Originally Posted By: HosteenJorje
The steam heritage fleet is used for public relations including rail fan groups that book trips with UP. It's spelled PUBLICITY. I expect that UP will continue to budget for the heritage fleet as long as stockholders are satisfied with UP management. And UP is a very, very well managed company.
Yep- U.P. steam is all about PR.
Originally Posted By: blupupher
Man those are some massive drive wheels.
Wonder what speed it was going in the video around 10:00. It looked to be moving very fast.
Originally Posted By: HosteenJorje
Converted to burn oil. That is what is in the yellow cars behind the tender.
So is the tender just a dummy car now, or does it carry oil as well?
Top speed is said to be well above the century mark. Currently limited to about 75mph if I recall correctly. The 800 series locos were the fastest of the bunch with their 80" tall drivers. They are down on power from the other big steam locos because of it.
Originally Posted By: HosteenJorje
Originally Posted By: blupupher
Man those are some massive drive wheels.
Wonder what speed it was going in the video around 10:00. It looked to be moving very fast.
Originally Posted By: HosteenJorje
Converted to burn oil. That is what is in the yellow cars behind the tender.
So is the tender just a dummy car now, or does it carry oil as well? Tender carries water for boiler. I believe UP has installed some type of water softener in one of the cars to reduce boiler deposits. In power generation, we had massive cation and anion exchangers plus polishers to produce boiler condensate to reduce deposits in our steam generators(boilers).Steam at 2500 psig and 1005 F will leave deposits on turbine blading if not treated until it is almost mineral free.Stuff worked great for car batteries, steam irons.
These run at either 275psig or 350psig of super heated steam.
Here's a pic of my buddy's U.P. steam memorabilia hanging in the corner of our shop (and yes, the pull chain does operate a whistle mounted outside):