OIL FIRING HAS BEEN INVESTED IN – WE’VE DONE IT!
We started to develop our own state-of-the-art light oil firing system back in 1990 for some all-new, one-man operated rack steam locomotives.
What was then a strong Austrian union forced us to do it, as they would not allow a driver to do a fireman’s job on a coal-fired locomotive. And, for economic reasons, Austrian Federal Railways would not order new steam locomotives if a fireman was needed. If so, it would have purchased diesel locomotives. The choice was therefore not coal-fired versus oil-fired steam locomotives, but oil-fired steam versus diesel locomotives. In the end we built eight such new rack tanks, in 1992 and 1996. Steam Railway reported on this work several times.
The next oil-firing system we developed was roughly ten times more powerful and involved the conversion of No. 52.8055. One main burner of the rack tank locomotives serves as a pilot burner on No. 52.8055, but the main burners work on a different system. Again, this was pioneering development work in its truest sense. Several conversions of narrow gauge steam locomotives followed.
Most recently, we have converted a metre-gauge 2-6-0T steam locomotive, ‘G ¾’ No. 11 Heidi, of the Swiss Rhaetian Railways, and ‘Na’ 2-6-2 No. 14A of the Australian Puffing Billy Railway, to light oil-firing. In both cases, fire protection was the bigger issue than smoke prevention.
An expert was quoted in SR491 saying: “No one has invested in oil-firing”. Well, not quite.
Roger Waller, Dampflokomotivund Maschinenfabrik DLM AG, Winterthur, Switzerland