I just went on a train ride in Lincoln NH. The train's engine is run on a wood boiler. The conductor said he burns half a cord a day. I asked if he uses pine and hardwood or just hardwood ( I could see him throwing hardwood in so I knew he was using hardwood). He said they only used hardwood, said that pine didn't have enough BTU's and that it threw way to many sparks. With all the burn pine don't burn pine talk we have here i thought i would post it.
burns half a cord a day and non of it pine
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Makes sense to me. He would be burning a cord a day of pine, taking up twice as much space and loading twice as often.
No, not the Loon MT train. I think it was Clarks Trading Post? It might have been a little north of Lincoln. They had black bears there also. Wish he had given me some samples, his splits were about 4 feet long.
Well, gee, let's see here. I'm running a steam locomotive. I burn wood for fuel. I have to carry my fuel with me, and do all the wood handling manually. Should I use nice dense hardwood with a high BTU content per tender load, or should I use softwood with fewer BTU's per tender load? Hmm. What, am I stupid? I think not! If hardwood's available where my railroad happens to be, then that, of course, will be my fuel of choice. But what if my railroad is in a place where there simply is no hardwood to be found? Do I just abandon my railroad? Hmm. What, am I stupid? I think not! The railroad's here for a reason, and if I have to do some extra work in terms of volume of fuel handled to get the job done, then so be it.
We're not all surrounded by hardwood forest. If it weren't for Pine, I really wouldn't have much wood to burn at all. C'mon out to the high desert country of central Oregon...I'll show you that life without hardwoods is actually possible. Rick
We're not all surrounded by hardwood forest. If it weren't for Pine, I really wouldn't have much wood to burn at all. C'mon out to the high desert country of central Oregon...I'll show you that life without hardwoods is actually possible. Rick
Rex, I'm not anti-hardwood. In fact, I don't have a "wood agenda". I'm actually a Mechanical Engineer (emphasis on steam - 30+ years in the Navy making ships go). I love steam powered machinery, especially old trains. Simply commenting on the fuel. Sometimes you can get hardwoods, sometimes you can't. Either way, you find a way to get the job done. I'd love to come ride that old train. Rick
Rex said:
Did you ask him why he didn't use coal? It would take up even less space, and only have to load half as much again.
Well, during the gold rush here, the main transportation was done VIA a steam powered paddle wheeler with a wood boiler. Up and down the Yukon river, back and forth from Whitehorse to Dawson city. Pine and Spruce was the only available wood due to the climate as no mighty Oak can handle a real winter.. Since the Pine and Spruce is lowest on the BTU list they had run dogsled teams all winter back and forth to the southern parts that had hard wood available. Come spring there would be enough hardwood available to run the paddle wheeler for the summer to facilitate the gold rush. For history sake I am glad the paddle wheeler captains were wood snobs as the whole Yukon may have either been left tree less or the extra sparks that the Pine makes may have burned the Yukon down. 
my uncle was one of the trustees of the main narrow guage railway in Portland, ME, coal is very expensive compared to wood around here and wood can be gotten much easier and locally. Imagine the guy who sells them the wood, half cord a day for a summer, not bad!
rowerwet said:
They state here that the paddle wheelers ate 3 cord an hour down stream and 8-12 going upstream depending on the runoff. 8 boats going 24/7. You can still see all the old wood camps along the river to Dawson.
That the one where the crazy dude from the woods comes chasin' the train in his vintage hot rod shootin' at ya?Rex said:
when you think about it, 1/2 a cord a day really isnt bad! it sounds like alot, but even if they were buying expensive cordwood at say $300 a cord, thats only $150 a day fuel operating cost. traveling an average of 70 mph over a 24 hour period would cover 1680 miles a day, for $150. that works out at around 9 cents a mile. it would cost about 13 cents a mile for my SUV to cover that same ground.
Fossil if you are into boilers you would have loved this old train.
Pineburner this is the train with the crazy dude and the vintage hot rod.
Carbon-liberator I didn't think to ask about coal, got to exited when I found out it ran on wood.
Cowboyandy this train doin't run all day long and it dosin't go very fast, it gives rides every hour and you don't go very far.
They also had a wood boiler that ran a marygoround, but that wasin't working just on display.
Pineburner this is the train with the crazy dude and the vintage hot rod.
Carbon-liberator I didn't think to ask about coal, got to exited when I found out it ran on wood.
Cowboyandy this train doin't run all day long and it dosin't go very fast, it gives rides every hour and you don't go very far.
They also had a wood boiler that ran a marygoround, but that wasin't working just on display.
when they logged off this part of west michigan (rebuilt Chicago after the fire) Pine was the wood they wanted. It would float down the rivers to the mills and hardwood would sink. The farmers that came after the loggers just cut the hardwood and burnt it in big piles to clear the land.
leaddog
leaddog
those old steam trains traveled at an average of 25 mph or so on some stretches they could hit 35 or so, blazing speed for a time when everything moved by horse or ox or foot. Out on the american plains a mile a min. was very fast and required the coal burn to match! It was actually thought that people couldn't breath outside of a train car when speeds got that fast.
If you ever read the book about lewis and clark by Stephen Ambrose you may catch that the fastest Lewis ever traveled during the whole trip was about 25 mph on the gravel turnpike near Philly, at its time the first "highway" in America, in a horse drawn coach. Most of the roads then were dirt with much mud and ruts.
If you ever read the book about lewis and clark by Stephen Ambrose you may catch that the fastest Lewis ever traveled during the whole trip was about 25 mph on the gravel turnpike near Philly, at its time the first "highway" in America, in a horse drawn coach. Most of the roads then were dirt with much mud and ruts.
He could have a semi load of coal (25tons) of kentucky stoker or virginia poco low volitile (low smoke) coal delivered for about 200-220/ton within two weeks of placing an order for it. It's not that it's hard to get, but there are other considerations- firewood is easy to load into the boiler, it produces much less ash, there is no requirement to store unused coal and most importantly it takes MUCH more skill to fire coal than wood; per btu, of course coal is much less expensive, and it's much more dense, but it's not for everyone.
of course the most likely answer is that they have given in to the eco-nazi hoax about carbon caused global warming, since wood is "carbon neutral" and coal is dinosaur carbon, wood is "ecofriendly".
PINEBURNER said:
Yup, thats the one.....took the kids up there a few years back...I had been as a child, but my wife and kids hadn't....they got a little freaked out by the old man in the woods
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