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112-751: Moreton Central Sugar Mill was a sugar milling facility in Nambour, Queensland , Australia owned by Bundaberg Sugar Ltd. Sugar cane was first brought to Australia in 1788, but subsequent plantings at Sydney , Port Macquarie and Norfolk Island failed to be commercially viable. Captain Louis Hope grew a cane crop successfully in Queensland in 1862. By 1864 the first commercial sugar mill in Australia had been established by him at Ormiston and interest in growing sugar cane spread rapidly, encouraged by

224-659: A Scottish inventor, built a small-scale prototype of a steam road locomotive in Birmingham . A full-scale rail steam locomotive was proposed by William Reynolds around 1787. An early working model of a steam rail locomotive was designed and constructed by steamboat pioneer John Fitch in the US during 1794. Some sources claim Fitch's model was operable already by the 1780s and that he demonstrated his locomotive to George Washington . His steam locomotive used interior bladed wheels guided by rails or tracks. The model still exists at

336-660: A (newly identified) Killingworth Billy in 1816. He also constructed The Duke in 1817 for the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway , which was the first steam locomotive to work in Scotland. In 1825, Stephenson built Locomotion No. 1 for the Stockton and Darlington Railway , north-east England, which was the first public steam railway in the world. In 1829, his son Robert built in Newcastle The Rocket , which

448-448: A balance has to be struck between obtaining sufficient draught for combustion whilst giving the exhaust gases and particles sufficient time to be consumed. In the past, a strong draught could lift the fire off the grate, or cause the ejection of unburnt particles of fuel, dirt and pollution for which steam locomotives had an unenviable reputation. Moreover, the pumping action of the exhaust has the counter-effect of exerting back pressure on

560-445: A base for cattle-feed, industrial alcohol, yeast production and so on. Boiling in a vacuum pan used to be a batch process, but continuous pan boiling is inherently far more efficient. In the 1970s the first commercially successful continuous vacuum pans (CVPs) were developed. In the 1980s these first pans achieved a better uniform crystal size than that which some factories achieved with their batch process vacuum pans. The sugar from

672-465: A brown or raw sugar. Raw sugar is generally sent to a sugar refinery to produce white sugar. This sugar refining can be done either at a completely separate factory or at a back-end refinery which is attached to the raw sugar factory. A cane sugar mill can also produce sugar that is suitable for direct domestic or industrial consumption. This is called plantation white sugar or mill white sugar, see below. The overall quality of raw sugar that goes into

784-486: A crankpin on the driving wheel ( Main driver in the US) or to a crank on a driving axle. The movement of the valves in the steam chest is controlled through a set of rods and linkages called the valve gear , actuated from the driving axle or from the crankpin; the valve gear includes devices that allow reversing the engine, adjusting valve travel and the timing of the admission and exhaust events. The cut-off point determines

896-429: A gauge mounted in the cab. Steam pressure can be released manually by the driver or fireman. If the pressure reaches the boiler's design working limit, a safety valve opens automatically to reduce the pressure and avoid a catastrophic accident. The exhaust steam from the engine cylinders shoots out of a nozzle pointing up the chimney in the smokebox. The steam entrains or drags the smokebox gases with it which maintains

1008-474: A juice of poor clarity, which can be recycled for further purification. The evaporation process serves to concentrate the clarified juice. The most widely used evaporator is a multiple-effect evaporator of the Roberts type. The product of this step is syrup of 78 to 86% purity with a soluble solid content of 60-65°Brix and containing 3.5-4.5% invert sugars. The temperature, velocity and retention time in

1120-488: A lower pressure in the smokebox than that under the firebox grate. This pressure difference causes air to flow up through the coal bed and keeps the fire burning. The search for thermal efficiency greater than that of a typical fire-tube boiler led engineers, such as Nigel Gresley , to consider the water-tube boiler . Although he tested the concept on the LNER Class W1 , the difficulties during development exceeded

1232-433: A lower reciprocating mass than three, four, five or six coupled axles. They were thus able to turn at very high speeds due to the lower reciprocating mass. A trailing axle was able to support a huge firebox, hence most locomotives with the wheel arrangement of 4-4-2 (American Type Atlantic) were called free steamers and were able to maintain steam pressure regardless of throttle setting. The chassis, or locomotive frame ,

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1344-639: A number of Swiss steam shunting locomotives were modified to use electrically heated boilers, consuming around 480 kW of power collected from an overhead line with a pantograph . These locomotives were significantly less efficient than electric ones ; they were used because Switzerland was suffering a coal shortage because of the War, but had access to plentiful hydroelectricity . A number of tourist lines and heritage locomotives in Switzerland, Argentina and Australia have used light diesel-type oil. Water

1456-461: A number of important innovations that included using high-pressure steam which reduced the weight of the engine and increased its efficiency. Trevithick visited the Newcastle area in 1804 and had a ready audience of colliery (coal mine) owners and engineers. The visit was so successful that the colliery railways in north-east England became the leading centre for experimentation and development of

1568-459: A rigid frame with a 30% weight reduction. Generally, the largest locomotives are permanently coupled to a tender that carries the water and fuel. Often, locomotives working shorter distances do not have a tender and carry the fuel in a bunker, with the water carried in tanks placed next to the boiler. The tanks can be in various configurations, including two tanks alongside ( side tanks or pannier tanks ), one on top ( saddle tank ) or one between

1680-401: A tank in the locomotive tender or wrapped around the boiler in the case of a tank locomotive . Periodic stops are required to refill the tanks; an alternative was a scoop installed under the tender that collected water as the train passed over a track pan located between the rails. While the locomotive is producing steam, the amount of water in the boiler is constantly monitored by looking at

1792-402: A three roller crusher, which together open most of the thin-walled cells. The juice is then removed from these opened cells by leaching. I.e. the sucrose from these opened cells dissolves in water. The diffusion process proper takes place on the 10-16% of sugar containing cells that have not been opened. First hot water is applied to kill the protoplasm of the cells. This makes that the walls of

1904-424: Is added to serve as nuclei for sugar crystals, and more syrup is added as the water evaporates. The growth of crystals continues till the vacuum pan is full. The crystals and the mother liquor (molasses) now form a dense mass known as massecuite . The 'strike' (contents of the pan) is then discharged into a crystallizer. In the crystallizer, the crystallization process of the massecuite continues. The purpose of

2016-410: Is called a tandem mill or mill train. To improve the milling extraction efficiency, imbibition water is added at each mill. Hot water is poured over the cane just before it enters the last mill in the milling train and is recirculated up to reach the first mill. The juice squeezed from this cane is low in sugar concentration and is pumped to the preceding mill and poured onto the cane just before it enters

2128-475: Is crucial to the efficiency of any steam locomotive, and the internal profiles of the chimney (or, strictly speaking, the ejector ) require careful design and adjustment. This has been the object of intensive studies by a number of engineers (and often ignored by others, sometimes with catastrophic consequences). The fact that the draught depends on the exhaust pressure means that power delivery and power generation are automatically self-adjusting. Among other things,

2240-419: Is directed upwards out of the locomotive through the chimney, by way of a nozzle called a blastpipe , creating the familiar "chuffing" sound of the steam locomotive. The blastpipe is placed at a strategic point inside the smokebox that is at the same time traversed by the combustion gases drawn through the boiler and grate by the action of the steam blast. The combining of the two streams, steam and exhaust gases,

2352-409: Is generally controlled by a central process control system, which directly controls most of the machines and components. Only for certain special machines such as the centrifuges in the sugar house decentralized PLCs are used. This also has to do with security for security reasons. Sugar mills date back to Arab Egypt in the 12th century. An artisanal version is the trapiche , later substituted by

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2464-413: Is important that cane is crushed soon after harvesting to maintain its sugar content, this had an adverse effect on the functioning of the mill. The price of sugar also fell and a crisis was reached in 2002. It was decided that Moreton Mill would close. Its last crush took place on 3 December 2003. The majority of the tramlines were removed by Bundaberg Sugar as part of an agreement with landowners from whom

2576-441: Is normally used. Sugarcane diffusion is the process of extracting the sucrose from the cane by osmosis and lixiviation also known as leaching . There are two types of diffusers. One relies on immerging the mat of bagasse in the juice by counterflow. The other relies on percolation of the juice through the mat of bagasse. At a chemical level, the first step is to open the cells. This is usually done by revolving cane-knives and

2688-407: Is the exception. There are multiple ways to use sulphitation for making plantation white sugar. In the purification stage of cold acid sulphitation, SO 2 is added to the mixed juice in order to lower the pH to 3.8-4.2. Lime is then added to increase the pH to 7.2-7.4. Next the juice is heated to 103-105°C before moving to the clarifier. In the clarifier the impurities settle, and the resulting

2800-415: Is the principal structure onto which the boiler is mounted and which incorporates the various elements of the running gear. The boiler is rigidly mounted on a "saddle" beneath the smokebox and in front of the boiler barrel, but the firebox at the rear is allowed to slide forward and backwards, to allow for expansion when hot. European locomotives usually use "plate frames", where two vertical flat plates form

2912-403: Is then again heated to 55°C and lime and CO 2 is added till a pH of 8.4-8.6 is reached. This is followed by a second pressure filtration. At the end of the evaporation step, Sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) is added to lower the pH of the syrup to 7.0. In sugar factories, carbonation is not widely used, because it requires large quantities of lime and CO 2 , and sulphitation is cheaper. India

3024-447: Is then allowed to flash to its saturation temperature: this process precipitates impurities, which get held up in calcium carbonate crystals. The flashed juice is then transferred to a clarification tank. In this clarification tank, the suspended solids are sedimented. The supernatant , known as clear juice is drawn off of the clarifier. The clarified juice is then sent to the evaporators. The settled solids can be filtered to produce

3136-562: Is then dissolved and fed back to the syrup, while the C-sugar is dissolved or used as seed for the B-sugar. In storage, plantation white is more vulnerable than raw sugar. Sugar produced by carbonation is especially vulnerable to color change. Ash content also contributes to discoloration. In Brazil discoloration is countered by storing at a maximum temperature of 35-40°C and by producing sugar of 166 IU so lots of color can be lost before

3248-402: Is then filtered. The purification stage of hot acid sulphitation involves first heating the mixed juice to 70°C before lowering the pH to 3.8-4.2 by adding SO 2 . The process then runs like that of cold acid sulphitation. The purification stage of double liming consists of first heating the mixed juice to 70°C and adding lime till a pH of 7.2-7.4 is reached. SO 2 is then added to lower

3360-924: The Drache , was delivered in 1848. The first steam locomotives operating in Italy were the Bayard and the Vesuvio , running on the Napoli-Portici line, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The first railway line over Swiss territory was the Strasbourg – Basel line opened in 1844. Three years later, in 1847, the first fully Swiss railway line, the Spanisch Brötli Bahn , from Zürich to Baden

3472-530: The Nambour region to areas near Coolum Beach , Valdora and Noosa . By 1967, when the Sunshine Coast was officially named, the mill's tramway was 70 miles long, as it required to receive the maximum amount of local sugar. Sugarcane mill The term is also used to refer to the equipment that crushes the sticks of sugar cane to extract the juice. There are a number of steps in producing raw sugar from cane: These processing steps will produce

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3584-591: The Ohio Historical Society Museum in Columbus, US. The authenticity and date of this locomotive is disputed by some experts and a workable steam train would have to await the invention of the high-pressure steam engine by Richard Trevithick , who pioneered the use of steam locomotives. The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was the 3 ft ( 914 mm ) gauge Coalbrookdale Locomotive built by Trevithick in 1802. It

3696-612: The Pennsylvania Railroad class S1 achieved speeds upwards of 150 mph, though this was never officially proven. In the United States, larger loading gauges allowed the development of very large, heavy locomotives such as the Union Pacific Big Boy , which weighs 540 long tons (550  t ; 600 short tons ) and has a tractive effort of 135,375 pounds-force (602,180 newtons). Beginning in

3808-540: The Queensland Government . By 1867 an estimated 2000 acres were under cane in the Brisbane area and by the end of the decade, cane had also been successfully established further north at Maryborough , Mackay and Bundaberg , where the warmer climate proved more suitable. William Clark had experimented with sugar cane growing at Bli Bli in the 1860s, but in 1869 a group of Quakers took up land near

3920-411: The engenho or ingenio . In the 1820s a general description of sugar plantations on Jamaica was given. What we now call a sugar mill then consisted of: the sugar mill proper, a boiling house and a still house. These were aligned on a slope, so the sugar juice could flow downwards from the mill to the still house. Steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides

4032-535: The 1880s, so possible routes for a tramway network were surveyed as part of the planning for the Moreton Mill. A two-foot (610mm) gauge was chosen for the sake of economy, speed not being an important factor in the running of the tramway, though the wagons were at first pulled by horses. In 1897 the first tramlines were constructed east to Perrin's Barn and west to the foot of the Perwillowen Range and

4144-572: The Buderim Mountain Sugar Mill was established and also served many small farms, but both mills had failed by the end of the decade. In 1893, the Sugar Works Guarantee Act was passed. This provided capital for the erection of central sugar mills in districts with many small farms by offering loans to incorporated companies, so that growers could develop their own mills. The Moreton Central Sugar Mill Company

4256-600: The Enterprise Sugar mill in Louisiana had a traditional mill and a diffuser, which both processed cane from the same area. Weekly raw juice samples were taken and analyzed. These were found to be very similar, despite the diffuser achieving a higher extraction. Juice extraction by milling is the process of squeezing the juice from the cane under a set of mills using high pressure between heavy iron rollers. Those mills can have from 3 up to 6 rolls; every set of mills

4368-514: The Nambour & District Historical Museum Association. Steam locomotives were utilised at the mill until the 1980s but at the same time were also operating Diesel and V8 petrol locomotives. The former Howard Street Marshalling Yards were purchased by Aldi Supermarkets who have developed an Aldi Supermarket on the location. The mill's tramway network connected the many farms to the mill, ensuring quick transportation. The farms stretched from

4480-582: The Saar (today part of Völklingen ), but neither could be returned to working order after being dismantled, moved and reassembled. On 7 December 1835, the Adler ran for the first time between Nuremberg and Fürth on the Bavarian Ludwig Railway . It was the 118th engine from the locomotive works of Robert Stephenson and stood under patent protection. In Russia , the first steam locomotive

4592-423: The US), or screw-reverser (if so equipped), that controls the cut-off, therefore, performs a similar function to a gearshift in an automobile – maximum cut-off, providing maximum tractive effort at the expense of efficiency, is used to pull away from a standing start, whilst a cut-off as low as 10% is used when cruising, providing reduced tractive effort, and therefore lower fuel/water consumption. Exhaust steam

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4704-617: The United States, including John Fitch's miniature prototype. A prominent full sized example was Col. John Steven's "steam wagon" which was demonstrated on a loop of track in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1825. Many of the earliest locomotives for commercial use on American railroads were imported from Great Britain, including first the Stourbridge Lion and later the John Bull . However, a domestic locomotive-manufacturing industry

4816-433: The addition of phosphoric acid; surface-active agents and phosphate, followed by heating and aeration of the syrup and addition of flocculant . The syrup is then moved to a special clarifier. The crystallization and centrifugation steps for plantation white might differ on account of the boiling system used. For plantation white the regular three-boiling system can be used. An alternative is to only ship A-Sugar. The B-sugar

4928-550: The adhesive weight. Equalising beams connecting the ends of leaf springs have often been deemed a complication in Britain, however, locomotives fitted with the beams have usually been less prone to loss of traction due to wheel-slip. Suspension using equalizing levers between driving axles, and between driving axles and trucks, was standard practice on North American locomotives to maintain even wheel loads when operating on uneven track. Locomotives with total adhesion, where all of

5040-402: The boiler materials to the point where it needs to be rebuilt or replaced. Start-up on a large engine may take hours of preliminary heating of the boiler water before sufficient steam is available. Although the boiler is typically placed horizontally, for locomotives designed to work in locations with steep slopes it may be more appropriate to consider a vertical boiler or one mounted such that

5152-404: The boiler remains horizontal but the wheels are inclined to suit the slope of the rails. The steam generated in the boiler fills the space above the water in the partially filled boiler. Its maximum working pressure is limited by spring-loaded safety valves. It is then collected either in a perforated tube fitted above the water level or by a dome that often houses the regulator valve, or throttle,

5264-399: The boiler. Boiler water surrounds the firebox to stop the metal from becoming too hot. This is another area where the gas transfers heat to the water and is called the firebox heating surface. Ash and char collect in the smokebox as the gas gets drawn up the chimney ( stack or smokestack in the US) by the exhaust steam from the cylinders. The pressure in the boiler has to be monitored using

5376-414: The cell becomes semipermeable . By osmosis, water or thinner juice can then enter the cell and replace heavier juice until an equilibrium is reached. In this phase sucrose penetrates the walls faster than non-sugar with higher molecular weight. This makes that the purity of the last extracted juice from diffusion is higher than that acquired by straight milling, even while diffusing extracts more sugar. In

5488-424: The centrifuges is dried and cooled and then stored. During bulk storage the quality of the raw sugar decreases because of a chemical reaction between amino acids and degraded invert sugars, known as the maillard reaction . The raw sugar can also be directly packed into bags for shipment. In many cane sugar producing countries the standard sugar product is generally known as plantation white sugar. In rich countries,

5600-415: The crystallizer for more than a day. The C-sugar from the centrifuge is mingled with syrup and used as massecuite seed, and so returns to the start of the process. The molasses resulting from this centrifuge step are called final molasses, or blackstrap. It is a heavy viscous material containing about one-third sucrose, one-fifth reducing sugars, and the remainder ash, organic non-sugars and water. It serves as

5712-445: The crystallizer is to reduce loss of sucrose by it remaining in the mother liquor / molasses, in particular with low-grade massecuites. The crystallizer works by cooling the massecuite. This decreases solubility and again increases saturation, forcing crystallization to continue. Crystallizers are cylindrical or U-shaped vessels equipped with low-speed stirring elements. They are often connected in series for continues operation. Cooling

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5824-401: The diffuser and this dilute juice is allowed to percolate through the bed of cane. At this point the concentration of sucrose in the cane is higher than the concentration of sucrose in the dilute juice just mentioned and so sucrose diffuses from the cane to the juice; this now slightly richer juice is pumped back up the diffuser and the process is repeated, typically, 12 to 15 times (compared with

5936-689: The dominant fuel worldwide in steam locomotives. Railways serving sugar cane farming operations burned bagasse , a byproduct of sugar refining. In the US, the ready availability and low price of oil made it a popular steam locomotive fuel after 1900 for the southwestern railroads, particularly the Southern Pacific. In the Australian state of Victoria, many steam locomotives were converted to heavy oil firing after World War II. German, Russian, Australian and British railways experimented with using coal dust to fire locomotives. During World War 2,

6048-440: The early 1900s, steam locomotives were gradually superseded by electric and diesel locomotives , with railways fully converting to electric and diesel power beginning in the late 1930s. The majority of steam locomotives were retired from regular service by the 1980s, although several continue to run on tourist and heritage lines. The earliest railways employed horses to draw carts along rail tracks . In 1784, William Murdoch ,

6160-452: The evaporator are regulated to prevent sucrose inversion , or decomposition of sucrose in glucose and fructose. Another concern is scale formation on the heating surface of the evaporator. The application of a magnetic flow can help to prevent scaling. Crystallization is done with a single-effect vacuum boiling pan and a crystallizer. In the vacuum pan, the syrup is evaporated until it gets supersaturated with sugar. At this point seed grain

6272-431: The exhaust gas volume was vented through a cooling tower, allowing the steam exhaust to draw more air past the radiator. Running gear includes the brake gear, wheel sets , axleboxes , springing and the motion that includes connecting rods and valve gear. The transmission of the power from the pistons to the rails and the behaviour of the locomotive as a vehicle, being able to negotiate curves, points and irregularities in

6384-457: The factory is dependent on agricultural practices and the cultivar used. Harvesting can be done by machines or by hand. If done by hand, it is normally preceded by burning the field. However, stalks from a burnt field more quickly loose sugar content while waiting to be processed. Cane is transported by truck, narrow-gauge railway , container or cart . On arrival the cane is sold based on weight or sugar content. There are several ways to unload

6496-448: The firebox becomes exposed. Without water on top of the sheet to transfer away the heat of combustion , it softens and fails, letting high-pressure steam into the firebox and the cab. The development of the fusible plug , a temperature-sensitive device, ensured a controlled venting of steam into the firebox to warn the fireman to add water. Scale builds up in the boiler and prevents adequate heat transfer, and corrosion eventually degrades

6608-505: The first harvest was crushed at the mill. The Moreton Central Sugar Mill ended crushing operations in late 2003 and was demolished in 2006. Prior to the mill's closure, Finasucre (Belgium) bought Bundaberg Sugar Ltd. Between 1980 and 2003 more than 1,000 hectares of cane land in Maroochy Shire were lost to urban development and other uses. This meant that some cane was being brought to the mill from 60 or 70 kilometres away. As it

6720-565: The first stage, A-sugar, is stored. The molasses from the A-centrifugation, A-molasses, are fed to the B vacuum pan. This results in B-sugar and B-molasses. A mix of A-sugar and B-sugar forms the commercial product of the factory. The B-molasses are of a much lower purity. They are boiled again in the C-pan. While the A and B stage do not always use a crystallizer, it is essential for this low-grade massecuite. The massecuite remains in

6832-477: The force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam . It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal , oil or, rarely, wood ) to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels. In most locomotives, the steam is admitted alternately to each end of its cylinders in which pistons are mechanically connected to

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6944-532: The four to six times for the milling process) The mixed juice has a pH of about 4.0 to 4.5 which is quite acidic. During purification, calcium hydroxide, also known as milk of lime or limewater, is added to the cane juice to adjust its pH to about 7 or 8. This can be done while the juice is still cold (cold liming) or after it has been heated to about 104°C (hot liming). It can also be done in phases (fractional liming). The lime helps to prevent sucrose's decay into glucose and fructose. The superheated limed juice

7056-512: The frames ( well tank ). The fuel used depended on what was economically available to the railway. In the UK and other parts of Europe, plentiful supplies of coal made this the obvious choice from the earliest days of the steam engine. Until 1870, the majority of locomotives in the United States burned wood, but as the Eastern forests were cleared, coal gradually became more widely used until it became

7168-418: The grate into an ashpan. If oil is used as the fuel, a door is needed for adjusting the air flow, maintaining the firebox, and cleaning the oil jets. The fire-tube boiler has internal tubes connecting the firebox to the smokebox through which the combustion gases flow transferring heat to the water. All the tubes together provide a large contact area, called the tube heating surface, between the gas and water in

7280-400: The harvest. Overall, limiting the time between cutting and milling is essential for achieving a high sugar yield and quality. Before the actual extraction of cane juice starts, the cane has to be prepared. This can be done by rotating knives or shredders. There are two modern types of processes for extracting juice from cane: The products of the extraction phase are: In 2004 and 2005

7392-582: The highly mineralised water was available, and locomotive boilers were lasting less than a quarter of the time normally expected. In the days of steam locomotion, about half the total train load was water for the engine. The line's operator, Commonwealth Railways , was an early adopter of the diesel-electric locomotive . The fire-tube boiler was standard practice for steam locomotive. Although other types of boiler were evaluated they were not widely used, except for some 1,000 locomotives in Hungary which used

7504-531: The junction of the Mooloolah River and Sippy Creek, planted sugar cane and erected a crushing mill. This project was abandoned after severe flooding in the 1870s, but cane was grown successfully in other parts of the district including Buderim , where in 1876 Joseph Chapman Dixon, one of the Mooloolah growers, established a mill in order to process his own cane and that of neighbouring farms. In 1881

7616-681: The locomotive ran on a circular track in the factory yard. It was the first locomotive to be built on the European mainland and the first steam-powered passenger service; curious onlookers could ride in the attached coaches for a fee. It is portrayed on a New Year's badge for the Royal Foundry dated 1816. Another locomotive was built using the same system in 1817. They were to be used on pit railways in Königshütte and in Luisenthal on

7728-496: The locomotive's main wheels. Fuel and water supplies are usually carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in a tender coupled to it. Variations in this general design include electrically powered boilers, turbines in place of pistons, and using steam generated externally. Steam locomotives were first developed in the United Kingdom during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until

7840-425: The low standard of 230 IU is reached. Some cane sugar mills have so-called back-end refineries. In back-end refineries, raw sugar produced in the mill is converted to refined sugar with a higher purity for local consumption, export, or bottling companies. Wastage is used for heat generation in the sugar mills. The remaining fibrous solids from the juice extraction phase, called bagasse , are burned for fuel in

7952-403: The main chassis, with a variety of spacers and a buffer beam at each end to form a rigid structure. When inside cylinders are mounted between the frames, the plate frames are a single large casting that forms a major support element. The axleboxes slide up and down to give some sprung suspension, against thickened webs attached to the frame, called "hornblocks". American practice for many years

8064-509: The mainframes. Locomotives with multiple coupled-wheels on a rigid chassis would have unacceptable flange forces on tight curves giving excessive flange and rail wear, track spreading and wheel climb derailments. One solution was to remove or thin the flanges on an axle. More common was to give axles end-play and use lateral motion control with spring or inclined-plane gravity devices. Railroads generally preferred locomotives with fewer axles, to reduce maintenance costs. The number of axles required

8176-470: The massecuite increases viscosity . At the optimum temperature for crystallization, the massecuite is too viscous for the centrifuge to properly separate the crystals from the molasses. However, as the mother liquor of the massecuite is still supersaturated at this point, the viscosity can be reduced without re-solution of the crystals. This can be done by bringing it to a state of saturation by heating or adding water. The sugar centrifuge serves to separate

8288-430: The massecuite into sugar crystals and mother liquor / molasses. These centrifuges consist of a cylindrical basket suspended on a spindle. The perforated sides are lined with wire cloth , inside of which are metal sheets containing 400-600 perforations per square inch. The basket revolves at 1000-1800 rpm. While the mother liquor, molasses passes through the holes in the centrifuge, the sugar crystals are retained. After

8400-556: The middle of the 20th century. Richard Trevithick built the first steam locomotive known to have hauled a load over a distance at Pen-y-darren in 1804, although he produced an earlier locomotive for trial at Coalbrookdale in 1802. Salamanca , built in 1812 by Matthew Murray for the Middleton Railway , was the first commercially successful steam locomotive. Locomotion No. 1 , built by George Stephenson and his son Robert's company Robert Stephenson and Company ,

8512-655: The mill's steam boilers. These boilers produce high-pressure steam, which is passed through a turbine to generate electrical energy ( cogeneration ). The exhaust steam from the turbine is passed through the multiple effect evaporator station and used to heat vacuum pans in the crystallization stage as well as for other heating purposes in the sugar mill. Bagasse makes a sugar mill more than energy self-sufficient; surplus bagasse goes in animal feed, in paper manufacture, or to generate electricity for sale. As in many other industries factory automation has been promoted heavily in sugar refineries in recent decades. The production process

8624-470: The moment when the valve blocks a steam port, "cutting off" admission steam and thus determining the proportion of the stroke during which steam is admitted into the cylinder; for example a 50% cut-off admits steam for half the stroke of the piston. The remainder of the stroke is driven by the expansive force of the steam. Careful use of cut-off provides economical use of steam and in turn, reduces fuel and water consumption. The reversing lever ( Johnson bar in

8736-861: The original John Bull was on static display in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The replica is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania . The first railway service outside the United Kingdom and North America was opened in 1829 in France between Saint-Etienne and Lyon ; it was initially limited to animal traction and converted to steam traction early 1831, using Seguin locomotives . The first steam locomotive in service in Europe outside of France

8848-448: The pH to 5.4-5.6. Now a second portion of lime is added to again reach a pH of 7.2-7.4. Following this, the juice is heated to 103-105°C before moving to the clarifier. The evaporation step for plantation white is the same as that for raw sugar. At the end Sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) is added to lower the pH of the syrup from 6.5 to 5.5. After evaporation, an extra clarification process can be inserted. Basic steps of this sub-process are:

8960-403: The percolation system process, shredded cane is introduced into the diffuser at the feed end; hot water is poured over the shredded cane just before the discharge end of the diffuser. The hot water percolates through the bed of cane and removes sucrose from the cane. This dilute juice is then collected in a compartment under the bed of cane and is pumped to a point a little closer to the feed end of

9072-468: The piston in turn. In a two-cylinder locomotive, one cylinder is located on each side of the vehicle. The cranks are set 90° out of phase. During a full rotation of the driving wheel, steam provides four power strokes; each cylinder receives two injections of steam per revolution. The first stroke is to the front of the piston and the second stroke to the rear of the piston; hence two working strokes. Consequently, two deliveries of steam onto each piston face in

9184-462: The purification, evaporation, and storage steps. In the purification step, the objective of carbonation is to separate non-sugar contents such as colloids and insoluble particles as well as colored material. If carbonation is used, the mixed juice is heated to 55°C and lime is added till a pH of 10.5-11 is reached. Next, Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is added, and the juice is pushed through pressure filters. This results in calcium carbonate mud. The juice

9296-411: The purpose of which is to control the amount of steam leaving the boiler. The steam then either travels directly along and down a steam pipe to the engine unit or may first pass into the wet header of a superheater , the role of the latter being to improve thermal efficiency and eliminate water droplets suspended in the "saturated steam", the state in which it leaves the boiler. On leaving the superheater,

9408-569: The roadway and runs through the central business district of Nambour . It is of a 2-foot (610 mm) gauge and travels between the road reserve in front of the former mill site in Mill Street, across the Currie Street intersection and down Howard Street to the marshalling yards where it continues to other parts of the region. After the mill's closure the majority of the rail network was removed and locomotives were auctioned or donated to

9520-453: The rollers, the juice from this mill is the same way pumped back up the milling train. Mixed juice (that is to say cane juice mixed with the water introduced at the last mill) is withdrawn from the first and second mills and is sent for further processing. Milling trains typically have four, five or six mills in the tandem. To improve the milling extraction performance before the cane reaches the first mill, knife and shredder preparation equipment

9632-418: The side of the piston receiving steam, thus slightly reducing cylinder power. Designing the exhaust ejector became a specific science, with engineers such as Chapelon , Giesl and Porta making large improvements in thermal efficiency and a significant reduction in maintenance time and pollution. A similar system was used by some early gasoline/kerosene tractor manufacturers ( Advance-Rumely / Hart-Parr ) –

9744-542: The standard sugar product for direct consumption or industrial use is white sugar . In Codex White A quality, white sugar has a minimum polarization of 99.7% and an ICUMSA color of 60 IU. Plantation white might have a polarization of e.g. 99.4-99.7% and a color between 80 and 250 IU. Plantation white sugar is produced by making changes to some of the stages mentioned above. There are two ways to make plantation white sugar, carbonation and sulphitation. To make plantation white sugar by carbonation requires changes to

9856-504: The steam exits the dry header of the superheater and passes down a steam pipe, entering the steam chests adjacent to the cylinders of a reciprocating engine. Inside each steam chest is a sliding valve that distributes the steam via ports that connect the steam chest to the ends of the cylinder space. The role of the valves is twofold: admission of each fresh dose of steam, and exhaust of the used steam once it has done its work. The cylinders are double-acting, with steam admitted to each side of

9968-477: The steam locomotive. Trevithick continued his own steam propulsion experiments through another trio of locomotives, concluding with the Catch Me Who Can in 1808, first in the world to haul fare-paying passengers. In 1812, Matthew Murray 's successful twin-cylinder rack locomotive Salamanca first ran on the edge-railed rack-and-pinion Middleton Railway . Another well-known early locomotive

10080-427: The sugar is purged, it is cut down, making the centrifuge ready for the next badge. It is quite common for sugar to result from repeatedly undergoing the crystallization and centrifugation steps. This depends on the boiling system The most common boiling scheme is the three-boiling system. This method boils the sugar liquors in three crystallization/centrifugation stages, called A-, B- and C-. The sugar resulting from

10192-434: The track, is of paramount importance. Because reciprocating power has to be directly applied to the rail from 0 rpm upwards, this creates the problem of adhesion of the driving wheels to the smooth rail surface. Adhesive weight is the portion of the locomotive's weight bearing on the driving wheels. This is made more effective if a pair of driving wheels is able to make the most of its axle load, i.e. its individual share of

10304-400: The tramline corridor was leased. The section of line covered by this entry represents its use as a transport system for both cane and passengers and as an unusual feature of the Nambour. The former Moreton Mill Site was purchased by Coles who have developed a multi-storey shopping complex trading under the title 'Nambour Mill Village'. The main cane tramway is laid directly into the centre of

10416-433: The two cylinders generates a full revolution of the driving wheel. Each piston is attached to the driving axle on each side by a connecting rod, and the driving wheels are connected together by coupling rods to transmit power from the main driver to the other wheels. Note that at the two " dead centres ", when the connecting rod is on the same axis as the crankpin on the driving wheel, the connecting rod applies no torque to

10528-419: The water level in a transparent tube, or sight glass. Efficient and safe operation of the boiler requires keeping the level in between lines marked on the sight glass. If the water level is too high, steam production falls, efficiency is lost and water is carried out with the steam into the cylinders, possibly causing mechanical damage. More seriously, if the water level gets too low, the crown sheet (top sheet) of

10640-401: The water-tube Brotan boiler . A boiler consists of a firebox where the fuel is burned, a barrel where water is turned into steam, and a smokebox which is kept at a slightly lower pressure than outside the firebox. Solid fuel, such as wood, coal or coke, is thrown into the firebox through a door by a fireman , onto a set of grates which hold the fuel in a bed as it burns. Ash falls through

10752-408: The wheel. Therefore, if both cranksets could be at "dead centre" at the same time, and the wheels should happen to stop in this position, the locomotive could not start moving. Therefore, the crankpins are attached to the wheels at a 90° angle to each other, so only one side can be at dead centre at a time. Each piston transmits power through a crosshead , connecting rod ( Main rod in the US) and

10864-411: The wheels are coupled together, generally lack stability at speed. To counter this, locomotives often fit unpowered carrying wheels mounted on two-wheeled trucks or four-wheeled bogies centred by springs/inverted rockers/geared rollers that help to guide the locomotive through curves. These usually take on weight – of the cylinders at the front or the firebox at the rear – when the width exceeds that of

10976-406: The will to increase efficiency by that route. The steam generated in the boiler not only moves the locomotive, but is also used to operate other devices such as the whistle, the air compressor for the brakes, the pump for replenishing the water in the boiler and the passenger car heating system. The constant demand for steam requires a periodic replacement of water in the boiler. The water is kept in

11088-878: The world also runs in Austria: the GKB 671 built in 1860, has never been taken out of service, and is still used for special excursions. In 1838, the third steam locomotive to be built in Germany, the Saxonia , was manufactured by the Maschinenbaufirma Übigau near Dresden , built by Prof. Johann Andreas Schubert . The first independently designed locomotive in Germany was the Beuth , built by August Borsig in 1841. The first locomotive produced by Henschel-Werke in Kassel ,

11200-562: Was Puffing Billy , built 1813–14 by engineer William Hedley . It was intended to work on the Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne. This locomotive is the oldest preserved, and is on static display at the Science Museum, London . George Stephenson , a former miner working as an engine-wright at Killingworth Colliery , developed up to sixteen Killingworth locomotives , including Blücher in 1814, another in 1815, and

11312-644: Was built in 1834 by Cherepanovs , however, it suffered from the lack of coal in the area and was replaced with horse traction after all the woods nearby had been cut down. The first Russian Tsarskoye Selo steam railway started in 1837 with locomotives purchased from Robert Stephenson and Company . In 1837, the first steam railway started in Austria on the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway between Vienna-Floridsdorf and Deutsch-Wagram . The oldest continually working steam engine in

11424-760: Was constructed for the Coalbrookdale ironworks in Shropshire in the United Kingdom though no record of it working there has survived. On 21 February 1804, the first recorded steam-hauled railway journey took place as another of Trevithick's locomotives hauled a train along the 4 ft 4 in ( 1,321 mm )-wide tramway from the Pen-y-darren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil , to Abercynon in South Wales. Accompanied by Andrew Vivian , it ran with mixed success. The design incorporated

11536-411: Was dictated by the maximum axle loading of the railroad in question. A builder would typically add axles until the maximum weight on any one axle was acceptable to the railroad's maximum axle loading. A locomotive with a wheel arrangement of two lead axles, two drive axles, and one trailing axle was a high-speed machine. Two lead axles were necessary to have good tracking at high speeds. Two drive axles had

11648-487: Was entered in and won the Rainhill Trials . This success led to the company emerging as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the UK, US and much of Europe. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened a year later making exclusive use of steam power for passenger and goods trains . Before the arrival of British imports, some domestic steam locomotive prototypes were built and tested in

11760-652: Was formed in December 1894. Land bounded by the North Coast railway line on the west and Gympie Road on the east was purchased for a mill site at the small settlement of Nambour. Erection of a mill by Caskie and Thompson began in late 1895. In order for the mill to be successful, it was essential to establish an efficient means for bringing the harvested cane in from surrounding farms to be crushed. Tramway networks carrying wagons drawn by steam locomotives had been used effectively in other Queensland sugar districts since

11872-709: Was named The Elephant , which on 5 May 1835 hauled a train on the first line in Belgium, linking Mechelen and Brussels. In Germany, the first working steam locomotive was a rack-and-pinion engine, similar to the Salamanca , designed by the British locomotive pioneer John Blenkinsop . Built in June 1816 by Johann Friedrich Krigar in the Royal Berlin Iron Foundry ( Königliche Eisengießerei zu Berlin),

11984-534: Was opened. The arid nature of south Australia posed distinctive challenges to their early steam locomotion network. The high concentration of magnesium chloride in the well water ( bore water ) used in locomotive boilers on the Trans-Australian Railway caused serious and expensive maintenance problems. At no point along its route does the line cross a permanent freshwater watercourse, so bore water had to be relied on. No inexpensive treatment for

12096-577: Was soon established. In 1830, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 's Tom Thumb , designed by Peter Cooper , was the first commercial US-built locomotive to run in America; it was intended as a demonstration of the potential of steam traction rather than as a revenue-earning locomotive. The DeWitt Clinton , built in 1831 for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad , was a notable early locomotive. As of 2021 ,

12208-403: Was supplied at stopping places and locomotive depots from a dedicated water tower connected to water cranes or gantries. In the UK, the US and France, water troughs ( track pans in the US) were provided on some main lines to allow locomotives to replenish their water supply without stopping, from rainwater or snowmelt that filled the trough due to inclement weather. This was achieved by using

12320-461: Was the first steam locomotive to haul passengers on a public railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway , in 1825. Rapid development ensued; in 1830 George Stephenson opened the first public inter-city railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway , after the success of Rocket at the 1829 Rainhill Trials had proved that steam locomotives could perform such duties. Robert Stephenson and Company

12432-399: Was the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives in the first decades of steam for railways in the United Kingdom, the United States, and much of Europe. Towards the end of the steam era, a longstanding British emphasis on speed culminated in a record, still unbroken, of 126 miles per hour (203 kilometres per hour) by LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard , however there are long-standing claims that

12544-404: Was to use built-up bar frames, with the smokebox saddle/cylinder structure and drag beam integrated therein. In the 1920s, with the introduction of "superpower", the cast-steel locomotive bed became the norm, incorporating frames, spring hangers, motion brackets, smokebox saddle and cylinder blocks into a single complex, sturdy but heavy casting. A SNCF design study using welded tubular frames gave

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