Steam diesel hybrid locomotive
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A steam diesel hybrid locomotive is a railway
locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...
with a piston engine which could run on either
steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
from a
boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central h ...
or
diesel fuel Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and t ...
. Examples were built in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
,
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
but the relatively high cost of fuel oil, or failure to resolve problems caused by technical complexity, meant that the designs were not pursued.


Kitson-Still system

In 1926
Kitson and Company Kitson and Company was a locomotive manufacturer based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Early history The company was started in 1835 by James Kitson (businessman), James Kitson at the Airedale Foundry, off Pearson Street, Hunslet, ...
, Leeds, built an experimental example for the
London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...
, using as their model the
Still engine The Still engine was a piston engine that simultaneously used both steam power from an external boiler, and internal combustion from gasoline or diesel, in the same unit. The waste heat from the cylinder and internal combustion exhaust was directed ...
already in use for stationary and marine applications. It was on trial until 1934, but then scrapped. It was designed because a
steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
offered a high starting torque—a
tractive force As used in mechanical engineering, the term tractive force can either refer to the total traction a vehicle exerts on a surface, or the amount of the total traction that is parallel to the direction of motion. In railway engineering, the term tr ...
of was available—while a
diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...
offered a high fuel efficiency and it was considered desirable to combine the two.


Construction

In outline the machine resembled a conventional
2-6-2T T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...
steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
, but it had four pairs of horizontally opposed cylinders (13½ inch bore × 15½ inch stroke—343 × 394 mm) mounted longitudinally above the frame and driving a crankshaft placed between them, with the further drivetrain by gears. The cylinders were made double-ended, with the rod end of each cylinder for steam and the closed end fitted with a diesel injector. (Some drawings, published in contemporary magazines, show only two pairs of cylinders and it seems that this was one of the design features that was changed during development.) The boiler, with a diameter of only 51 inches (130 cm) and a small internal
firebox Firebox may refer to: *Firebox (steam engine), the area where the fuel is burned in a steam engine *Firebox (architecture), the part of a fireplace where fuel is combusted *Firebox Records, a Finnish 8101705801record label * Firebox.com, an electro ...
, was mounted above. The "regenerator", capturing heat from the exhaust, was integral with the boiler and had 38 tubes totalling a heating area of 508 sq ft (47 m2). The driving position was in the usual place behind the boiler, and tanks— for fuel and for water—were mounted above one another on the frame at the rear.


Operation

The sequence of operation was to heat the boiler in the normal way, but using fuel oil instead of coal. The start from rest would be made with steam power, but at about five mph (8 km/h) the diesel injectors would be started and the steam turned off. The
waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility ...
from the cylinder jackets and diesel exhaust then maintained the boiler in steam for auxiliary functions (brakes and whistle) and in readiness to supplement the diesel power if required, or for the next start. The temperature of the water jacket, maintained at considerably above boiling point, assisted the
compression ignition The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-calle ...
of the diesel fuel and only a relatively low
compression ratio The compression ratio is the ratio between the volume of the cylinder and combustion chamber in an internal combustion engine at their maximum and minimum values. A fundamental specification for such engines, it is measured two ways: the stati ...
was required. By using steam for starting, no form of variable transmission was necessary and a permanent reduction geartrain of ratio 1·878 to 1 was fitted. Overall power output (800
bhp BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...
under diesel, 1,000 bhp when supplemented with steam) did not compare well with conventional steam locomotives, although the performance on gradients was good because of the gearing. During the trials it was used successfully with coal trains and it proved very efficient in terms of fuel used, because the waste heat from the diesel power was recovered. However its running costs depended on the price differential between coal and oil and this was not favourable. When Kitson & Co. failed in 1934 the LNER handed the machine back to the company's receivers and it was dismantled.


Cristiani compressed steam system

The Italian ''Cristiani Compressed Steam System'' used the process of
mechanical vapour recompression Mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) is an energy recovery process which can be used to recycle waste heat to improve efficiency. Typically, the compressed vapor is fed back to help heat the mother liquor in order to produce more vapor or steam. Ap ...
. A
diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...
compressed steam which was then fed to conventional steam engine
cylinders A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infini ...
. The exhaust steam was re-compressed and used again. There must have been a small
boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central h ...
to generate the initial charge of steam but this is not shown in the diagram. The steam was used mainly as a transmission system but the locomotive does count as a hybrid because some steam storage was provided. A possible advantage of the system was that it enabled existing steam locomotives to be converted to diesel operation but this did not come to fruition.
Patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
s for the system were held by Severino Cristiani and Secondo Sacerdole in Italy and it was promoted in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
by Captain
William Peter Durtnall William Peter Durtnall (1873–1947), M.I.Mar.E., M.I.Auto.E., M.I.Loco.E, was a British electrical engineer and inventor, and a captain in the Royal Air Force. He was involved in both marine and locomotive engineering and invented a thermoelect ...
. A trial was made in England, using two "Paragon" marine
petrol engine A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends (such as ''E ...
s, under the name "Paragon-Cristiani". The equipment was mounted on a
0-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangemen ...
chassis (works number 3513/1923) built by
Hawthorn Leslie and Company R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Company, Limited, usually referred to as Hawthorn Leslie, was a shipbuilder and locomotive manufacturer. The company was founded on Tyneside in 1886 and ceased building ships in 1982. History The company was formed ...
. It was not a success and the chassis was converted to a conventional 0-6-0ST named "Stagshaw" which is preserved on the
Tanfield Railway The Tanfield Railway is a heritage railway in Gateshead and County Durham, England. Running on part of a former horse-drawn colliery wooden waggonway, later rope & horse, lastly rope & loco railway. It operates preserved industrial steam l ...
.


Other trials


Soviet Union

The Soviet Union built three large experimental locomotives between 1939 and 1946. The first prototype, numbered 8000, a 2-8-2 from the Vorishilovgrad works, had two pairs of outside double-acting opposing pistons; when diesel power was initiated, at about , diesel fuel was injected into the centre portion between the pistons which thus became the compression-ignition chamber, while the outer ends of the cylinders continued to receive steam in the normal way. Although the unit remained in passenger service, intermittently, until 1946, when it was tested again. It was put into storage in 1948. It was not considered a success as its 25-tonne axle load was too high, it rode hard on the tracks and was prone to cracking cylinders. TP1-1, the second prototype (illustrated right), under the name of Сталинец (''Stalinets''), was a
cab-forward The term cab forward refers to various rail and road vehicle designs that place the driver's compartment substantially farther towards the front than is common practice. Rail locomotives In steam locomotive design, a cab forward design will ...
condensing 2-10-2 from the Kolomna works, used gas produced from an anthracite coal plant in the tender to fuel its
spark-ignition A spark-ignition engine (SI engine) is an internal combustion engine, generally a petrol engine, where the combustion process of the air-fuel mixture is ignited by a spark from a spark plug. This is in contrast to compression-ignition engines, t ...
internal combustion cylinders, along with anthracite pulverised in the gasification plant to heat the boiler. There were a total of eight pistons in four cylinders in an
opposed-piston An opposed-piston engine is a piston engine in which each cylinder has a piston at both ends, and no cylinder head. Petrol and diesel opposed-piston engines have been used mostly in large-scale applications such as ships, military tanks, and f ...
configuration; two steam cylinders and two coal gas cylinders. It was reported to have only functioned properly at speeds of 25–30 km/h and below as travelling faster for about 10–15 minutes would cause the gas mixture to combust prematurely when entering the combustion chamber. Issues were reportedly sorted out by 1941 but the project was abandoned during
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
and the outbreak of
WW2 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
on
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
territory. Number 8001, the third experiment, also named Сталинец, was a unit developed from the previous Voroshilovgrad design in 1946. It was also a 2-10-2 configuration and had the centre space in the cylinders, between the opposed pistons, intended to combine compression ignition and steam expansive working in the same chamber. It was reportedly almost a complete disaster and placed in storage in 1948.


Switzerland

In 1925,
Jakob Buchli Jakob Buchli (4 March 1876 – 1 April 1945) was a Swiss design engineer in the field of locomotive construction. Life Jakob Buchli was born in Chur, Switzerland, on 4 March 1876. After his training to be an engineer he worked from 1902 to ...
of Switzerland obtained US patent 1559548 for a combined steam and internal-combustion engined locomotive. This differed from the Kitson-Still system in that there was no waste heat recovery and the steam and internal combustion engines had separate cylinders (vertically mounted in the tender), but both driving the same traction wheels. Buchli specified that "…the steam generator is supported upon one vehicle…and the steam and internal combustion engine cylinders together with their driving gear are carried by a separate truck or vehicle". His proposal was for the "steam generator vehicle" to be in the form of a traditional steam locomotive boiler with driver's cab, but without pistons. A "flexible pipe" would lead steam to the pistons within the "detachably coupled…truck" (tender). His claimed advantages were the reduced complexity of a combined transmission system, the improved comfort of the operators being separated from the driving cylinders and the differing maintenance requirements of steam and diesel (such as boiler washouts) being more easily accommodated when the units were detachable. It is not known whether any locomotives to Buchli's design were actually built.


United States

In 1954 Chicago inventor Charles Denker patented a system whereby the exhaust from a conventional
four-stroke A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...
diesel engine was directed into a large-diameter steam cylinder. There was no boiler: instead a pump, operated by a cam driven from the common
crankshaft A crankshaft is a mechanical component used in a piston engine to convert the reciprocating motion into rotational motion. The crankshaft is a rotating shaft containing one or more crankpins, that are driven by the pistons via the connecting ...
, injected water (warmed by the diesel cylinder water jacket) into the steam cylinder so that it was instantly evaporated by the hot exhaust gases, powering the piston by expansion. Again, no operational examples are known.


References


Notes

* Atkins, Philip (1999): ''The golden age of steam locomotive building''. Atlantic Transport Publishers, Penryn, Cornwall and the
National Railway Museum The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant r ...
. * Kitson-Clark, Edwin (1927): ''An internal-combustion locomotive'' London:
IME Ime is a village in Lindesnes municipality in Agder county, Norway. The village is located on the east side of the river Mandalselva, along the European route E39 highway. Ime is an eastern suburb of the town of Mandal. Ime might be considered ...
* Le Fleming H.M.; Price, John Horace (1960): ''Russian Steam Lococmotives''. London: John Marshwood Ltd * Ross, David (2003): ''The encyclopedia of trains and locomotives'':
Thunder Bay Press Thunder Bay Press is a California-based publisher of illustrated non-fiction books. Subject matter includes adult crafts and leisure activities, pop culture, cooking, pets and domestic animals, sports, history, transportation, and nature. Thunder ...
, Berkeley, CA. {{ISBN, 1-57145-971-5
''LNER encyclopedia''
accessed 19 November 2006

accessed 9 February 2011

Layout and images of Russian hybrid locomotives


See also

*
Diesel-Zarlatti locomotive The Diesel-Zarlatti locomotive was a prototype railway locomotive, built in Italy in 1929, which adopted a hybrid diesel-steam transmission system. History In the 1920s, there was a search for alternatives to the steam locomotive for railway tract ...
London and North Eastern Railway locomotives 2-6-2 locomotives Geared steam locomotives Hybrid locomotives Experimental locomotives Scrapped locomotives