Why you shouldn't overclock a steam engine - LMS Fury

In this video, we take a look at an attempt by the LMS to make their engines more powerful by increasing the boiler pressure. It goes about as well as you'd expect

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[steamandsmoke]

The Cylinders were not really the problem, as with most Locomotives fitted with essentially a water tube firebox, it was found to initially steam poorly. This was the same issue that was faced with Gresley's "Hush-Hush". Fury used a 3 stage boiler based on a Schmidt-Henschel design but built by "Elesco" aka The Locomotive Superheater Company, that entailed a 250 psi Firetube barrel that was in the conventional position, forward of the water tube firebox and the high pressure drum. This Firetube section supplied half of the steam for the outer cylinders. A 900 psi Steam Drum supplied the inner high pressure cylinder in the middle of the frames, and the ultra high pressure section which was merely used for heat exchange, was the 1800 psi water tube "Loop" which was a closed circuit filled with distilled water, this transferred the heat of the fire to the 900 psi drum. The reason for that being to prevent scale formation within the water tubes which would reduce heat transfer and restrict water flow, and thus the coolant through the tubes and ultimately lead to a failure. The reason Fury experienced a tube failure has been largely boiled down to two main possibilities. The first theory being brittle failure of one of the watertubes. Nickel Steel was a material widely used in boiler construction at the time which is not ideal because of its brittleness, and has a high probability of stress cracking if subjected to the ferocious heat and high pressures that were present in this particular locomotive. Couple this with the vibration of roaring down the rails at high speed, instead of being in a relatively smooth Marine installation, and the fact that not only are they intended for heat transfer but they're essentially a structural load bearing part of the firebox that supports the weight of the high pressure drum, it's easy to see how it's possible. The other more likely possibility is poor water circulation within the tubes, not being of a large enough cross sectional area to allow sufficient flow of coolant. Being a closed loop, ultimately they form steam voids within that have no where to go, the tubes become vapor locked, blocking all circulation, they overheat from lack of cooling, soften, balloon out and rupture. This was later found to be a common trend in French Locomotives fitted with similarly designed boilers. As to the reason High Pressure was used, Fowler was looking at it from more of a Thermal Efficiency standpoint than a power standpoint. Obviously higher pressure Steam has a higher Enthalpy for a given volume, therefore you can do a greater amount of work with less Steam. Thus saving coal and water, and ultimately money (however, the complexity of the system and it's maintenance negated any savings from fuel efficiency). The Engine was a Compound, it utilized a single High Pressure cylinder in the middle of the frames and two Low Pressures on the outside that ran off a mixture of the exhaust from the HP cylinder and 250 psi steam from the conventional Firetube section of the boiler. The only issue that the center cylinder would have really faced from the high pressure Steam is adequate lubrication because of the extremely high temperature of the Steam. Lubrication technology at the time was obviously not what it is today, so the Steam Cylinder Oil of the period likely congealed and carbonized due to the heat. And to be fair, all of the early Scots (Since Fury was technically a heavily modified Royal Scot) had cylinder issues at the beginning of their careers because their valve spools used Schmidt's single wide rings which were difficult to keep lubricated and sealed. They were later converted to 3 thin rings per spool, 6 per valve which rectified this issue. Later New-Build Scots and Stanier's Rebuilt Scots had the revised valves and rings as well.

[marty]

This is turning into the Sam O'Nella's Academy of train enthusiasts, and I'm all for it.

[zacharyrollick]

Guile's theme to steam locos? Weird but cool.

[FlyingScott]

Quality stuff!

I love how the LMS and LNER set out to test the same principle of high pressure steam, and both ended up with about-as-standard-as you-could-get versions of their existing top-link express locomotives.

[Lucius_Chiaraviglio]

Looks like they didn't adapt the cylinder design accordingly.

[ffjsb]

Many of the later American locomotives ran at high 200's or even 300psi boiler pressure. Big Boys, Challengers, N&W class J's, A's, and Y's ran very well at higher pressures.

[iankemp]

Fury actually had a very useful afterlife as it was rebuilt as the prototype taper-boiler Royal Scot, British Legion. All the original Scots were later rebuilt on very similar lines.

[rileyknapp]

Hm. That actually sounds like an idea that might work really well, if LMS had thought ahead enough to make sure that the pistons/wheels etc were able to properly harness all that PSI.

[davidantoniocamposbarros]

LNER W1: who are you?
LMS Fury: I'm you but didn't got a cool rebuilt

[coralproductions]

Narrator: (calmly explains how steam locomotives move)
Also narrator: *So what happens if you said, "Sod it!" and times that pressure by 10*

[johnnyhollis]

Love it! I built a scratch made brass 4mm model of this interesting experimental loco in the very early 70's. I commissioned name plates etc and it all turned out rather well. Prototype photographic grey which looks quite striking even today! It now sits in a display case rather more quietly by all accounts then the original! Great little reminder video, good job!

[ryankane]

My favorite boiler to work on, is rated for 700 PSI.
Found out yesterday that they usually run it around 2300 PSI.
That's probably why I haven't had much time off in the last year or so.

[MervynPartin]

Dual pressure boilers (as this one) are quite common in marine and industrial applications as a means of extracting more thermal energy from fuel combustion or reactor and thus improving efficiency.
I believe that in Fury's case, the high pressure boiler was a sealed system used to heat the lower pressure system, and not applied to the cylinders directly, but complicated systems do not necessarily lead to reliability
As an aside, the diesel loco in my channel icon was the Ruston 88DS used at GWS Didcot and was named "FURY" (FOR USE ROUND the YARD) by the volunteers there.

[johnjephcote]

I remember visiting Crewe works in 1959. In the paint shop the staff were peeling the backing paper off the tender transfer of a sparkling, newly painted Scot - British Legion. This was originally Fury but rebuilt as a standard Scot. (PS. I thought it was the LMS fireman who was blown back over the tender when a high pressure steampipe burst on the footplate. Was he the company employee that you mentioned?).

[iankemp]

The other reason for very high pressure is that it theoretically gives higher thermodynamic efficiency. That's fine in power stations with plenty of space, but not in the limited dimensions of a steam engine moving around with lots of stresses. So in practice no subsequent engines went above 280 psi (Fury was 950) and even that was found unnecessary and reduced to 250.

[thewildwegonian]

I'm curious if they had changed the design around the piston count and or placements, would the high pressure boil have made things more practical.

Cause if the standard piston setup only reached peak efficiency through standard boiler/pressure outputs, which amount to half related to the high pressure boiler then it would be interesting to see what changes to the pistons could have made an impact or not.

[Tom-Lahaye]

One of the main problems wit high pressure steam in a locomotive is its very high temperature.
A reciprocating (piston) engine has a lot of parts which need lubrication but are in direct contact with steam such as piston/valve rings and glands around their rods where they protrude from the cylinders they are in, oil is injected directly into the steam feed to supply this lubrication.
But there were no lubricants which could withstand these temperatures of around 350-450°C, and so wear on the rings and glands was a big issue, complicated by the fact that these parts had to withstand the higher pressure.
A steam turbine would have been much more suited for high pressure steam, many ships and most power plants use this setup.
The bearings of the turbine shaft are the only parts which need lubrication in a turbine and these are outside the steam path so not subjected to very high temperatures.
In Sweden a locomotive which used a water pipe boiler and a steam turbine was built, and that was a moderately successful locomotive.

[Peasmouldia]

Not a good look when a fire-tube boiler tube fails. When a water-tube boiler tube fails, goodnight

[jamestarbet]

Fury: KaBoOm??!
Skipper: Yes Fury. Kaboom.

[sotoroiguess]

Is that Guile's theme I hear? Nice choice.