a corn fired boiler in my shop and it works quite well. It is almost like an old coal stoker stove. The problem with corn is that the ash is very hard on stove pipes, it must be acidic? I know I should punch the flues out on my corn boiler about every 2 weeks if I want to get the most efficiency out of it. The corn will clinker, the clinker is white, almost glass like, and hard as a rock. Once my fire pot starts filling with clinker I need to shut it down and dig it all out. I would think in a locomotive if you worked your fire occasionally it would be ok.
I have tried straight soybeans in my corn burner, the heat is good but they are very ashy, but they had a nice black smoke effect if over fed. I had to mix those about 75/25 with either corn or wood pellets. I normally always mix some wood pellets with what ever else I may be burning. I can get my hands on a lot of different grains. Winter rye is another one I have dabbled with in a mix.

[Bill Shields]

pictures of your alcohol burner?

I am working on one for my 1" loco now, and am always looking for ideas from others.

regarding firing with Rye -> I actually prefer it from a bottle over ice....

[Gra2472]

You guys make a good point about duration of exposure to smoke, but my lungs still protest around a lot of coal or wood smoke. But I thought that playing around with wood pellets might be an entertaining experiment someday.

[Bill Shields]

this coming from someone living in california -> it is easy to understand the aversion to wood smoke.

[ChipsAhoy]

I seem to remember riding on a train in Colorado, maybe 3 years ago, that burns wood pellets. It was Full Size or at least Narrow guage commercial/tourist....
I can't remember....
memory is slipping...
must be from the wood pellet fumes.
Scotty

[Bill Shields]

COLORADO, home of legal marijuana -> probably had hemp in the pellets

[jscarmozza]

I have two 1” scale Atlantics with LE Silfos boilers, for the entire time that I owned them, up until last year, I had been firing them on charcoal to avoid damaging the boiler joints. About a year ago, after a lot of ribbing from some of the guys at the club I said what the heck and started to fire with coal. I announced that on another thread and someone said, “are they going to replace the boiler for you when it fails?” That question brought me right back to square one, what should I fire with that won’t damage my boiler. I washed the outside surfaces of the boilers to hopefully neutralize the effects of the sulfur and went back to firing on charcoal, but was spoiled by the brief use of coal. With coal I could make it around the club track on one firebox of fuel, with charcoal I have to continually feed fuel. One of the guys suggested using wood, then promptly walked around the club and picked up all the twigs and downed branches he could find, broke them up, filled the firebox and off he went. We ran the rest of the day on wood. The fuel feed rate was reasonable, had to stick in two or three pieces per loop around the track, moderate but tolerable amount of smoke, not much ash in the ash pan because I think most of the ash and cinders went up the stack, so there was an issue with sparks and cinders when you throttled up. Not as good as coal, but wood will be my alternative fuel to save my boiler and make firing less of a chore.

[Steam Engine Dan]

I always preach moderation in everything... Honestly, how many hours a year are you going to be sitting behind your locomotive possibly breathing what's going to come out of the stack? What, 20 hours for a year, maybe?? 30 or 40 if you are hard-core?? Just a guess there, it varies by person. With all the other stuff out there that you are exposed to, I don't think you should be all that worried about the little bit of exposure you are going to get from your steam locomotive exhaust.

i like pontiacguy's point on how many hours of running one spends. that too is a really big factor. for those of us with coal burning engines. when you stop and really think about it. unless you are a hard core operator that runs a billion times a year whether at your own club or traveling the country to other clubs. those are people are really more at risk health wise than those of us that run alot less than that. i myself at best run only 4 or 5 times a year for only 3-4 hours a day. i feel im at much lesser risk.

[littleevan99]

I ran my CliShay on wood pellets a few times with a special grate that I had made for it out of perforated plate steel with risers to allow more secondary air through. It made plenty of steam, but the smoke and sparks were more than I could handle even with the baffled spark arrestor I'd sometimes use when things get really dry. Someday it would be nice to find a way to get a clean burn out of them, but I think the sparks are somethings that cannot be gotten rid of. The price is always right at less than $7 a 40lb bag here in California for the good ones.