The Bure Valley Railway in Norfolk has returned to trialling manufactured ovoids for use in their steam operation.
The supply of steam coal from Wales has now ended, and the latest supply of ovoids for the railway is a new version that is not yet widely available.
The ovoids use coal residue from the production of other ovoids with a resin binder.
Should this trial be successful, the railway plans to move to a version that includes a source of biomass, providing a suitable fuel for steam locomotives with better sustainability.
The new ovoid is quicker to ignite than other ovoids and also has a longer burn time.
This isnt the first time the railway, which is based in Norfolk, has tested ovoids. The railway has in fact tested the ovoids around 3 years ago, and has also tested them in ‘arduous’ conditions, with the railway winning awards for their research work.
The results will be interesting to see. Further trials of biomass fuels will continue in the autumn. Our research and development continues
BVR Spokesperson
Responses
Carbon zero is a stupid fallacy. It is the emperor’s clothes effect. Close the UK coal mining and lets import at a greater cost. Let’s open the mines, frack, drill for Oli and get this wokey pokey UK back on its feet again. We were are great industrial nation. Viz the wonderful Norfolk railway
Just wait for the moans. Its a faily new idea so it must be wrong. From the Norfolk manual.
Would be interesting to know the actual make up of the avoids I.e from which location the coal bits come from before processing and what type of waste coal they are made from i.e anthracite etc etc.
My father who was a fireman in the real steam days said you ended up knee deep on the footplate with ovoids if the loco was a “rough rider”!!. 🚂🚂👍👍
No matter what we do, this global warming is cyclical, nothing we do will change things. Let’s get another coalmine open and carry on with our lives. My cousin worked his way up to a main line steam driver, and drove restored locomotives until his death, about 20 years ago
I was speaking to volunteers at the East Lancashire Railway, and they said they tried them and they were nowhere near as good as traditional Coal, they said they had trouble keeping Steam and it left a lot of messy waste Ash compared to regular Steam Coal.
I get that emissions need to be reduced, but 1. The UK is only responsible for 1% of Global Carbon emissions which is miniscule amount in the scheme of things, and 2. The amount of Coal Heritage Railways burn a year is tiny, for context, coal fired power stations used to burn many many tons more coal in a day or week than all the heritage railways combined do per year and that’s just one power station, not mention all the rest,
So even running on Regular Steam Coal, the emissions from heritage railways in our country are tiny, and it wouldn’t make any difference to the climate whatsoever.
Sure, Sadly there may no longer be any Coal Mines left in the our country, but there a many countries abroad that still produces high quality Steam Coal, and heritage railways import it from them now,
Govt bang on about Reducing Carbon Emissions, yet they don’t even leave one Working Deep coal mine in our country for Steam Coal and Coal for the Steel industry, and instead bring thousands of miles on ships that are burning HFO(high fuel oil) or Diesel, then have to transport it to where it’s required, it crazy and makes absolutely no sense at all.
It’d have been better to leave one Deep Coal mine Working here in the UK and the coal hasn’t got that far to travel to the heritage railways and steel production plants where it’s needed, would have produced far less emissions than them now having to import it from thousands of miles away, and it’d have also been cheaper to buy for the railways and Steel industry too.
BR used them towards the end of steam. Nightmare to keep steam. Might be different with a small train and 25 mph running