# "Cold" live steam loco powered by dry ice



## Michael (Jan 6, 2008)

Hello,

I vaguely recall an old article in a US hobby magazine (40s, 50s or 60s) about a guy who had built a live steam loco that was powered by frozen CO2 / dry ice. A piece of (then readily available) dry ice was put into the boiler (which was in effect just a pressure vessel), evaporated and built up pressure. The down stream portion was then similar to a conventional loco with valves and cylinders - just powered by cold CO2 instead of hot steam.
Does anyone have more info on that?

Michael


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## mocrownsteam (Jan 7, 2008)

Michael,

I too remember that article. It was in MODEL RAILROADER magazine. The fellow who was into "cold" steam was Joe O'Hearn who was an associate editor of MR at the time. You can go on-line to the MR index and look the article up that way. From what I understand he got quite a bit of ribbing from his fellow staffers on the magazine. I believe he ended up making an "express refrigerator" model to contain even more dry ice to increase the locomotive run time.

Good luck!

Mike 

Mike McCormack
Hudson, Massachusetts


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Mike 

You are correct. Somewhere I have a pdf scan of the article and Joe Hearn's ad offering to sell the locomotive. It requires powered track since it used electric servos to control both the throttle and reverse.


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## Larry Green (Jan 2, 2008)

Mike, I remember that article in MR also. Boy, some of us must be pretty old. 

Larry


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## HMeinhold (Jan 2, 2008)

We looked into dry ice as "fuel" for a fireless or simulated compressed air mining loco. The pressure of somewhere around 1000PSi reached during the melting process (normally dry ice sublimates, but at higher pressure it forms a supercritical fluid) had us abandon the idea. We looked at the MR article and wondered why the idea never took off. Once we realized the pressures involved, we could figure out why...
Regards


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## mocrownsteam (Jan 7, 2008)

Larry,

Yes, I guess we're getting there. My wife is always amazed that I remember "train stuff" from 40-50 years ago, but I can't remember her birthday!!! She says I'm a fountain of useless (to her) trivial knowledge!(Except when she is doing a crossword puzzle) Is that a complement????

Mike 

Mike McCormack
Hudson, Massachusetts


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## Dan Pantages (Jan 2, 2008)

You think we have a problem now with memory, just wait, how long will it be that the several hundred passwords we all have been forced to make up will be lost forever in the cobwebs of our mind. 

1000psi, what did Joe O'Hearn use for a “tank” to hold the pressure. I could see long runs if you had a regulator on the line to the throttle. Keep the pressure you’re using around 50psi going to the cylinders. What happens after the pressure reaches 1000psi, does it stop expanding? When the pressure drops does it continue to melt and expand keeping the pressure at 1000psi till the dry ice is used up? A 1 liter plastic pop bottle will hold 100 + psi so a correctly shaped tank made out of “metal” will hold 1000psi easily.


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## HMeinhold (Jan 2, 2008)

Dan,
this is similar to steam: Pressure and temperature are related. The 1000PSi are typical for around room temperature. At this pressure/temperature the CO2 turns obviously into a supercritical fluid. As long as there is CO2 available and the temperature stays the same, the pressure will be constant. Of course you need a pressure regulator to reduce the pressure to around 20..50PSi for the cylinders. Though building a 1000PSi pressure vessel is daunting but doable, charging this vessel and then closing it up with the pressure skyrocketing seems to be pretty dangerous. That's why we scrapped the idea early on. As far as I remember the inventor used some sort of breech (like on a cannon) to seal the pressure vessel. But what happens if you only partially get the breech in or damage it?
Regards


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

I recall seeing a fireless loco near New Orleans when i visited on business years ago. It was to operate in a flour mill if i recall. it had 4 or 5 small diameter tanks obviously to hold high pressure (air?) it was a small standard gauge 040 and the tanks were a foot or two in diameter and 12-18 feet long if I recall. 

I would guess you could use a CO2 cartridge the same way. I would guess it would have 1000psi +/- pressure too. Pressure regulators used in welder's tanks do the kind of regulation needed, small or miniature regulators might be available.


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

ALL 

I have directed an inquiry to the current owner of the locomotive under discussion and asked him to review this thread. He is a live steamer of long standing and is far more qualified to discuss this particular locomotive than anyone else. Stay tuned.


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## talluncle31 (Jan 19, 2010)

Jim Stapleton drew my attention to this thread. I have the engine that Joe O'Hearn owned and wrote about. When I bought it it had not been run in over forty years and it also suffered damage in shipment to me. Once I had it operable again I wrote an article titled "Dry Ice Revisited" which was offered to "Model Railroader". They declined it without asking to read it and it was published some years later in the TCA Gazette. 

As Jim said, the engine is controlled by signals through the two rail track, but it can be run manually. I have the controller, the special rolling stock built by Joe O'Hearn to increase the rate of gas production and the original carrying case which is festooned with "Model Railroader" decals. I don't run the engine very often because it is rather boring. Rudy Kouhoupt called it a "Dead Steamer", and as usual he was right.

Murray Wilson


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Murray 

Hopefully some day I can offer a large enough bribe to see it run on my track. With wide curves and a reasonable run we might be able to see it really perform. It would be nice to be able to video this historic piece in action, even if you think it qualifies as "rather boring". My gauge 0 no longer has those "pesky" movable points and frogs that have caused so much aggravation to runners in the past, both vintage tinplate and true 1:48 0 scale.


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## HMeinhold (Jan 2, 2008)

What a fascinating story! Can you post some pictures and more information?
Regards


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## mocrownsteam (Jan 7, 2008)

Murray,

Glad to hear it is in good hands! If you could I (we, I'm sure) would love to see some pictures.

Thanks.

Mike

Mike McCormack
Hudson, Massachusetts


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## Chris Scott (Jan 2, 2008)

Murray, 
Submit the original article to SitG to reprint?


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## scottemcdonald (Jan 11, 2008)

Chris, 

it would actually be better for Murray to re-author the article for submission. Getting reprint permission can get involved. Thanks for your interest and I too look forward to seeing this unique piece of model railroading history in action sometime. 

Scott


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## steamboatmodel (Jan 2, 2008)

Back in the 1970's when I was at college we rigged up a go kart to run using a pneumatic motor and two scuba tanks. If I remember correct we got about 1/2 hour run at speeds similar to the gas kart. 
Regards, 
Gerald.


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## astrayelmgod (Jan 2, 2008)

"Hopefully some day I can offer a large enough bribe" 

Are you taking up a collection?


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

ALL - Sent to me by Murray for your enjoyment. Text description is below the pictures.





























Dry Ice revisited --- by Murray Wilson

The October 1949 issue of “Model Railroader” featured an article written by the Editor and described by publisher Al Kalmbach as one of the most significant the magazine had printed. It was titled “Cold Steam Engines” and concerned gauge 0 engines being built in California by a Swiss immigrant which were propelled by dry ice.

Emil Vollenweider was the builder and he was taking commercial metal diecast locomotive kits and fitting them with working cylinders which were driven by the carbon dioxide gas released by dry ice. Dry Ice is solid carbon dioxide and under normal atmospheric conditions it sublimes to gas without going through a liquid stage. Hence the popular name ‘Dry Ice’.

There was nothing new about this form of drive, except that it may have been the first application to model locomotives. The really ingenious feature of the engines was the control mechanism. Mounted in the cab it worked the throttle and the Walshaerts valve gear using one small electric motor, which in turn was controlled by electrical signals through the two rail track.

Mr. Vollenweider is believed to have built only seven engines and it is thought that upon his death six of these went to Switzerland as part of his estate. The seventh engine had been bought by Joe O’Hearn the Sales Manager for Kalmbach Publications, publishers of “Model Railroader”. Mr. O’Hearn’s engine was a 4-8-2 based on a General Models kit, probably a NYC L-3. When in the May 1950 “Model Railroader” he wrote about his running experience with the engine he said the dry ice tank in the tender was not able to produce gas at a sufficient rate and he had built a box car containing another tank to connect in parallel. He later built a tank car to further increase gas production. With this arrangement he then was able to get runs as long as 3 3/4 hours hauling a 15 car train.

These comments reveal the one, but serious, flaw in Mr. Vollenweider’s design. The dry ice container in the tender was made of heavy brass. Brass is not a good conductor of heat compared to copper, the tank was surrounded by the tender sides and received poor air circulation, yet it depended on taking heat from the air to turn the dry ice into gas. This was why Joe O’Hearn found he needed two more tanks in parallel. 

In the September 1953 “Model Railroader” he advertised the engine for sale for $750, stating the replacement value to be $1500, which suggests Mr. Vollenweider was still building or prepared to build engines. The engine was sold and the new owner kept it then until March 2002. It was offered for sale in the TCA “Headquarters News” at least twice, I think three times before I bought it. It was complete with the boxcar, tank car and remote control unit.

The engine came to me in a custom made wooden box festooned with “Model Railroader” and “Kalmbach Publishing” labels and shipping labels from 1953. This box was encased in bubble wrap and inside a strong cardboard box. “Special Handling” had been paid for, but UPS shocked the package so hard that the front coupler and pilot went through the end of the wooden box. UPS has a reputation amongst live steamers for damaging engines, but the vendor had a business relationship with them and confidence in them. The wooden box had been safely shipped unprotected in 1953, but that was via the Railway Express Agency. Fortunately Babbitt Railroad Supply were able to provide a replacement pilot, which interestingly is marked ‘Varney’. There was significant internal damage less easily repaired but which did not show once corrected.

The engine was sold to me as a non runner, it being fifty years since last it had been operated. Fortunately the complex little controller in the cab worked well and it was really only the cylinders that now required attention. The pistons were unconventional, being built up as two back-to-back rubber cup washers. These had been formed by putting a short piece of rubber tubing over a waisted brass core and then binding the tube at its mid point so as to pull it down into the waist and thus create the two back-to-back cups.

The rubber had perished and I was unable to find a suitable replacement, so I made conventional pistons. I think the original piston design supposed the gas entering the cylinder would be very cold. In fact it is not, it has come from a large receiver inside the loco’s boiler casing and is near enough ambient temperature.

The temperature the day of my first run was about 65ºF and as Joe O’Hearn had discovered gas could not be generated fast enough to run the engine more than a few feet. With the aid of a hair dryer on an extension cord I was able to prove the engine would run, but it was obvious something must done about the dry ice tank.

To date it has not been. My intention is to make a new tank of copper, with copper porcupine quills projecting through into the interior. If necessary I will fit a small electric fan in the tender to improve air flow. The thing is the engine is not much fun to operate compared to a live steamer. Never mind ‘cold steam’, this is ‘dead steam’. So given my longish list of more interesting projects this dry ice engine has a low priority now that it has been put back more or less to original running order.

Looking back sixty years obviously Al Kalmbach was mistaken about the promise of this form of propulsion. Perhaps some others were inspired to try it, for I have a poorly made Atlantic that clearly was not a Vollenweider product. Dry ice was though nothing more than an interesting dead end in the development of model locomotives. Even if the engines had been attractively priced, which they weren’t, it is unlikely they would have proved popular.


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Further comments from Murray regarding the locomotive: 

"I have not looked up the temperature against vapor pressure graph for CO2, 
but I can tell you the loco I have is certainly not built with the 
expectation of 1000psi. In fact it does not even have a safety valve as 
such, the design relies on the rubber connecting tube from tender to gas 
receiver within the "boiler" disconnecting itself if the pressure gets too 
high ." 

=========


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## Larry Green (Jan 2, 2008)

Murray, thanks for the background on this engine. Very interesting history. 

Larry


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## HMeinhold (Jan 2, 2008)

Obviously the evaporation rate of the dry ice does not keep up with consumption, so pressure never really builds up. But what happens if you let the loco sit idle for 15min? We were doodling about a model of a compressed air mining loco using dry ice as pressure source.
Regards


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## lotsasteam (Jan 3, 2008)

[No message]


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

now this little motor could be put to work...perhaps running right from the larger BB-gun tank.

how about a little live Diesel critter?


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