NEWS & LETTERS
Over the last 18 months Covid-19 has of course been foremost in everyone’s minds but other challenges facing steam operators of all sizes have not gone away, including most pertinently the threat to future supplies of coal.
The entire use of coals in the UK by the heritage movement, including miniatures, contributes only a tiny portion of the UK’S CO2 emissions, but political pressure and the painting of coal as a dirty fuel has put future supplies under serious threat. While groups continue to try to educate the law-makers, at the same time serious research is going into trying to find eco alternatives to traditional coal.
The latest programme has seen the 15-inch gauge Bure Valley Railway in Norfolk hosting the most extensive trials of bio-coal carried out on a heritage steam line in the UK to date.
The trials, a cooperation between members of the Advanced Steam Traction Trust (ASTT), the BVR and the Heritage Railway Association (HRA) were held on Friday 11th and Monday 14th June.
The first BVR service train on the Friday burnt traditional Welsh coal from Ffos y-fran pit to provide a base comparator under test conditions. The second roundtrip test train burnt Homefire Ecoal50.
On the Monday test trains were operated with two further types of ecocoal, Briteflame and Homefire Ovals – all three came from a range of manufactured smokeless fuel samples that were provided to the Bure Valley Railway for the trials by CPL Industries.
BVR managing director Andrew Barnes described the careful measurements taken during the experiment. “Fuel in the tender was weighed, the amount of water consumption and ash left in the ashpan and smokebox were also measured,” he said.
“Tranducers were rigged to a computer in the lead carriage to measure smokebox vacuum, exhaust performance and speed.”
Andrew added that all three fuels functioned well in the tests but Homefire Ecoal50, made up of 50 per cent traditional solid fuel and 50 per cent biomass, notably crushed olive husks which would otherwise end up in landfill with the associated risks of methane, was an unqualified success.
“(It gave) the same performance as our usual Welsh coal whilst emitting up to 40 per cent lower emissions,” Andrew said.
John Hind, chair of the ASTT said that the trials encompassed more than performance, also considering what would be acceptable to passengers. “Homefire Ecoal50 is the nearest to recreating that unique ambience visitors expect recreating the smell of heritage steam,” he said.
HRA CEO Steve Oates emphasised the importance of a UK steam railway testing an alternative to fossil fuel just as carbon came under the spotlight at the G7 summit in Cornwall.
“Although heritage steam only produces 0.023 per cent of total UK carbon emissions we continue to be very focussed on finding ways to reduce this further,” Steve said.
More trials are to take place in future – there remain major challenges, not least that the bio-coal is significantly more costly than traditional steam coal, but everyone involved with the trials saw them as a major step forward.
■ EIM’S sister magazine Narrow Gauge World will carry an in-depth feature on the coal trials and their implications in its August issue, publishing on 30th July.
■ Gauge 1 live-steam loco kit supplier Barrett Steam Models, featured in the May 2020 edition of EIM, has celebrated its 40th year of trading by moving up a scale. Unveiled at the National Garden Railway Show at the Peterborough Arena on 26th June was Barrett’s first loco kit in Gauge 3, running on 21/2-inch gauge track.
The Great Eastern Railway J65 0-6-0T is being sold in a range of forms, as a static kit at £950, an electric ready-to-run model at £2,450, a spirit-fired kit at £2,150 or ready-to-run spirit fired at £3,950.
The live-steam version of the loco employs a slip-eccentric motion fed by twin cylinders. A hand pump, axle pump and lubricator are also included in the design. The boiler is in copper, with brass bodywork and tanks, and various detail castings.
A series of photos of the prototype model under construction can be viewed on the firm’s website at www.barrettsteammodels.co.uk.