The WaterWorks Museum has a gas engine with hot tube ignition. Heated by gas of course!

Nearby, in another bay is another, but larger single cylider engine that is also town gas fuelled, but with electric ignition by an impulse magneto.

A lot of Technical Colleges had engines running on town gas, in the Heat Engines laboratories..

They all have to have pressure regulators in the feed line, or neighbour's cookers would fluctuate wildly every time the engine inhaled.

There are alot of gas fuelled engines on farms and places such as rubbish tips, running on methane from anaerobic digesters.

And in oil fields, many engine run on gas from the well, (i worked on one back in the early 60s ) rather than flare it off. Some are turbocharged and have very sophisticated control systems to manage the emissions..

Howard

The biggest worry around small gauge locos which are frequently gas fired is people understanding the difference in pressure of butane and propane. A home made gas tank intended and tested for butane might not have been designed for the much higher pressures of propane which is fine until someone tries one of the 'better' mixed gas products (ie mix of propane and butane) that don't even tell you the proportions of each.

In 5" I would be looking for the heating panels/burners from the old super ser room heaters as a start in experimenting with gas firing ! Balancing top air and bottom air to get it right could be a challenge, then there's the new riding trolley design to hide the 4.7Kg propane bottle. All good fun ! Noel

The model boat guys have been building gas fired engines for years so the tests they have to put their tanks through would apply to other club members using gas for a loco etc. Can't remember the test pressure(s) now but it's a lot higher than most copper boilers to allow for the gas expanding if your model is sitting in the sun and for the particular gas

Would it be any more complex or regulated than using a gas bottle on a barbecue or workshop blowtorch or camping stove. IE no regs other than pertaining to the gas bottle itself?

Those disposable gas torch bottles would seem to be about the right size for mounting in a loco tender etc and would get around having to make your own bottle and get it tested etc.

EDIT Or as Noel posted simultanously, one the small 4.7kg barbecue gas bottles in the larger locos.

And is coal going to disappear completely? It may be allowed for such small "heritage" applications. At a price of course!

Edited By Hopper on 17/03/2023 10:27:06

Edited By Hopper on 17/03/2023 10:28:40

People don't realise just how much heat is liberated in a 5"g loco firebox. Even a medium size loco working fairly hard is over 15kw. Getting this amount of gas to burn inside the confines of a model firebox is not trivial. Super ser heater is much bigger in area for a much lower heat output. You need lots of small flames to maximise the flame surface area relative to the nozzle area.

Unlikely to be banned, more likely to become unobtainium if the only customers are Model Engineers, who buy very little. It's already the case that steam coal is hard to find, and the UK is relatively lucky in that regard. At least it's available here in small bags, there must be many countries where it's special import only. Many engines seem to run on alternatives like barbecue charcoal and smokeless fuels.

Not a new problem. GWR engines outperformed their northern rivals because the GWR connected with Welsh collieries producing the best steam coal in the world, whereas northern coal was noticeably dirtier, burned at a lower temperature, and had a lower calorific value. The need to burn poor coal or wood can force major design changes on locomotives. It's not just that the fireman has to shovel extra fast into a big firebox.

I have an old mag where LBSC moans about finding impossible to buy good steam coal after WW2. It's because most of Britain's best coal was exported to pay off debts, whilst homes could only get the notoriously bad 'Nutty Slack'.

I can't see running on gas outdoors being a problem unless someone foolishly causes a major incident. Gas burners are well established technology. Running an engine on Hydrogen might be controversial though!

Dave

About 30 years ago I visited LALS the Los Angeles Live Steamers just the other side of the hill from the famous Hollywood sign and they were mostly if not all running on gas for fire safety and probably coal not being much in evidence in their climate. It is not for aesthetics that the loco chimneys in wild west movies were an inverted bell and the tender piled high with wood not coal.

Noel Shelley I used [Marty's burners] look it up ,the drawings are there for anyone interested and i have eight burners in the firebox ,they work a treat and are easy to make.

Further to Bazyle’s comments , as I understand it , Train Mountain Miniature Railway operates about 30 miles of 7.5” track , and all of their steam powered locomotives are gas fired ! .

I just do not understand how they have done it safely over many years , yet in the UK , anyone suggesting gas firing is made to feel like a lunatic , a mentally affected moron! , and then you have the insurance brigade ,

There are many benefits to propane firing locomotives , the Model Engineering / Rail fraternity should welcome the system and encourage its application, and the Insurance Industry should drop its objection and be more acceptingof it , even learn from those overseas experiences.

Duncan I have built a three truck shay loco ,it is 1.5 inch scale but i made it to run on 5 inch gauge track, so the firebox is 8 inchs by 5 inchs rectangular with Marty burners

As I mentioned yesterday book 3 covers the testing of refillable gas tanks but only upto 250mls which would be a bit small for larger locos. So I expect it is the thought of having to pay for any testing that puts Model engineers off just like the thought of engaging the services of an independent boiler inspector and your own insurance rather than getting it done by a club