Electric Live Steam?

N

NathanO

Registered
One of the limitations of Live Steam Locomotives is the Flame to make the steam. Fire Marshals will not allow them inside buildings.

One group here in San Antonio has converted one of their 1" gauge locomotives to use compressed air and has a compressor they use to recharge it every 20 minuets or so.

Would it be practical to use track power or battery power to create live steam for a G Guage locomotive? How would one go abut creating such a locomotive?

Nathan
 
Compressed air has been used in 1:1 before

compressed air.JPG

As has compressed steam

compressed steam.JPG

so there is an original for everything.
 
It wouldn't be impossible to fit a small 12v or 24v compressor into a trailing wagon,

If you were to have the rails as a constant power source 12/24v and they power the compressor.

A possible source of compressor would be a portable car, just dismantled to remove the plastic casing

Dan
 
Hornby produced a track powered live steam loco range not so long ago. Seen them demonstrated by the collectors society at the 16 mm NGM Peterborough show.


Fun begins at 1.20

swisselec6.jpg

And this might be the inspiration ? This is not a Photoshop job but a real loco. They have plenty of hydro power in Switzerland. Pity about the thermal inefficiency of a steam hybrid rather than pure electric loco. Max

Edit - link to page to give fuller explanation to the "electric steam" loco above....the 1:1 one
http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/swisselec/swisselc.htm
 
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maxi-model said:
Did not Hornby produce a track powered live steam loco range not so long ago. Seen them demonstrated by the collectors society at the 16 mm NGM Peterborough show. Max


Fun begins at 1.20
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They did indeed. I think they were powered by a higher voltage than normal OO engines, the tracks had to be isolated from each other. Worked fairly well be all accounts.
If it can be done in OO Ga I get 1 should be a lot easier
 
You'll need to forgive this yank, but to my ear, there's something a bit off-putting about the narrator.
Perhaps, too cool and reserved about something I would expect to hear a bit of excitement and enthusiasm. His delivery sounds more like a tale of a journey to middle earth.

Cool concept though, immersion heater and , presumably, DCC chip to control throttle and linkage.
Presumably better than Lucas electronics?????

Rather brilliant engineering it would seem, after watching a following video with shell off and closer look at the internal works.

That might well work in large scale.
I am guessing, that the live steam needs its own track for its presumably unique electrical system?
anyone have one?
 
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You can run a standard garden rail size live steam loco on compressed air. That's how Roundhouse test and "run in" new locos at their factory. Just hook up the hose to the water inlet on the boiler. Not sure what you would do about cylinder lubrication though. Also what some service agents for RH and Accucraft do to fault find and test run after fixing. Now how big a cylinder do you need and what sized trailing car do you need for a decent run ? Max
 
stevedenver said:
You'll need to forgive this yank, but to my ear, there's something off-putting about the narrator.
Click to expand...

Sound suspiciously like Sean Bean who has most certainly been to middle earth, not to mention also tried to kill James Bond amongst other things. Best known over here for the Sharpe TV series set in the Napoleonic wars. He does a lot of VO work. Max
 
Paul M said:
They did indeed. I think they were powered by a higher voltage than normal OO engines, the tracks had to be isolated from each other. Worked fairly well be all accounts.
If it can be done in OO Ga I get 1 should be a lot easier
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I often thought tha Hornby System may have been more popular had it run via normal DCC. However I believe that special controllers chuck out lots more Amps to be able to generate the required Steam. Probably even more required for a Locomotive that will have a boiler nominally 8 times the size in terms of volume.
 
daveyb said:
stevedenver there are people in yorkshire now planning to club you to death only by using a very large frozen black pudding,,,,

probably,,,,
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Is that the same frozen black pudding used to 'escape' from the walk-in freezer?
:giggle::giggle::giggle:

Morning world!

If anybody would like some fine British loam, then it is sitting on my drive, cunningly disguised as a Ford Focus. - Also available in blue!

Wet, cold, and very dirty round the lanes this am.. A little wet black ice, though mainly on footpaths and drives.

Make a note in your diaries.. I have washed (-ish) the car! :eek:
Mainly so SW does not get muddy getting in and out. :rolleyes:
Being January, and a new year... I may have a bath later. ;)
 
I think that Swiss loco with the pantograph was a wartime necessity? They couldn't get any shipments of coal.
It's not just Roundhouse who test their engines on compressed air. Anyone making an Aster kit or modifying a steam loco has probably done the same. I hooked my chassis to the car tire compressor just last year to see if it ran.

I agree with the theory that, if Hornby could do it in OO, then it can be done in a larger scale. However, I also think the power requirements for such a large boiler might be a major issue.
On the other hand, in the frozen north (of the US) I often used a small portable kettle to pre-warm water for my locos. Not having to heat it to boiling - just keeping it on the boil - might be a solution?
 
Fred2179G said:
...I agree with the theory that, if Hornby could do it in OO, then it can be done in a larger scale. However, I also think the power requirements for such a large boiler might be a major issue.
On the other hand, in the frozen north (of the US) I often used a small portable kettle to pre-warm water for my locos. Not having to heat it to boiling - just keeping it on the boil - might be a solution?
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I think that would be essential to any solution. Assuming you use track power, like DCC at 20v, drawing say 5 amps gives you theoretical 100W. I don't know how that compares to the heat energy from burning meths or coal in a model loco firebox but I imagine it's not dissimilar.
 
You would only be able to have the one loco on-track, but with 20+ Volts and a 20 Amp supply (analogue), you should be able to get something producing steam..
Whether you can produce the volume of steam, and for how long (on one fill) is another matter?

Having got steam, you then need to be able to control it, and there is the minor issue of safety to consider..

Humm. Wonder if anyone does a 12V caravan shower unit? - That would have a low-volume flash-heater in it.. :think::nerd:
 
idlemarvel said:
I think that would be essential to any solution. Assuming you use track power, like DCC at 20v, drawing say 5 amps gives you theoretical 100W. I don't know how that compares to the heat energy from burning meths or coal in a model loco firebox but I imagine it's not dissimilar.
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The Hornby OO loco works because the amount of water that needs to be boiled is much less than for G gauge.

Back of the envelope calculation:

Assume it takes 2.5 minutes to boil one litre of water in a 3KW kettle. That is 125Wh.
To boil the same amount of water at 20V at 5A then takes 1.25 hours (ignoring thermal losses :)).

My Accucraft locos probably take about half a litre of water to fill the tank, so it would take about 30-40 minutes to bring them up to steam from cold. If you could run at 10A or a higher voltage, then you could reduce the time. So this might be practical if you had enough patience?

To save time, I would probably use a 240V electric kettle to pre-boil the water, then the 20V source to keep it hot/bring it back to the boil, using a long element fitted directly in the boiler if possible (immersion heater style). A 20V Li-Ion battery pack might be an alternative to track power if the current needed to be too high for safe public operation. I think that would probably work.

If you could generate steam under pressure, you could also fill the boiler directly as with "fireless" steam locomotives.

I wouldn't have thought the compressed air solution would be a good one - the point about live steam is the *steam*, surely :)
 
You would only be able to have the one loco on-track, but with 20+ Volts and a 20 Amp supply (analogue), you should be able to get something producing steam..
Whether you can produce the volume of steam, and for how long (on one fill) is another matter?
Click to expand...
I have a friend here in Florida who runs lots of trains on his DC-powered track - he uses the track power to recharge the batteries while the trains are running. Not much different from feeding electrical power to a boiler water heater, or running lots of DCC-equipped trains on the same track?

I don't like the engineering problem of picking up 5A or 10A continuously. You will need a lot of wheel wipers! A triple USAT diesel rig pulling a heavy load might pull 5-10A, but it would be distributed among 3 locos, 6 trucks and 24 wheels.

Having got steam, you then need to be able to control it, and there is the minor issue of safety to consider..
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All those considerations are true of any live steam locomotive. They all ready have safety valves, boiler certificates, etc. And a throttle!

Humm. Wonder if anyone does a 12V caravan shower unit? - That would have a low-volume flash-heater in it..
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Unfortunately, I'm afraid not. My boat has a 750W water heater but it only runs on 110V - either shore power or the generator. My pal Jerry just bought a new smallish caravan [we call them camping trailers] which is state-of-the-art, but it has a propane heater, not battery.
 
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So...
From the calculations, it appears to be marginal for our scale / gauge.

Lots of loco's each drawing an amp, or so, is different to pulling 10+ Amps through one locos' set of wheels!

The analogy of charged batteries, being topped-up to pre-boiled water being further heated holds to a degree (no pun).
Li-Ion batteries might be an option.. But 6Amp-hour would probably give you 12 minutes run-time, once you had got the water back up to boiling?? - This being a 'sensible' physical size battery pack from a cursory look at what available.

Going 'fireless' with compressed air causes its' own problems.. Pressure vessels being one.. As the air expands in takes in energy, and so everything gets cold. - Think CO2 extinguisher!
This will cause condensation, and components to shrink. - Would that affect tolerances enough to cause problems?
Oh, and it would not be STEAM!
 
Lots of loco's each drawing an amp, or so, is different to pulling 10+ Amps through one locos' set of wheels!
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It also occurred to me that modifying an existing live steamer isn't practical, as they do not have insulated wheels. You'd have to start with both a live steamer and a sparkie and meld the two!
 
UK built Roundhouse and Accucraft UK's 16 mm scale locos have insulated wheels as does the latter's rolling stock in this scale. I dare say there may be some exceptions. They are sold into a market that predominantly mixes lives steam and DC/DCC in running sessions and need that feature to maximise sales. I run mixed power sources all the time. Max
 
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