Quote:
Originally Posted by ChalkLine
There will be three rough categories of fuel available to the engines: wood, coal and oil.
Wood: Available everywhere there are trees and Twilight 2000 helps out bu killing most of them. The best wood is clean, dry and cut into lumps about the size of a lunchbox. This rare. Most wood is damp and needs drying or a very hot firebox to use. An overworked GM can simply mandate that the firebox is started on coal and then fed wood, giving a fuel consumption of 10%coal and 90%wood. Dirty wood covered on mud is usually at least 50% of your fuel load and cleaning this off can either add 50% time to your gathering of fuel or require another Coal Trimmer to each engine. Wood is susceptible to thermal spontaneous combustion, especially when drying.
Coal: This stuff is almost always wet but it drains readily. Like wood coal is susceptible to thermal spontaneous combustion and a constant watch on the fuel stores is vital. Coal is usually broken to the correct size for burning prior to loading. Poland, by the way, was an important source of coal in the late 20th century.
Oil: Requiring tankage oil is preferable for steam operation in nearly every way. The supply to the boilers is entirely automated and can be overseen by the engineers operating the engines. Fuel oil will not normally explode but does spread on the surface of water making shipwrecks more dangerous, especially is the oil is ablaze.
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It's worth noting that Poland's coal is bituminous and lignite, which are lower in energy density than anthracite. Lignite's actually less energy dense than dry hardwood. I don't think Poland has much (if any) anthracite, which is slightly less energy dense than fuel oil, but more energy dense than gasoline.