Whar's the smoke?

LAST EDITED ON Mar-30-03 AT 06:27 PM (EDT)

It would be cool to be able to drive a fireless loco across a yard on MSTS. To see a supposed steam locomotive not have any smoke coming from it would be a sight to see!I got pictures of some fireless models from steamlocomotive.com.Pennsylvania Power & Light Company (PP&LC) 0-8-0Union Electric Company 0-4-0PP&LC 0-4-0(the one on the right)These locos were never put on mainline service because their life was like that of a remote control car: After a while, they had to be "charged up" with compressed air.-Hovertrain

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How to do this..., HAC, Mar-30-03, 11:27 PM, (1) RE: How to do this..., JonN, Mar-31-03, 11:43 AM, (4) RE: Whar's the smoke?, gatecityca, Mar-30-03, 11:48 PM, (2) RE: Whar's the smoke?, JonN, Mar-31-03, 11:41 AM, (3) RE: Whar's the smoke?, np2156, Mar-31-03, 12:44 PM, (5) RE: Whar's the smoke?, Hovertrain, Mar-31-03, 04:40 PM, (7) RE: Whar's the smoke?, sstyrnol, Apr-01-03, 09:09 AM, (10) RE: Whar's the smoke?, Hovertrain, Mar-31-03, 04:37 PM, (6) RE: Whar's the smoke?, gatecityca, Mar-31-03, 04:51 PM, (8) RE: Whar's the smoke?, Hovertrain, Mar-31-03, 05:56 PM, (9) RE: Whar's the smoke?, Hovertrain, Apr-01-03, 04:00 PM, (11) RE: Whar's the smoke?, Matt Vince, Apr-01-03, 05:08 PM, (12) RE: Whar's the smoke?, John_Netzlof, Apr-01-03, 08:23 PM, (13) RE: Whar's the smoke?, Nhtrain2, Apr-01-03, 08:36 PM, (14) RE: Whar's the smoke?, numnutz, Apr-02-03, 09:12 AM, (15) RE: Whar's the smoke?, Jonatan, Apr-02-03, 09:47 AM, (16) RE: Whar's the smoke?, Hovertrain, Apr-04-03, 12:34 PM, (17)

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Edit the .eng file to give the stack a diameter of 0.0 and set smoke per pound of fuel burned to equal 0. That will do what you want.
You can't completely remove the smoke by editing the smoke taxture, and even if you could, it would then effect all steam locomotives as its a global texture.
Cheers
HAC

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Couldn't you just remove the line for the smoke in the .eng file?Jonathan N,
Milepost 180, CP Belleville Sub.

Repainter for Yonder Locomotive Works.

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I think I've seen one or two pictures of these kind of locomotives, but I've never seen one actually operating in a museum, and I know very little about them. So, they actually used compressed air to drive the cylinders?? I wonder what would have been the advantage to doing that? I guess if they were just using it to move and switch cars around on a yard that would save fuel costs. No point to burning coal or oil and wasting time and manpower to fire up a locomotive that you just need to shuttle cars and make up a consist. That might be something interesting to make, just for the novelty of it. I just wonder how much fun it would actually be to drive it in MSTS...I think people would miss seeing the glowing firebox and hearing the chug and hiss of steam.

Chris T.
San Bernardino, California

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>So, they actually used compressed air to drive the cylinders??
>I wonder what would have been the advantage to doing that?I read somewhere that some refineries and manufacturing plants used these for switching in areas where conventional steam engines would have been unsafe to use, such as indoors, or near flammable materials. These two particular jobs are handled by electric switchers today. Jonathan N,
Milepost 180, CP Belleville Sub.

Repainter for Yonder Locomotive Works.

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Actually these things ran on steam rather than compressed air. Where the boiler would normally be was a large, well-insulated tank, and this would be filled with boiling water from a stationary boiler at a relatively high pressure (around 300 psi I believe, though there was probably some variation). The main tank is separated from the steam dome by a valve that limits the pressure in the steam dome to around say 80-100 psi (as long as the main tank pressure remains higher than that anyway), and the steam from the steam dome is fed to the cylinders where it operates like a normal steam locomotive. Used steam is exhausted into the atmosphere.The key to making a fireless engine work is the principle that pressure increases the boiling point of water. At 300 psi, the boiling point of the water in the main tank is considerably higher than the 212 degree (100 for the metrically-inclined) boiling point of water at atmospheric pressure, so the boiling water in the tank is in liquid form at a temperature considerably higher than 212 degrees. The insulation around the tank slows down the cooling of the water so that as the pressure decreases when the steam is used, the boiling point of the water drops faster than the temperature does, actually producing more steam as it goes. A fireless locomotive can operate for several hours one one charge.The problem with simulating a fireless engine in MSTS is that although you don't want the dark smoke of a normal steamer, you would still have the white plume of exhaust steam coming out of the stack. What's needed isn't a way to turn off the smoke, but just a way to keep it white.

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Then the electric line runs a risk of causing a spark near the flammible stuff. But I know that electricity is an efficient way of keeping the engine powering the loco away from the stuff

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They also used them when they build the long tunnels through the European Alps in order to protect the drilling machine operators from monoxide poisoning.I've seen pictures where they connected ever sort of tenders to the to prolong their "life time".In general, they were used everywhere, where conditions prevented steam engines from being used such as refineries etc. But also they were being used, where there was plenty of steam provided like in power plants. One big German electricity company used steam storage engines up the late seventies, as they had plenty of pressurised steam on-site.This is one of the engines which used pressurised air. It has a tender fixed to it to add more "fuel" to it. This was being used when they build the Gotthard tunnel, which connects Austria and Italy.The second picture is the European standard fireless steam engines, build by a German engineer whose name I forgot. However, they were quite common. Some of them served up to the 1970s as I said. They were charged with overheated steam at about 200 to 300 degrees celsius.

---
Sebastian
sebastian.styrnol@gmx.de

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I think they would sound like the sound of air entering a cylider; the shhhhh-sssssss sound

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Well, it looks like you have an interesting project to work on then. I know I've seen some steam locomotives for MSTS that have oil-burning boilers where the smoke was always white, so I would think that you can modify the smoke or get rid of it altogether if you wanted.

Chris T.
San Bernardino, California

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Sorry to dissapoint, but I didn't actually plan on creating a fireless loco. I was just submitting an idea

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I also noticed that all the locos are 0-x-0's. Was there no need for pilot/rear wheels?

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Three reasons:
Weight
Fireless locomotives don't need to carry heavy coal and (cold) water supplies around with them, and don't need the ability to have fire in them (coal burning steamers require heavy fireboxes - which include a brick arch - and heavy multi-tubular boilers, firelesses need neither). The major reason why ponys/trucks were added was to spread weight, clearly firelesses, being relatively light, don't need to spread their weight around. Being light also means they use much more of the limited energy they have in moving revenue around, rather than their own weight, so it's more efficient.Speed
Ponys/Bogies tend to be used on faster locomotives, as well as spreading weight across more axles, they help guide the locomotive through corners at speed. Firelesses never really got up much speed, so never really needed them.Traction
Clearly, with such a light locomotive, what you need is to maximise grip, so all the weight has to be exerted on the drivers.The key to a successful fireless is efficiency of energy use, using as much of the energy onboard to move money-making goods around as possible. That's probably also why the top one in the first post, from Pennsylvania Power, is streamlined...

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There is one of these "Fireless Cooker" sitting right next to Route 119 in Reynoldsville (?) Pennsylvania, next to an old coke works, with all kinds of other stuff sittign around, they pulled a B&O Hopper car out of there a few years back, its being restored, Kovalchick owns the operation, most of the time the locomotive has a tarp over it, but sometimes (like after storms) the tarp is blown off...
Buffalo & Pittsburgh local frieght. from DuBois, PA, to Hutchins, PA.

Genesee & Wyoming all the way!
John's Loco Works

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Only the Europeans could take such a crazy idea and make it work at top notch level! -NHtrain

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There are more wierd steam locomotives described and pictured here:http://www.dself.demon.co.uk/locoloco/locoloco.htm

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-02-03 AT 09:48 AM (EDT)

Thanks for that link numnutz, I'll put it in my "favorites" folder. As for the fireless choo-choo's I ain't all to much for em' as they look realy weird. Like, they could ALEAST have a smokestack!/Jonatan

Steam rules!

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>I'll put it in my "favorites" I did the same
>Like, they could ALEAST have a
>smokestack! It is clear why they didn't: the smoke stack was unnecessary for some of them as the steam/air was released into the open after being used. Putting a smokestack on it would be like putting a pantograph on a steam loco

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