Powering a Train with Soda? - Soda Locomotives
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- In today's video, we take a look at soda locomotives, but not the kind of soda depicted in the thumbnail, instead it's sodium hydroxide, something you don't want to put in your picnic basket
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SODA🥤‼️😅😁🥶
I agree, it's definitely pretty based, though I guess finding a 'Basic solution' to make it practical didn't work out in the end. Should've used Citrus juice to balance it out!
One day I will learn what this meme is from.
My sister forbids me to drink soda
Sodamotive
@@theazurefire91 Joe Biden
A Locacola if you will
Take my like and get out
That deserves a lime right there.
🍋🟩
@@darnit1944 dont take my like and come in
What a loca idea i love it
Dad?
"Using sodium hydroxide to power a locomotive is pretty base." It's acid comments such as this one that keep us coming back.
When I was young I was shocked to hear the old locomotive Stephenson’s Rocket ran on “Coke”, because I thought it was talking about the soda. Glad to know that idea came true
I heard the same thing about iron smelters, that they ran on coke (or as I grew up speaking German it was "Koks" to be precise). But that is also a very common term for a certain powdery substance from South America
Yeah the boiler was full of coca cola, they just toss in a few mentos and bam, locomotion 😋
Yeah, back when I was a kid in the 80's there were a lot of things running on Coke. 😂
@@Freesavh1776yeah, entire boardrooms.
I thought he was gonna talk about firing a loco with coke (coal used for blast furnaces) instead of normal loco coal, but this is pretty interesting.
There was a story I read once in an old issue of TRAINS magazine in which a new fireman was getting ready to take a train from the yard and noticed a hopper full of coke on the track next to him. He asked his engineer what he thought putting coke in the fire box would do and when the engineer said he wasn't sure the fireman went with a bucket and took what he thought was a sufficient amount of coke to make a test. He then threw in several scoops of coke into the firebox. It didn't ignite immediately so he surrounded it with standard coal. They soon after got the highball and started their run. Not long after starting the coke finally ignited and as you'd expect it got *HOT* and began to produce steam. Just a little ways down the line the first safety valve lifted. Soon after the line began a steep climb. Despite the climb and the loco working hard up the hill the second safety valve lifted. The entire time the fireman hadn't needed to stoke the fire again because the coke just kept burning and getting hotter. Finally still climbing the hill the third safety valve lifted. In an attempt to lower steam pressure and prevent the boiler from potentially rupturing due to the stupid amount of steam the boiler was producing they turned on both injectors. With all the safeties blowing off and the injectors on the fireman reckoned there was so much steam coming off the engine that it probably looked like a rocket was launching down the tracks. Despite their best efforts steam pressure continued to build and finally the fireman grabbed the hose kept in the cab mainly to clean the cab and tools and pointed it directly into the fire box to extinguish the fire. In the end when the fireman could finally see the inside of the fire box he described everything melting in the firebox. Even the bricks in the brick arch had become molten and were melting. Lesson learned: don't put coke in a steam locomotive (at least not a whole lot anyway...). Don't remember the railway this happened on, though.
Unrelated perhaps, Wonthaggi coal was of medium quality so during a miners strike, black coal from Korumburra was used in Wonthaggi hospital and it melted the grating.
The significance of Wonthaggi coal was that it kept the Victorian Railways running during wartime restrictions of black coal from NSW.
Unfortunately there was not much black coal in Korumburra.
I read the same story years ago in TRAINS.
Don’t think I’ve read the article, but I’ve seen the tale recounted on a forum. The method of “firing” reminded me of the PRR, as firemen would similarly pack coal around the edges and corners of the firebox to keep a good head of steam. This was when their K4 and even K5 Pacifics lacked mechanical stokers. I imagine the same was tried on the M1’s since the actual grate is basically the same, but the combustion chamber made a stoker more necessary. Got me thinking of the story potential too; what was that if not a locomotive overdosing on drugs?
ok now who's gonna make a locomotive that's actually powered by a soft drink.
I think Willy Wonka already did essentially that.
Should work, coke n mentos 👌
While I imagine a coke and mentos powered engine could work, it would run very briefly and as the exhaust is foamy liquid everything would become extremely sticky.
That would be the first locomotive in story that suffers from diabetes.
Pepsi and Pop Rocks Presents Amtrak! ;-)
I'm geting 90s nostalgia for the Sonic the Hedgehog Chemical Plant theme
I thought that it was sonic music
Soda powered loco, sounds SUUPPPEEEERRRRR!!!!!!
(Franky’s theme intensifies)
I happen to have a book about forgotten inventions that goes into great detail about the Honigmann Engine. So I thought I should post details about it here, since i thought the video didnt give credit to the technology, since indeed it had several advantages. Moritz Honigmann found HIS OWN factory for Ammonia-Soda in 1870. During that time, many of the rail lines were actually not powered by steam neither by electricity but by horses. A lot of them, like A LOT. Honigmann had invented a new method for creating caustic soda at low temperatures, since usually the factory boilers from iron would corrode, it was said by high temperatures. He built and tested his own soda engine and it worked just fine. It was actually cheaper than using the horses that were used before, the horses being at 25 Pfennig/Km and Honigmann engine at 16 Pfennig/Km. The power to weight ratio of the whole engine was that of a regular lead battery of later times, but back then it was 20Kg/hp/hr while fireless hot water engines were 200Kg/hp/hr and battery powered locomotives were 100Kg/hp/hr. However the reason he used it was because he owned the factory that was making the soda, so why not? He could refill it at his soda factory any time. The boiler wouldnt explode, no. I think at this point you have not really understood how a soda engine works. It is the low heat exhaust steam from the cylinders that feeds the soda part of the boiler little by little, its an enclosed system that works like a saftey valve at the same time. Honigmann did figure that the technology wasnt viable for a broader use in railway. He also found out through his own experiments that the boiler material was likely to be made out of copper, since copper wasnt so prone to corrode by caustic soda and repairs would be less expensive, at higher cost of the boiler. So it was actually a very elegant technology for storing power, but it just did not sell well to the public. There were a lot of naysayers.
I like to further elaborate on my personal opinion, that the power to weight ratio of the Honigmann engine could theoretically be improved by using higher boiler pressures in the steam part of the boiler, not in the soda part (they are separated by a wall). This might improve water consumption, so weight as long as the chemical reaction is kept running. You have to imagine, that the system does not use any condenser. The heat of the waste steam is reused as well, there is no cooling. YOU DONT NEED A COMPOUND ENGINE TO EXTRACT MORE POWER. However i guess you need to keep the engine inside a narrow rpm range(if not properly designed) to keep heat fluctuations at bay. I guess thats why soda engines of different makes were closely watched for pressure fluctuations, not because the engine could explode, but because too low pressure might ruin its thermodynamics, causing powerloss and a slight worse power ro weight ratio. This would mean a loss in range and a great deal of money, cause downsizing the engine was key. But these are only assumptions of my own, so take it with a grain of salt.
@@TheAdrianOMG Wow very interesting !! Have you got more imformation source about this tech ? I already searched well around thermochemical heat storage to catch sun energy from sunny weathers and to release it for the cloudy days in house heat battery. 3 materials got my attention : Zeolite, Calcium Chloride and Sodium Acetate... I didn't know that Natron was also usable ! This one seems promising, even if i'm not sure i did understood everything well...
@@AutoNomades well sadly i do not have more sources on the technology. I should tell you that indeed moritz honigmann had the idea of powering his factory with sunlight to make the soda. That would have meant a fully or partially sunpowered fireless locomotive. But it sounds to me like you are looking for a way to store heat for heating a home. That is a very intriguing subject. Let me just tell you this: a house already is a heat storage, able to shrink the demand for fuel, but only if you know the correct techniques and math, however noone will give you that but sell you insulation and stuff that wastes more energy. You dont need an extra heat storage for your home, in fact it might even worsen the efficiency. Feel free to get back to me on that if you have further questions.
@@TheAdrianOMG Why would it worsen the efficiency ? If you catch sun's heat when there is, then release by cloudy cold days ? I mean, in the simplest way possible, and in a quite insulated house offcourse... You could just dry kind of "pillows" of thermochemical storage in a greenhouse, store it in tight container for later, then when it's cold, take one dried before, put it in the stove, and let dripping some water on top, so it releases heat, and steam by the chemney...? For instance...
@@AutoNomades well you need an insustrial machine to regenerate the caustic soda in the first place. You can not simply regenerate the caustic soda by leaving it in a greenhouse, you need high temperatures and a vacuum for example. So you need a mirror dish solar plant as well, that can produce these high temperatures. No the caustic soda doesnt steam, its hygroscopic and stores all water inside it. Honigmanns boiler was a two compartment object, the lower soda part that only heated the boiler above it, the soda isnt what creates the steam. And if the soda comes into contact with the open air, it reacts with co2, becoming sodium bicarbonate. I am not saying that it all doesnt work, but heating one home with it, needing an industrial plant to do it and lots of space isnt feasible, maybe its more feasible if you scale it up to heat or power a whole city. So if you were to heat a house by a heat battery of caustic soda, you would need regular heating plus caustic soda heating. But any kind of hest battery with a temperature fluctuation by cooling and reheating has a lower efficiency. This is how you heat a house efficiently (short version): first of all, don't insulate. The walls are a heat storage, the higher their temperature the less heat can travel through them. Insulation blocks that. You need the sun on the outside to work against the heat travel as well. When your walls are warm, they become the insulation, there are formulas for that. Its called "u-wert effektiv". Throw out the double glass windows on the west and southside of the house, because glass blocks infrared light and actually doesnt lose that much latent heat. When it comes to actually heating you want a continuous heat day and night. For example all people with oil burner heating make the mistake of setting the flame too high, then it shuts off in intervals, but you want it to continuously burn. As soon as your walls get cold, reheating them actually takes the more power. Thats why you also should not turn down the heating over night. If everything is recalculated to correct low continuous operation, doesnt matter if its oil or a thermal heat pump or whatever you're choosing, you have to make sure that you get equally latent heat as well as infrared heat. Only after all that hydronic balancing makes sense. Latent heat raises to the ceiling and becomes a heat storage to give off to the walls contiunously, which is why you want to have high ceilings so the house stays insulated. Infrared is cozy warmth you enjoy and the best type is actually floor heating, but costly and not always necessary. If you use the correct mathematical formulas, you will hardly need any heating whatsoever, because your house has become highly efficient. Make sure to keep you old cast iron radiators, they work better than the new ones, because more infrared, dont let them sell you the new junk. Try to keep limescale out of the radiators and pipes, it lowers the efficiency greatly (maintenance is key). If you like you can use an air to air heat exchanger for fresh dry air in the house, it raises efficiency, but people dont like the thought of not always opening their windows for air. Beware of using thermal heat pumps together with energy providers with real time price adjustments. You keep the heatpump on continuously, otherwise the heatpump is chosen too big and costly. Btw, wood ovens are a nice thing, but they as well need to be calculated for continuous operation, which is a topic on its own. There are alot of alternative ways to build and heat a house, i know, this was just a small introduction.
Powering an engine with Obamna: 🥺😡
Powering an engine with SODA‼:🥤😆😅🥶
Jokes aside, this just sounds like a more complicated version of the fireless locomotive.
the sodium hydroxide became too saturated in my Soda locomotive, thanks Obama 🙄🙄
I immediately thought: "SUUUUUUPER!"
Quite the unique take on a fireless locomotive
sounds like a Franky-Train
*SUPER!!!!*
The title got me soda interested in watching, and here I yam.
The Minneapolis Lyndale and Minnetonka actually converted their locos to coal burning because they couldn't keep up a head of steam very well.
Also, fun fact; It was a 3 foot gauge railroad!
just like Franky in one piece
My boy Franky got did so dirty by the change in art style after the timeskip. Imo they completely ruined his proportions. Completely unrelated I know but whenever I think of Franky I get mad at how they massacred my boy
I like to see a soda locomotive in action in modern day.
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah
Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda
S-O-D-A, soda...
and the rest was history
That finishing pun was painful. Bravo.
Very appropriate choice for background music
Franky would be proud if it used soda that you drink.
SUPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reminder, how would drinks like coffee or soda affect a non-faceless engine?
"POWWWWAAA!!1!1" -Super pug
Nahhh don’t call them by the victor tanzig name, just say engines with faces 😭😭
Great choice of background music, by the way.
Even if it ultimately wasn't that practical, I must say this is a pretty genius design. I have to wonder if it could be made more practical with modern technology, but in the end it's basically accomplishing the same thing as electric motors but with a lot of extra steps. Still love the idea.
Yeah but for house thermal solar heat battery could be nice !!
I've never heard of this before. The oddest locomotive fuel I've heard of is mummies from ancient mass graves. There was also a case of a 2-10-2 with a tender load of badly-burning slag stopping and picking up used tires from a dump which burned really well, but left the grate coated with melted rubber.
Soda Locomotives: Bbbbbuuuuurrrrrrrppppp!
HEHEHEHE!😆😁👍
Chemical Plant. Nice touch 🤙😎
I wouldn't want to be near one of these if it popped!
I was unaware about this until now. I have contemplated similar systems for stationary energy storage, so it was extra interesting for me to find out that they managed to make a functional system to power trains, well over a century ago even if it wasn't very practical or powerful.
I never knew you could power a steam with soda!
Reminds me of that comic from the Milantoon website where various steam engines disagreed on an experiment of boiling soda
Wait. wrong soda
A similar reaction was using in Soda Fire engines and fire extinguishers.
They mixed bicarbonate soda and another chemical I forget to make carbon dioxide that would then pressurise the tank and force the water out via a hose and nozzle and onto the fire
Obviously if the fire was put out you couldn't then stop the water flow until the tank was empty.
Imagine a Diesel Locomotive powered by Soda.
this is probably where they got the idea to power the Wonkamobile in the movie
To quote my president, "SODA!!!"
I'd now love to see a collaboration between Train of Thought and History in the Dark. Both of them have gone over some very bizarre-looking (and working) locomotives.
NEW! SMOKE FLAVOURED SODA!🥤
Never expected Soda to be Locomotive fuel
great vid!
it's wild to me to see an image of a railway you know just being used as if it were any other
(SAR represent)
I wonder what the specs and maintenance lifecycle were on that main boiler...I'm guessing pretty unique.
of course Chemical Plant Zone was chosen for the background music
Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, genius!
“Soda!”- Dr. Harold Pontiff Coomer, PhD
Well now I want one
“Pretty based.”
Hearing that and replaying it in my head… that caust me a brain cell or two, man.
Corny puns aside, awesome video on a really cool out-of-the-blue bit of railroad history. Cheers!
Sodium as a fuel source was crazy yet interesting!
I've heard of other strange resources like peat & dung (NOTE: Dung was never burned on trains, rather I read a mini section where a steam boat was powered by llama dung until 1914). What's next? Vegetable oil?
Not as fuel actually, but as thermochemical battery !! Would be great to store sun's heat to keep for cloudy days !
Nice video, Like ...
Wonderful history video
they basically created a large battery thats kinda cool
Clickbait done right 🤠 good channel
Soda locos has to evolve into a nuclear locos - they are so similar… thx!
Of course the soda locomotives were operated in MINNESOTA 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤
sodium bicarbonate and lime juice in sweetened water used to give medieval lemonade drinks a weak fizz - but that used to leave a soapy taste and residue due to insoluble hydroxides - this and the weakness was overcome by bottlers reverse engineering carbolic inclusion, first through carbon dioxide cylinders at drugstores and then by bottling under pressure. The name soda, however, stuck, though not technically true. (Re. the coke bottle in the thumbnail)
@-ADACOR- SysAdmin is thankless - I know precisely what you mean by your handle😀😀
I wonder if you could use this for energy storage now, probably more for direct heating applications than for rotational or electric output, but I wonder how a system based on this could work vs something like a sand battery. I imagine that the lower operational temperature for regen might help allow for instance use of a heat pump for regen increasing efficiency and possibly being used somewhat like a heat version of overnight ice creation to shift air conditioning evergy use or allow higher peak demand without oversized equipment.
Engineers today would have a fit if you had a locomotive that was boiling corrosive chemicals for propulsion.
John-Caleb Bradberton has entered the chat
Sweet. Fast moving chemical bomb. What a time to be alive*
One Car Accident from disaster :)
Has a locomotive ever been powered by moonshine
Can this thing also coup de burst?
Aww, I thought it actually was powered by the soda depicted in the thumbnail.
Every twenty kilometres, a loud *burrrrrrrrppppppppppppp!* 🤣
7:34 Think there should be a Thomas character that runs on soda?
Or even better, one that runs on sugar.
Pretty based, groan😊
Pretty based? I'd say so. At first, I was happy to be learning about a new, unusual locomotive powered by unconventional methods but my interest has skyrocketed once I learned that some of these engines worked very close to home for me. Back in the 1800s of course but still, location wise! Time to model these bad boys!
When I saw the title I thought it was going to be about fireless locomotives powered by generation of carbon dioxide from sodium bicarbonate or something like that (add acid to release the carbon dioxide).
Imagine a Coca Cola Tender
The forbidden soda
When I first saw the title, I thought, "Oh wow, someone made the Wonkamobile in real life!" Sadly it was not the case.
That’s one way to power a locomotive
Here comes the cola-mentos train!
Oh my
Cannot think of Franky when I think of machine powered by cola
Eyyy Chemical Plant Zone!
Thomas the Chemical Burn Engine
I almost said, "Frankie from One Piece would be proud."
What happens if you add a mentos into it?
Ok, who let Franky design a locomotive?
That was a based video!
Loca-cola, Loca-cola!
Things go better with Loca-Cola
Things go better with Loke!
Life is much more fun when you're refreshed,
and Loke refreshes you best; it's the refreshing-est!
Food goes better with
Fun goes better with
You go better with Loke
The real life one puts extra fun
in you and everything you do
so things go better with Loca-Cola
Things go better with Loke!
Are there any other stories experimental steam trains powered by more exotic chemical fuel sources. While it is not the same thing experimental World War 2 U boats wanted to try and use catalyst based oxygen generate for conventional combustion. What about chemical additives to make existing or low grade fuel sources burn hotter? Rather than using it all the time it would only be used to fire the engine quickly in the morning or provide a boost of steam when climbing steep hills.
Well actuallyu is is not used as fuel, but as thermochemical battery !! Would be great to store sun's heat to keep for cloudy days !
I wonder why they never used this with submarines
That would corrode the heck out of your metal boiler and any fittings, you'd almost have to use more expensive stainless steel or other alloys to resist it, costing more.
Chemical Plant Zone theme is slightly distracting for me. I keep getting Sonic noises in my head.
It’s just battery electric but for steam
You wrote that entire script to set up the chemistry joke, didn't you?
Hello everyone! Welcome to the Island of Soda! 😁
i use Caustic Soda at work to get rid of hairs from cow hoves
We need a mentos cola locomotive 😂
AND I GOT THE SODA 🥤🗣🗣🗣🥵💯
ALL THOSE FANTAS I DRANK IN MY CHILDHOOD...
Now we need some powered by urine or something that is essentially a waste product.
you said 4-2-0 instead of 0-4-2
Whoops
i can't help but wonder if anyone ever tried powering a compressed air powered engine using liquid nitrogen and/or dry ice
I've seen a model airplane engine that ran on dry ice. It was a little turbine, like a fan, not a piston engine. You can get little piston engines that run on CO2 cartridges, but that's not frozen to start. Gets really cold as it drains, though.
Dam I thought this was old
LocaCola 🚂🥤
SUPERRRRRRRRRR
SUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPEEEEEEERRRRRRR!
A sodium hydroxide-powered closed system of a boiler is probably what one could call a "bomb".
Still safer than a gigantic lithium-ion or whatever batteries electric cars have in em, though.
Yeah and sun could directly heat a cheap thermal battery to heat by cloudy days !
You could use calcium chloride instead its not toxic and corrosive like sodium hydroxide.