COAL FIRED VERTICAL BOILER LOCOMOTIVE
This project was developed to visualize a long term dream of building and operating my own live steam locomotive. The majority of the project was done over roughly two years starting with the boiler in the summer of 2016 and finishing up with the frame in March 2018. As time has passed, new upgrades and changes to the locomotive have been completed or are currently in the works. The locomotive is loosely based off of a vertical boiler locomotive seen on logging operations across the United States but the design is freelanced and not based off of any particular prototypical locomotive. It is fired on coal and runs at an operating pressure of 60 PSI.
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BOILER The boiler started from a rough drawing and calculations to determine a high heat transfer rate from the coal fire to the water. To do this, standard steam locomotive boiler practices were replicated to have the greatest surface area for heat transfer. Some hand drawings were created and the gauge thickness of the copper was decided upon. After the sheet forming and soldering operations, the boiler was hydrostatically tested to 1.5x the working pressure, roughly 100 PSI.
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WHEELS AND AXLESThe wheels and axles were machined out of mild steel with brass bushings pressed into the steel frames. The greatest consideration that needed to be taken was the distance between the two wheel flanges. This needed to be exactly 45mm to match the gauge of the track. Furthermore, the wheels and axles were machined on the old Atlas lathe so the surface finish on steel suffered greatly but the parts are still usable.
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FRAMEThe frame of the locomotive was made from 1/8" and 1/16" mild steel sheets. The sides, front and rear frame pieces were adjoined with brass angle and M4x0.7 nuts and bolts. Specific locations were cut out for the boiler, chain and access to the ash pan. None of the frame components were permanently joined so the engine could be taken apart to be serviced.
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OPERATION VIDEO
UPDATES
Insulation has been added to the boiler and the main steam line to the engine. The boiler insulation/cladding was made from 1/4" wood strips cut and shaped to fit the contour of the boiler. The top plate was also bolted down to the frame via brass angle that was soldered to the steel. The slideshows below show each process.
Insulation |
Top Plate |
FUTURE WORK
In the future, a new double acting steam engine will be built to increase the power to the wheels and to solve the issue of stalling. As of now, the design is largely complete and drawings are being created. Below is an uncompleted sample of one of the drawings.