The Press TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1947. Conversion to Oil

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25088, 21 January 1947, Page 6

The Press TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1947. Conversion to Oil

Satisfied with the tests of two K class locomotives which were coni verted to burn oil fuel, the Govern- , ment has decided to convert another 20 KA locomotives for service on North Island lines, according to a statement last week by the Minister of Railways. Mr Semple said the 'Railways Department : hopes, by this means, eventually to restore the former train time-tables, which have been restricted by the i shortage of coal. Great Britain is I planning to conserve coal in the same way, but there the conversion of coal-fired locomotives to oilburners is only one part of an extensive scheme for the wider use of fuel oil in industry. The British Government expects to save 3,000,000 tons of coal a year by substituting 2,000,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, and it has pursued this end vigorously, helping industry with technical advice, facilitating the supply of conversion plant, and removing the duty on heavy oil. The railways’ share in the coal-saving plan in Britain is considerable, since the conversion of some 1200 locomotives, announced last year, was designed to save 1,000,000 tons of coal annually. There is no disposition in Britain to regard this as anything but an expedient forced on the Government and on industry by the desperate shortage of coal. It is an expedient in New Zealand, too, where the higher relative cost of fuel oil makes it a more expensive expedient than in Great Britain. The “Economist”, in a survey of conversion and operating costs, pointed out some of the disadvantages:

While the railways have taken the lead, the case for conversion of steam traction to oil firing should be carefully distinguished from the replacement of eoal by oil in other industries. Oil firing of steam locomotives is not in itself economical. Applying the usual ratio of two tons of oil to three of coal, to use oil for locomotive steam raising gives results which are below the thermal efficiency of fuel oil when it is employed in diesel electric locomotives, which consume fuel only when they are working, and then in proportion to their load. There are now over 3000 such locomotives in the United States, compared with 800 in 1940, and it has been claimed that their efficiency, as compared with equivalent coal-fired locomotives, is as high as seven to one. In these circumstances, it could be argued "that there is no long-term economic future for oil conversion as it is being applied at present on the railways. While this may be true, it does not follow for industry as a whole, for in some branches of industry the benefits of what may have been • conceived as a short-term remedy may well have some more permanent application. At least, some , examples of other industries which are now turning to the use of oil fuel suggest that a new pattern of industrial change may be in the making.

The Railways Department in New Zealand has not yet made public the cost of converting locomotives and the comparative operating costs of the two firing systems. Even high costs are probably justified by the emergency. The measure is, however, only a stop-gap. It can tide the railways over until enough coal is produced to serve the needs of the country or until more positive progress has been made with the plans for electrification. These must be slow as they must wait not only upon the uncertain delivery of equipment from abroad but on overtaking the lag in power generating capacity in this country. In the long run the future of New Zealand railways should lie in electric traction. In the meantime the Railways Department is building coal-fired locomotives, although coal is a valuable and diminishing national resource. The department cannot afford to neglect the possibilities of converting coal-firing locomotives to oil, of building locomotives properly designed for the burning of oil, or of using the highly efficient diesel electric locomotive. Little has been heard from the department about the second and third possibilities.