Garden Railway Forum

Regardless of the size of coal or shovel Tom at least you have figures in your locomotive whereas so many live steamers are runaways with no driver!

I attach a drawing of a theoretical solution to Wet Exhaust.
I have done no experimentation on my theory, and have no qualification whatsoever in the field.
Per the drawing, the cylinder exhausts are joined at the lowest point by a T junction. the bottom of the leg of the T is blind but for a very small hole. (how small to be determined by experimentation) The theory is that the condensed water will accumulate at the lowest point of the T and be expelled by exhaust steam pressure. The hole must not be large enough to let excessive steam out. An alternative would be to put a leg on each exhaust and not connect them.
Perhaps someone has tried this before? did it work?

Tim

Hi Tim,

I had a similar idea but this will impact the exhaust draft.

The hole needs to be temporary to clear the condensate so you would need a servo or lever to open and close it.

I was hoping to find a hole size which would not expel much steam but at the same time pressure the water that has condensed at the bottom of the tube. Maybe the water tension would prevent the water expelling through such a small hole?

Tim

I am such an idiot.

You know that feeling when you re-read instructions and then the penny drops, well I did that this weekend and realised the replacement nozzles that are supplied by Riverdale for slow running I was fitting on the blower and not the exhaust! The blower nozzle has a tiny hole compared to the exhaust type and this nozzle has been sitting in my spares box for ages while I have been mucking about with exhaust nozzles for both blower and exhaust.

So now that is sorted the amount of condensate has reduced significantly.

I think that's very brave of you to admit to.
Fortunately on this forum where we are all such gentlemen, you won't come in to too much ridicule

No I am an idiot Phil!

The funny thing is when I first built the loco I would of had the blower nozzle on right as the instructions are clear it's just through my swapping about of nozzles I then got it all wrong.