Cold weather steaming

[AndrewP]

We had our first public running days over the Easter weekend and two, normally well behaved, locos died on us.

The first was our club 5" Achilles, normally an easy and prolific steamer which struggled all day and couldn't keep up steam against the axle pump. Much use of the hand pump

On Monday we ran a members Speedy, also a free steamer normally and being injector equipped less of a problem but still struggled all day. Ditto repeato on the hand pump, which is mounted transversely in the bunker tank and much easier to use when in motion.

Achilles showed some clinker when we dropped the fire which wouldn't have helped and Speedy finally expired when the slack in the bottom of the coal bucket killed the fire.

We haven't had a club post-mortem yet but the initial consensus seems to be it was just too cold, we set up in snow flurries on Saturday bit still carried hardy passengers after they had earned their prize around the 'Bunny Hunt'.

Any thoughts anybody (apart from we must be mad).

Cheers, Andy

[baggo]

Hi Andy,

I think we're all mad anyway! My brother and I regularly attend the public running days ( held all year round) as helpers and drivers and lately we've had some awful weather but still one or two punters turn up with the kids who always want a ride.

I have noticed that my Helen struggles as well if it's very cold. Runs fine in the warm with safety valves blowing off most of the time ( I know, slap on the wrist!) but in the cold she struggles to maintain pressure. Maybe not helped by the increased heat loss from the various surfaces?

Biggest problem for me though in cold weather is that my glasses steam up when I'm driving and I can't see where I'm going!

John

[AndrewP]

Thanks for that observation John.
It just struck me that if it is the cold weather then the whole system (loco) is pretty marginal.
After all we're talking about a coal fire at, what 500 degC or more, raising the temperature of water from ambient, about 5 on the day in question, to 160 if the boilers running at 80psi, and then superheat of course, compared to starting at 20 deg C on a warm UK day. That's less than a 10 % difference in the temperature rise required.

Glasses, don't talk to me about glasses, I can either wear them and be able to read the gauge and see the controls but not where I am going, or not wear them, avoid running into things but find the controls from memory and just check the gauge in the station

Cheers, Andy

[paul]

You can get hydrophobic coatings on lenses these days you know, usually as the top layer on a multi-coated lens. Whether they'd handle steam on a freezing cold day I knoweth not (yes, it's my line of business but I still don't know the answer to that one!).

Anyway Baggo, why d'you need to see where your going, it's not like you can steer the thing?!!

[havoc]

I fear a lot is hidden in how well the boiler, cyilinders etc are isolated from the chassis. That acts a very large heatsink dissipating into ambient.

[baggo]

paul said:

You can get hydrophobic coatings on lenses these days you know

Isn't that something to do with a fear of water

paul said:

Anyway Baggo, why d'you need to see where your going, it's not like you can steer the thing?!!

You haven't seen our track ;D

[chameleonrob]

agatehouse said:

Glasses, don't talk to me about glasses, I can either wear them and be able to read the gauge and see the controls but not where I am going, or not wear them, avoid running into things but find the controls from memory and just check the gauge in the station

Cheers, Andy

could you get a monocle and close one eye at a time?

[freddo]

The problem with most model engineers today is that they don't know how to make a proper fire.

Non smokers (and in that categorie I include cissy cigarette smokers) don't know about fires - now get a PIPE smoker -- they can fire up their pipe and a loco regardless of ambient temperature.

Trust me - I know!

Freddo

But then again, "trust me" is a dirty phrase on this forum!

[Tel]

chameleonrob said:

could you get a monocle and close one eye at a time?

Erm, just how do you close the eye with the monocle screwed in it?

[AndrewP]

Yeah right, thanks guys - a monocle.

Dodgy looking fat bloke wearing overalls and a grease top inviting kiddies to ride on his train in a public park whilst wearing a monocle and winking all the time, his mates meantime sat around taking the mickey 'cos he can't make steam and had to 'flintstone' the train back to the station.
Not an image I'm keen on.

Cheers, Andy