BIOFUEL TRAINS

Seeking wood and biofuel fired steam.

First, I started to document a bumper sticker here, but it might offend some people so I removed it. I don't want to offend anyone. I'm sorry if I offended you. Some of my humor belongs elsewhere.

Second, let me explain. Having been through the first energy crisis of the 1970's I concluded two things: 1. The biggest crisis is always a failure of hope. 2. Working together, and looking at both the past and the future, we can solve the biggest of problems and have fun at the same time.

The website name www.darewehope.org comes from a railfan article "Dare We Hope?" around 1980 announcing the movement of the UP 3985 Challenger to the shop for evaluation. Not too long after, for a time, it became the largest operable non-petroleum-powered locomotive. I saw it fired up as a coal-burner at the first Railfair in Sacramento, California. I toured the cab. They really did it.

Blacksmithing welding rod into a symbolic key for St. Andrew's Day for my Polish class at Portland Community College, the key in service, and a battery clamp for an electric car project undertaken by a fellow member of West Hills Friends Church.

Typing a letter to Henry Posner III about biomass firing QJ's. Project documented on QJ page..

Link to videos taken Oct. 21, 2008 as brakeman on Heisler #3 on my latest trip to the Sumpter Valley Railway: http://www.youtube.com/biofueltrains

Some of my current projects directly involve Biofuel Trains and some do not. My current Plan:

1. Build 1 hp model of an Atlas stationary engine to match 1 hp boiler. Here is a separate page for this project:Atlas Engine

2. Study more Polish for trip back to THE WOLSZTYN EXPERIENCE (which has received a 5-year extension). See also my earlier trip report Wolsztyn This is the ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD where you can, for a small fee, become a FIRST GENERATION STEAM LOCOMOTIVE OPERATOR operating a steam locomotive in revenue service.

3. Plan trip to Paraguay to see wood fired revenue steam.

4. Investigate the possibility of a return of NP 1762/SP&S 539 to the Pacific Northwest. This locomotive was built as Northern Pacific 1762 and was designed to burn lower-grade (subbituminous) Rosebud coal from NP's surface mine near Colstrip, Montana. It is a class W-3 Mikado, which was one of NP's standard freight locomotives. I feel it would be the perfect densified wood (pellet) fired locomotive. I did some maintenance on that locomotive while it was in the park in Battle Ground. It was then sold and traded to the Grand Canyon Railway.

Some recent projects have been:

1. Asked Henry Posner III if he would like to test a QJ with densified corn stover. I have documented this on the QJ page.

2. Collected firewood for home use (Saturday 10/11/08 firewood for home).

wooding up 1 wooding up 2

3. Finished my commitments at Sumpter Valley Railroad for the season. I was on the woodburner as conductor and brakeman at the Fall Photo Run Oct. 18-19. (See videos and photos above and earlier SVRy trip)

4. Documented ex-SP Wrecker Crane at Antique Powerland in Brooks, Oregon (even if it is an oil burner...) By working with the original operator of the crane, this is an opportunity to become a SECOND GENERATION STEAM EQUIPMENT OPERATOR.

I intended to turn this effort into a non-profit dedicated to preserving and promoting biomass-fired steam locomotives. I put a DONATE button on my website, tied to a PayPal account. However, there really has not been that much interest generated so far. I have, therefore, not set up a non-profit corporation. Even though I have not received any donations (other than from yours truly to test the system), PayPal wrote me a very stern letter saying I needed to make the following statement near my donate button:

Donations to this website are not tax-deductible for federal income tax purposes.

DONATIONS TO THIS WEBSITE, DAREWEHOPE.ORG, BIOFUEL TRAINS OR CHARLES TURNER ARE NOT TAX DEDUCTIBLE FOR FEDERAL INCOME TAX PURPOSES!

Of course donations would help me pay for this website. I tested it, it actually works.

Earlier news:(5/19/08) Added compliance text next to useless Donate button. (5/10/08) Removed most explanation material, went to interesting topics format. (1/13/08) Split my steam stories from those steam stories given to me. (12/19/07) Added another story to my steam stories page. Added video links.

Volunteered for train crew at the Sumpter Valley Railway Photo Run, fired wood-burning Heisler 10/14/07. (Found stove-length firewood provided earlier is only used to heat the shop!) Went to Wolsztyn, Poland 6/22/07 to run locomotives, including hand firing with coal.

We have a wood-fired steam locomotive revival in Paraguay, with Paraguay Pictures. (Locomotives were taken out of retirement and are in use as wood-fired freight haulers.) Unfortunately, the videos on YouTube seem to be old or of the occasional tourist trip:

Paraguay Tourist Train

We still have wood- and bagasse-fired trains in Java:

Java Video Part I

Java Video Part II

The steam locomotive can convert biofuel to transportation.

Another writer can state the case more eloquently than I can. Here is the start to a translation of Olmo's Modern Steam Power

The original is in Spanish on Martyn Bane's website.

Here are some efficiency notes.

Thank all of you for looking! Feedback comments are some items resulting from your help.

My favorite websites:

Wes Barris' "steamlocomotive dot com" contains lists of surviving USA locomotives and technical info on locomotives.

Rob Dickinson's International Working Steam Locomotives 2007 contains lists, articles and links about steam locomotives doing real work in the world today. Other topics include stationary steam engines worldwide.

Martyn Bane's Steam and Travel Pages is the best place to start for Modern Steam news.

The Ultimate Steam Page is the best overview of Modern Steam.

DONATIONS TO THIS WEBSITE ARE NOT TAX DEDUCTIBLE FOR FEDERAL INCOME TAX PURPOSES.

So far I have received SEVERAL emails!!!

DONATIONS TO THIS WEBSITE ARE NOT TAX DEDUCTIBLE FOR FEDERAL INCOME TAX PURPOSES.