Union Pacific's FAILED Coal Turbine
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ม.ค. 2024
- During the 1950s, the Union Pacific was in the process of dieselization, with many new designs popping up to replace steam locomotives. Of these, one example is the Gas Turbine locomotives. Of the generation models built, one unique set would be built, to try and test out using coal as a fuel source, WAY after the Days of Steam were done. Did it perform well? This is a short-history video talking about UP's one-of-a-kind Coal Turbine.
Welcome to the first proper video of 2024. This is a short-form history video, which is something I'll be doing occasionally on this channel. I wanted to cover the Coal Turbine in a video since its quite a unique anomaly when it comes to stuff UP has made. Hope y'all enjoy! Stay tuned for the next 2 videos.
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My favorite commentary on the coal turbine was made by someone in the UP shops. Somebody asked him what the coal turbine sounded like when it was running. The response was “About the same as the other turbines, except for the occasional sound of a turbine blade going through the side of the casing.”
I was a Field Engineer for General Electric. The oldest version the GE Frame 3 gas turbine was known as a ''5 bearing'' unit and was the unit used in locomotives. It was a 1950's design. In 1979, GE sent me to BAPCO, Bahrain Petroleum Company in the Persian Gulf. They still had a 5 bearing unit driving a hydrogen compressor in a unit called the Platformer. The operators tended to push the turbine too hard and burnt the first stage blades off it once. I was there to direct the replacement of the gas turbine with the spare unit they had in storage.
The spare unit failed almost immediately. There was tremendous pressure on me to get it up and running again as it was reported that the revenue loss with the Platformer Unit shut down was $400,000 per day. It could not be repaired in place. The gas turbine was sent to the GE Service Shop in Manama, Bahrain, and was disassembled for inspection. It was found that the first stage turbine wheel had cracks in it, therefore, it was condemned. You don't want something that runs at 7100 rpm to have cracks in it. Major components like the first stage turbine disk were long ago obsolete and unavailable.
The fix was to contact a railroad museum in Texas...Houston was what I heard... and make a deal to disassemble their locomotive turbine and salvage the 1st stage wheel, reassemble the unit with the cracked one, and charter a plane to fly the part to the Persian Gulf. What a lot of expense and drama!
I left Bahrain toward the end of the year and was glad to be gone. There was a lot of animosity toward Westerners after radicals invaded the US Embassy in Tehran and held the Hostages. I heard that the rebuilt turbine was unreliable even with the locomotive parts and was scrapped after they installed a brand new GE 4 bearing 2 shaft frame 3 gas turbine.
I can't imagine the insanity of feeding pulverized coal to a gas turbine. What were they thinking?
Quite an anecdote mate
If they wanted a coal burning locomotive, probably should've kept all those steamers that burned it just fine.
Exactly. Big Boy alone could steam over 6,000 horsepower, and all of these "coal turbines" *combined* made just over 7,000 horsepower. I think they were just so embarrassed in the "modern" 1960s to go back to such an "old" design 😅
@@scottanno8861 But then you gotta maintain a boiler, feed it water, etc.
They could've easily connected a Big Boy's boiler to a piston that was connected to a generator.
Ah yes, Union Pacific's frankenstein, gotta wonder what they were thinking when building it.
Coal was a well use source of power, UP maybe thought they could revap things, and still could use it.
@@dustin_4501that would've been the case, had oil proven much more efficient, and cheaper, (which would also be why ACE3000 didn't make the cut if memory serves).
To be fair, it WAS the 60’s. So…you know…
@@darkchaotix1productions326 Such a shame as they say...
@@frankymorales5647 Bet UP managment was too old to wanna have a join...
Its so wild to me that they tried this AFTER the GTEL's... Youd think that all the problems of the GTEL's (maintenance, sound, low speed inefficiency) would just be worse. Leave it to UP...
Hope we do get a vid on GE 609 too
Perhaps it was in the development queue at the same time, but finished later?
@@mprooveit3588 well going by the dates, UP would have had a decade of experience with the GTEL's to change their minds, but who knows what goes on in the minds of men who thought this was a good idea.
@@hatem8909
The problem is they’ll do something like this and everybody can see it’s bad and was a mistake, but the manager in charge will never admit he was wrong and will quadruple down insisting he’s right, even if it unalives him in the process.
Immediately clicked on it.
Same
same too
Me Three.
Me four
Same
3:18 I think this photo was taken from Vinton St. in Omaha with the train heading South, probably going to turn West onto Lane’s Cutoff at Summit. Some things that helped me identify the location are the Rock Island switcher and that elevated track on the right.
The Rock Island line only followed the UP tracks in Omaha from Downtown to a bit South of Q St. and the elevated line is the CB&Q, they needed to gain elevation to go over everyone else at Summit.
Between the Rock Island switcher and CB&Q line is the MoPac line.
I think that first bridge in the background is Martha St.
When I thought this was taken South of Summit I wasn’t sure why 80 wouldn’t take Lane’s Cutoff and was taking the original line instead, so it makes sense that they weren’t South of Summit at that point. They also couldn’t have been going South past Gilmore Jct. (where the MoPac line branched off the OG UP line) onto the MoPac line.
I've heard of this odd experiment, and I found this video quite informative! I didn't know this creature had _25_ axles!
Thanks for the video!
I really remember when ottomatic did a short summary of it but now you do it that’s good
I've heard of coal being ground into a fine slurry with water and injected into very high compression diesel engines with special pumps and injectors but this.... trying to burn coal in a gas turbine is insane. I would have assumed they would use a steam turbine like modern coal power plants...
There have been previous TH-cam videos that basically mentioned that Union Pacific RailRoad did experiment with burning coal in a gas turbine and that the experiment was a failure. Gas turbines work great with natural gas and various liquid fuels, but never with coal. Coal is a solid fuel and contains ash, silica and other solids that will grind and tear up the blades in the gas turbine. And that was basically what happened with Union Pacific's experiment of burning coal in a gas turbine.
A bit like flying a plane through a volcanic ash cloud😊
I had assumed that they used a boiler and steam turbine, not pumping ground up coal into a gas turbine! Interesting ,but probably doomed to its failure. The changeover from steam to diesel was a fascinating period in history.
The infamous coal turbine. One too many axles. The coal turbine was extremely troublesome. Great big rolling flop. Nice mini documentary.
What I don't understand is how anybody expected this to actually work. The abrasive and erosive properties of coal ash could not have been a mystery to any railroad. Grinding the coal up into a powder doesn't make the ash go away
Especially for turbines. I imagine they would have been better off just generating heat for a steam turbine with the coal.
@@flabiger There were steam turbo-electric locomotives, and the UP even had some, referenced in this video. They were more productive than this thing, but there was the problem of trying to cram what is essentially a coal-fired power plant into a locomotive body.
Saving the difficulty, if you can, of building and maintaining a boiler is a pretty big POTENTIAL benefit. Reality stood in the way, however.
@@mprooveit3588 That's certainly true, going past the steam turbo-electric part and fueling the turbine directly. But that's what the GTELs were meant to do.
@@SynchroScore I'd be curious to hear the discussions/justifications back in UP's mechanical department in the 50s & 60s that led to the variety of projects they produced.
would have worked better if they had the coal heat up water, turn it into steam, and use the steam to drive the turbines... oh wait.
A big problem with all the turbine locomotives, not just the coal ones, was that they were _deafeningly loud!_ So much so that their limited use was also restricted to runs in the sparsely populated southwest..
This is insanely well done, great work!!! Love the animations
Theoretically, I suppose you could make it last if you have some very good particle separation after the combustion chamber. But such take very large space so it wouldn't be feasible for a locomotive, maybe for a stationary engine. The heat loss from a large separator before the turbine would also decrease the efficiency. There has also been some experiments with coal powder in diesel engines but with about the same problems as for the turbine. I wonder how the hell they managed to inject a powder against that high pressure.
It is very interesting that UP used a Coal Turbine, never thought of that before. Pity that it wasn't successful
not what I expected, I read coal and turbine and somehow expected that they tried to drive a train using a steam turbine getting its steam from a typical coal fired boiler.
Norfolk & Western and Chesapeake & Ohio both had Baldwin-built steam turbines powered by coal, built in 1954 and 1947-48, respectively.
That's what I expected too. Proven technology from ships and powerplants. What were they thinking using coal exhaust directly in a turbine?
I saw an engine similar to this at the Illinois Railway Museum last year,I thought that was what this was for a moment(what I saw was UP no.X-18,the biggest engine ever built by the Union Pacific)
We've also got a DD40 to go with it.
@@SynchroScore 6930!
Great video lot's of information and interesting facts
To say this unit was a failure would be an understatement. This unit in total was a clusterfxck. Their were stories about the Turbine Erosion getting so bad that it literally grinded the blades to powder. All in all the 8080 was a creature from hell, and it ended up right where it belonged
Love the animation.👍
I was wondering if you could make a video on UP 6706
Thank you for this!
You would have thought that UP's search for huge power on the cheap would have ended after the gas turbines with the troublesome bunker oil, but noooo... 😂
Cool?: yes
Successful?: hell no
The up steam turbines of 1939 we’re interesting and also didn’t last long
Somewhere there's a video of a prototype Oldsmobile? That GM built with a coal turbine as a response to the 70's gas shortages.
When I first read about this loco years ago, the book's author refered to this assemblage as "a contraption".
I'm astonished that this even made it past the "napkin" stage! I mean, the entire internal-combustion concept had to wait until fluid fuels (liquid or gas) were commercialised because it was obvious that chunks of coal would have bent up or jammed all the engine components. Even if they were determined to try it, why build an entire locomotive, rather than just try it out on a test-bed in the back shed first?
Probably some combination of more knowledge than a layman has and perhaps additional incentive provided by coal producers, it looking good to coal producers, the low price of coal or a combination of those things. It's easy to look back with the knowledge of today and question their wisdom, but they were willing to try things without computer simulations and all other manner of ways to gather information we have today.
from a Marine or aero engineer's perspective the (at best) limited success of turbines on railroads in general is utterly baffling, like in ships turbines had been the premium option since the 1910s and in the areo industry... well, I think the turbine's success in that field is so obvious and profound that it doesn't really need to be elaborated on. but on the rails (and to a lesser extent the roads) the tech just never seemed to find widespread sucess.
ships and planes can basically just send it at one power setting for a while, trains and trucks need almost constant throttle alteration to cope with changing track/road geometry, so turbines, which are only really efficient in a limited throttle range, don't make sense.
2:11 if Shawn B was around when those things were still around I bet he would’ve had a stroke 🤣🤣🤣
"A Great Big Rolling Failure on Wheels."
-Cowl Unit Productions, 2023
Should have tried wood gas instead
UP had some amazing engines at the time. I guess they thought they could make anything work.
2:25
BNSF 4706 when 3815 see something cool:
I would *almost* go so far as to pay to run this magnificent beast in a train game
The algorithm has blessed you it seems, or I'm an anomaly haha
Just a tip for polish- mind your transition audio. It trails a little too fast at points, cutting you off. The algorithm brought me here first, then I listened to the SD40E video and it happened there a couple times.
Also your audio levels are jumping a bit, especially with the added effects being much higher than your narrative track. I like to listen to content with my earbuds while I work, and the jumps can be jarring.
In no way trying to be a jerk- just some notes for a growing channel! Enjoying what I see so far!
What happened to 8080A?
A merged version of a Gas turbine[GTEL] Deiseil-electric engine and Steam Locomotive
what simulator did you use during the intro?
How Tall was it in height?
2:24 Loved the farting sound effect better than the original meme 😂😂😂.
Great big rollin' failure also trainz
It would be easier to electrify the energy intensive lines.
Yep. Build a huge efficient coal burning power plant to generate the electricity and electrify the line. Problem is keeping the load consistently at peak efficiency.
@@nmccw3245 Then connect the power plant to the national grid.
You didnt mention that to burn coal in the turbine, it had to be pulverized into a fine powder by a diesel engine operated grinder onboard.
While not exactly the same thing got me some Oliver Bullied "The Leader" vibes.
2:23 aint no way bro why did it have to be that fart sound 😂😭
They murder to perfectly good w1 electric locomotives and I can't forgive them for that.
This merge people would be hoped would be succesfull albeit but eventually it became stupidity for its problemmatic conditions
2:24 LMAO!
Top 5 favorite looking train
But turbine startups don't always go smoothly.
Why didnt the use coal to heat water?!
Turbine startups don't always go smoothly
* Fart sfx *
+2 because the saying engines number sounds like a jojo line
what is the train game you used for this
Trainz 19/22
2:25, GETEL Go *FART*
Also, if their is anyone who could make the Coal Turbines work, it’s the Top Hat Mercenary Confederation.
4:19 When U gonna make video of this
Cab unit scrapped too
First a diesel turbine, Then for some god for saken reason a coal turbine.
Cost. Trying to use a cheaper fuel source.
Lets go
Uh...dafuq you mean GE tried coal for an internal combustion unit AFTER this??
Coal in a diesel engine, not a turbine.Different technology.
Funneh and educating.^^
Even though you have a new PFP, your old PFP is in the video's thumbnail
Man is she beautiful though. Wish she could've been preserved as an example of failed tech which is important for future generations to see
The background music was too loud.
GP9-RM 739 And GP35 744
Bro cooked
I know that China had been working on liquid coal technology and I wonder how that would do! I imagine if it is mixed with other chemicals it may burn very efficiently.
Hell, with all the Nazi scientists we brought back to this country after the war, there should have been some of them who had worked on THEIR coal-to-liquid programs! This idea was right up there with, "Hey let's pulverize coal and blow it into a diesel engine!"
Up should have stayed with steam ins of coal
I smelled turbine? I click
Using the ground up coal to make steam that drives the turbines would have been a better idea. This is proven technology used in many coal fired power stations.
Except for the fact that coal contains abrasive materials that destroy the exhaust turbine.
@@WilhelmKarsten There is no exhaust turbine in such a system.
@@mikethespike7579 GTELs have exhaust turbines.
Steam turbines have been tried, they were also failures.
@@WilhelmKarsten I guess the technology is too heavy for use in railway engines. It's common in power plants. The coal is first ground to a fine dust and then shot with air into a fire chambre where it ignites and turns water into steam. The same identical technology also works with heavy oil and even crude oil.
@@mikethespike7579 It's because steam turbine technology is too inefficient when scaled down to the size of a locomotive and they don't like throttled up and down with variable loads.
👍👍👍
In short, the coal turbine was just too expensive in terms of maintenance. Especially with the arrival of the dual prime mover DD35 and DD40AX locomotives, which offered high power but at way lower maintenance costs.
I didn't like that locomotive I was so weird for me
I dont like the shaking effect at 0:11, 2:07 and 2:46 they just be distracting me
84 reffrence
(Translate)
1:24 essa locomotiva foi muito usada aqui no Brasil e ficou conhecida como russa mesmo sendo um modelo americano,tem história por trás desse apelido
Foi usada pela empresa fepasa é RFFSA
Não tenho certeza se é a mesma dessa foto mas são parecidas
dd35b dd35-A
Normies: “the railways retired steam because it was bad for the environment, right?”
UP: *builds coal turbine*
Normies: “..for the environment… right?”
ALCO: “guys check out this 8,000 horsepower fuel pump I made with a locomotive attached”
What makes anyone think the environment was a big concern in the 1940s-1960s industrial sector? Economics make it possible to even consider.
Steam locos are more labor intensive (and therefore expensive) to operate and maintain. It was all about economics and had nothing whatsoever to do with the environment.
@@nmccw3245 Thank you both for explaining the joke, whatever would I do without you?
@@trainknut - ah, you were making an attempt at humor. 🙄
@@nmccw3245 Jesus Christ you must be fun at parties...
Don't be an asshole man, it don't suit you.
👍👍👍❤❤❤🚂🚂🚂
An interesting story spoiled by buffoonery.
a
Don't know till you try. How about some respect for these men's effort?
🤣
the sound on this vid is fucked.
FIRST 😊😊😊
Rather click bait. You had the model as an Onion Pacific. It's enough to bring you to tears
No, the model says "Union Pacific" on all three parts. The reason the "U" on the cab unit looks like an "O" is because there's a port hole in the upper part of the "U"