THE EXTREME ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS WHO SEE IN COAL THE "MAGIC BULLET" TOWARDS ENERGY SELF-SUFFICENCY FOR A "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICA are, beyond a doubt, especially interested in rehabilitating (as it were) the concept of coal-fired turbine locomotives as but one step towards that goal.
And one particularly likely model would have to be none other than 4,500 hp @ 8000 rpm Norfolk and Western 2300, a/k/a "Jawn Henry," of Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton manufacture, vintage 1954, with a Babcock and Wilcox flash-tube boiler @ 900 psi and General Electric traction motors in a C+C-C+C wheel arrangement.
Judge for yourself, reader, if "Jawn Henry" had dorkiness written throughout solely because of its design:
In service for but three years until being scrapped in 1958, such encountered no end of performance problems, including coal dust shorting out the electrical wires, almost-constant problems with the feedwater heater and boiler controls and the turbine blades being damaged after backing onto heavy trains, thus consigning "Jawn Henry" to pusher duty on coal trains for the most part.
Not to be outdone, the Union Pacific, already attracting attention for their oil-turbine locomotives, was approached by the Bituminous Coal Institute to develop a coal-turbine locomotive prototype; as Wikipedia explains:
In October 1961, Union Pacific constructed an experimental GTEL of their own, using an Alco PA-2 as a cab, the chassis of a GE W-1 class electric locomotive (bought for scrap from the Great Northern) as the second unit, and a modified turbine prime mover from the 50 to 75 series. The setup was numbered 80, but changed to 8080 in 1965 to avoid conflict with the EMD DD35s being introduced. The consist had an A1A-A1A+B-D+D-B, wheel arrangement, i.e. 18 axles of which 16 were powered. A "centipede" steam locomotive tender was rebuilt with a coal crusher to pulverize and feed the coal to the turbine. Power output was estimated at 7000 hp (5.2 MW). The original diesel engine in the PA was retained and produced 2000 hp (1.5 MW) and the turbine produced the additional 5000 hp (3.8 MW). The blade erosion and soot buildup problems encountered in the earlier locomotives were magnified with the coal turbine. Grinding coal into fine particles was also troublesome. Any oversized coal particles could damage the turbine blades. Ultimately, the experiment was declared a failure and was scrapped. The conventional gas turbines each racked up well over a million miles in revenue service, by comparison the coal turbine prototype ran less than 10,000 miles before being stricken from the UP roster.
Again, judge for yourself if the following photo (via the Don Ross Collection, ultimately via Wikipedia) shows dorkiness in coal turbine-locomotive technology throughout:
In any case: How sure can we be that coal-industry-sponsored front groups have learned well enough from past mistakes to give renewed attention to coal-turbine locomotion technology, especially considering the likelihood of newly-developed technology as may have eased the original reliability problems?
glitter-graphics.com
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