CP Oil Fuel
Central Pacific Oil Fuel
From Railroad Gazette, Nov. 27, 1885, p 759
Liquid fuel in California.
Experiments are being made by the Central Pacific Railroad Co. with petroleum as fuel on some of their steamboats. On the freight steamer "Thoroughfare," plying between Oakland and San Francisco, the saving in cost of fuel is 44 per cent., amounting to $1,400 per month. Four firemen are dispensed with, effecting a further saving of $240 per month. On the “Solono,” the biggest ferry-boat in the world, the saving is only 17 per cent. The oil costs $1.70 per 40-gallon barrel or about 4 cents per gallon. Coal costs $7 per ton, and is estimated to be equal to 100 gallons of oil costing $4.25. Other ferryboats at San Francisco are being altered to burn oil. The amount of petroleum obtained from California has steadily been increasing for the past five years. In 1879, 19,858 barrels were produced, and in 1884 more than 100,000 barrels, thus quadrupling the yield in the space of five years. California now ranks third among the petroleum producing states: New York is second, and West Virginia fourth.
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 2:44 AM
1 Comments:
From: "Kevin Bunker" mikadobear45@yahoo.com
Thouroughfare, being the CP's Oakland-San Francisco freight car ferry, must have made far fewer transbay trips than the passenger ferries running the same route. Solano, while a large and very busy train transfer vessel moving the short distance between Vallejo and Port Costa, must have been extremely busy compared to Throughfare. I mention this as perspective relative to costs versus returns generated by traffic volume. The only way to completely understand the actual savings in ferry fuel versus labor costs (shoveling firemen) would be to display the engineers' logs and compare these to the payroll, then measure that information against the fluctuating costs of coal and bunker oil. Also, it might be important to determine how the fuel oil was delivered to the ferries, since it seems too early for established fuel oil storage facilities in that the entire CPRR fuel program had just begun to shift away from solid fuels.
—Kevin
KyleWyatt@aol.com wrote:
Thought the following would interest you.
—Kyle
Central Pacific Oil Fuel
From Railroad Gazette, Nov. 27, 1885, p 759
Liquid fuel in California.
Experiments are being made by the Central Pacific Railroad Co. with petroleum as fuel on some of their steamboats. On the freight steamer "Thoroughfare," plying between Oakland and San Francisco, the saving in cost of fuel is 44 per cent., amounting to $1,400 per month. Four firemen are dispensed with, effecting a further saving of $240 per month. On the "Solono" the biggest ferry-boat in the world, the saving is only 17 per cent. The oil costs $1.70 per 40-gallon barrel or about 4 cents per gallon. Coal costs $7 per ton, and is estimated to be equal to 100 gallons of oil costing $4.25. Other ferryboats at San Francisco are being altered to burn oil.
The amount of petroleum obtained from California has steadily been increasing for the past five years. In 1879, 19,858 barrels were produced, and in 1884 more than 100,000 barrels, thus quadrupling the yield in the space of five years. California now ranks third among the petroleum producing states: New York is second, and West Virginia fourth.
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