Franco-Crosti boiler
The Franco -Crosti locomotive was a steam locomotive, whose specialty was special preheating. Externals were a side-mounted license plate or two next to the boiler barrel chimneys.
The Franco -Crosti principle
To the rather low efficiency of max. To increase 10% of the steam locomotive, the Italian engineers Attilo Franco ( 1873-1936 ) and Piero Crosti developed the principle named after them both to heat with flue gases in the boiler feed water additionally attached Vorwärmerkesseln.
As with all locomotives, the flue gases produced in the fire box and directed from the back to the front through the long boiler into the smoke chamber so that steam is formed. In the Franco -Crosti locomotives they were led by the smoke chamber in the pre-heater and not discharged as with an ordinary steam locomotive of the smoke chamber above the chimney. In the smoke chamber, a deflection of the flue gases was 180 ° back towards the rear in the direction of the driver's cab. Only then came the flue gases in the chimney, which therefore had to be fitted to the side. Depending on the engine one or two preheating were present, either in addition to or, as in the picture, were under the boiler barrel of the vehicle. This heated with their flue gases before the water with which the vessel was fed.
The serviceability of this principle has been demonstrated with the locomotive NMBS / SNCB 2036 " Le Mastodont ", which was built in 1932 in Belgium as the first Franco -Crosti locomotive. Later existing locomotives were rebuilt after the Franco -Crosti principle, to 20 % achieved a carbon savings of 15% compared to the original types.
Dissemination
Outside Europe, no Franco -Crosti locomotive was operated. The largest number of these locomotives introduced the Ferrovie dello Stato ( Italian State Railways, abbreviation FS ) with over 200 pieces in service. This was followed by the German Federal Railway with two locomotives of Class 42.90 and 31 units of the class 50.40. The British Rail ( national railway company of the United Kingdom Abk: BR ) operating ten locomotives. The Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles ( State Railway of Spain - Abbr: RENFE ), National Maatschappij der Belgische Spoorwegen / Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges ( Belgian Railways, abbreviated as NMBS / SNCB) and Iarnród Éireann ( Irish National Railways, abbreviated as ie) each had a locomotive in service. Two built in Belgium during the Second World War for the German Reich locomotives arrived in Poland.