Water freezing in locomotives

[Sweeps]

Given the cold weather we've just had, I've been wondering how you manage to prevent water in steam locomotive boilers and tenders from freezing. Now I suppose a low fire may sort the boiler out, but what of the tender? A photograph in this month's steam railway shows a locomotive working in something like -14. Water freezing in a tender would do considerable damage but it seems too far from the locomotive to prevent freezing.What's the solution?

[Baby Deltic]

IFAIK, boiler water was treated to remove limescale, etc, so maybe that helped. Maybe tenders and boilers were drained if a loco was being stored outside, although I'm only surmising.

 

The cold certainly caused serious issues with diesel loco's, some being left idling to prevent freezing and cracked engine blocks. Some of the anti-freeze used by BR did more harm than good.B)

[Lady_Ava_Hay]

The laws of physics dictate that a large mass of water will only form a skin of ice. At 4 degrees Celsius, a miracle occurs in that cold water rises and warm water sinks. Thus water freezes from the surface. In this country, for perhaps the last 60 years, it would be rare for water to freeze to more than few inches. Steam engines that have been used for any time are warm to the touch and many tender engines had a live steam feed to the coaches which ran under the tender. Wind chill was not really a factor ( Except perhaps running tender first? ) and this is a much greater factor in overall freezing than straight exposure to cold weather.

 

Water in the boiler wouldn't freeze as it is lagged and steam engines take days to cool down and start to freeze.

 

Frozen condensation would melt in an instant on warm through.

 

The biggest problem was freezing of the water column and this was combated by a small brazier on the column that a passing engine would donate a glowing coal to.

 

Diesels are a different matter in that quite a few water passages were/are only an inch or two wide in places and a block of ice forms to prevent the flow of cool water causing localised boiling and hot spots which, when quenched by the water beginning to flow, crack. This crack leaks under pressure and causes problems and further overheating.

 

Modern IC engines use small amounts of water and a high capacity pump with lots of pressure and a high dosage of antifreeze. It was the Japanese who taught the world how to keep the oil and water where they were supposed to be by proper thermodynamic design and precision casting and machining.

 

That and the demise of Fred and his monkey wrench.

[PhilH]

On the Mid Hants we have to frost protect the locos if there is an unfavourable weather forecast. Basically we have to open any enclosed space where water might collect, freeze, expand and burst a fitting for instance. Injectors have to be opened and drained, steam heating cocks opened, tender sieves drained and left open etc, water feeds opened and drained. It's a real PITA at the end of a long day. As far as boiler water goes,remember that, for instance, the locomotive that I was driving today, 850 Lord Nelson (a total bag of nails btw), will still have a boiler full of hot water on Thursday, it takes that long to cool down.As for the tender it takes a lot of freezing to make 5000 gallons of water solid.

[Poor Old Bruce]

The winter of early 1963 caused a lot of problems with burst diesel cylinder blocks to the extent that the sides of the blocks had to be cut away and rebuilt. There were also problems with tarin heating boilers, I remember one occasion when I saw a train running into Derby off the West Road with an Ivatt 2MT 2-6-0 coupled inside the Peak to provide train heating. We still had to go to work though and I don't remember any schools closing, and the roads weren't salted either as I can remember packed snow and ice on the roads in Derby town centre.

 

Richard

[big T]

You will find that most modern loco operators have frost protection turns - going and starting 'em up to stop 'em from freezing and the blocks cracking.

 

 

[Fat Controller]

You will find that most modern loco operators have frost protection turns - going and starting 'em up to stop 'em from freezing and the blocks cracking.

During the recent cold snap, we were sending people out about every two hours to any stock on stand-by to do a full brake test, open and close doors and lower/raise pantographs- when it gets a little chilly, condensate from compressors tends to freeze, blocking drain cocks and shutting the compressor down. I worked with a compressor back in 1979 in Stoke that froze up every half hour- it was great fun trying to defrost it

I remember that some WR stabling points used to keep smoldering rags in a tray beneath stabled hydraulics to stop the transmission oil getting too viscous- OK until you had an oil leak, as happened at Llanelli...

[The Stationmaster]

You will find that most modern loco operators have frost protection turns - going and starting 'em up to stop 'em from freezing and the blocks cracking.

 

Well not exactly (unless things have changed with 'modern' traction) some of the earlier BR diesels - especially the hydraulics - needed to run in low ambient temperatures for a variety of reasons, the least of which was frozen cylinder blocks. For instance Class 47s allegedly only had 'one start' in the batteries if ambient fell below -3C (and none if it went below something around -5 to -7) and Class 37s weren't much better being well nigh impossible to start if ambient fell below about -2/-3 and they happened to be standing where frost could get a good grip.

 

350s (Class 08s) were, and probably still are, also very difficult to start in low ambient temperatures although if you know how to do and are very careful they can be bump started.

 

The main problems are normally batteries and fuel misting although modern diesel additives presumably have ruled out the latter.

[RedgateModels]

We have a slightly different problem with the RGH rail grinders, they have a large water tank that is used to spray onto the track to prevent fires etc, it's used to dampen down the track etc. We have to add "runway de-icer" to the tank in pretty high concerntrations as the sprayheads can freeze up in winter.

 

Clearly as this is sprayed directly onto the ground we can't use more efficient, but environmentally desasterous Glycol types of anti-freeze

[Guest Max Stafford]

I noticed during the big freeze this year that DRS had most of their locos outdoor running. Just as well as we got down to -20 one night! I suppose back in '62-'63 that with intensive diesel operation in its infancy, there wasn't the cold weather diesel experience to draw on. It's just as well there was plenty of freshly withdrawn steam power lying around the depots to fall back on. It must have been a very steep learning curve that winter!

 

Dave.

[buffalo]

...The biggest problem was freezing of the water column and this was combated by a small brazier on the column that a passing engine would donate a glowing coal to...

 

What, if anything, was done with water troughs? I imagine they might have been a bit of a problem as you probably wouldn't want to lower the pickup scoop into a block of ice at speed

[Guest Max Stafford]

Not sure, but I imagine in those days, that there would be the local Pway gang at hand to manually break the ice.

 

Dave.

[vc-10]

I guess that if they were used regularly then the ice wouldn't form. Flowing water tends not to freeze that easily.

[John_Hughes]

It's certainly been recorded that pack-ice would form on the troughs on the Settle - Carlisle line!

[The Stationmaster]

What, if anything, was done with water troughs? I imagine they might have been a bit of a problem as you probably wouldn't want to lower the pickup scoop into a block of ice at speed

 

Stage 1 (as noted below) P.Way gang in to break and remove ice,

 

Stage 2 Place troughs out of use (preferably draining them if possible)

[big T]

Well not exactly (unless things have changed with 'modern' traction) some of the earlier BR diesels - especially the hydraulics - needed to run in low ambient temperatures for a variety of reasons, the least of which was frozen cylinder blocks. For instance Class 47s allegedly only had 'one start' in the batteries if ambient fell below -3C (and none if it went below something around -5 to -7) and Class 37s weren't much better being well nigh impossible to start if ambient fell below about -2/-3 and they happened to be standing where frost could get a good grip.

 

350s (Class 08s) were, and probably still are, also very difficult to start in low ambient temperatures although if you know how to do and are very careful they can be bump started.

 

The main problems are normally batteries and fuel misting although modern diesel additives presumably have ruled out the latter.

 

Actually Mike this is the case, as several of my friends have been on frost protection turns at Lawley Street recently!!

 

It was the case with 57's and definately the case with 66's.

[LSWR]

Stage 1 (as noted below) P.Way gang in to break and remove ice,

 

Stage 2 Place troughs out of use (preferably draining them if possible)

 

In the days of steam in North America both the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroads used track pans (water troughs). These were steam heated in winter.