Livio Dante Porta
{{short description|Argentinean steam locomotive designer}}
File:Porta and crew with RFIRT's Santa Cruz loco-1959.jpg
Livio Dante Porta (21 March 1922 – 10 June 2003) was an Argentine steam locomotive engineer. He is particularly remembered for his innovative modifications to existing locomotive systems in order to obtain better performance and energy efficiency, and reduced pollution. He developed the Kylpor and Lempor exhaust systems. The Lemprex was under development at the time of his death.
Early years
File:Ushuaia - Tren de la fi del mon.jpg {{TrackGauge|500mm}} gauge Garratt named in his honour]]
Porta was born in Paraná, Entre Ríos, and studied civil engineering, concluding his studies in 1946, at a time when steam was already giving way to diesel and electric locomotives in Europe and North America.{{cn|date=May 2024}}
Career
File:Steam locomotive Argentina designed by Porta - 1969.jpg
Naturally, Porta's first projects were in Argentina. Taking the work of Andre Chapelon in France as his starting point, he set out to demonstrate that the steam locomotive was far from reaching its maximum potential. His first locomotive project in 1948 took the remains of a {{Track gauge|1M|allk=on}} 4-6-2 converting it into a 4-cylinder compound 4-8-0 named 'Presidente Peron'/'Argentina'. This machine, Porta's first project, still holds a number of locomotive efficiency records.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}
Porta moved to Patagonia in 1957 as general manager of the Red de Ferrocarril Industrial de Rio Turbio coal railway (Ramal Ferro Industrial Río Turbio) in Santa Cruz - see also Rio Turbio Railway; his work allowed the steam locomotive fleet to remain in service for another 40 years. In 1960, he returned to Buenos Aires to become head of thermodynamics at the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI).{{cite web |url=https://www.inti.gov.ar/sabercomo/sc102/inti8.php |title=Saber Como No. 102|language=es|trans-title=Knowhow 102|website=INTI|date=July 2011 |author= |accessdate= 20 April 2019}} His writings on steam technology are voluminous,{{cite web|url=http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/porta_biblio.html |title=The Ultimate Steam Page - Bibliography of Porta's papers|website=TrainWeb |date=19 February 2012 |accessdate=2013-01-13}} and whilst most of his papers remain unpublished, some 26 of them have been transcribed and published by the [http://advanced-steam.org/books-for-sale/ Advanced Steam Traction Trust].{{cn|date=May 2024}}
In early 1983, Porta and his family moved to the United States of America to work on steam locomotive development for the American Coal Enterprises project.{{cite web|url=http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ult.html |title=The Ultimate Steam Page - The ACE 3000|website=TrainWeb |date=2014-04-03}} This was the only time in his life he lived outside of Argentina for any great length of time. Porta was among the co-inventors listed for the project's patent which was filed in 1980 and issued in 1984.{{cite web |url=https://patents.justia.com/patent/4425763#claims |title=Coal-fired steam locomotive |author= |date= September 9, 1980|website=JUSITA Patents |publisher= |access-date= March 17, 2022 |quote=}} After the collapse of this project he returned to Argentina in 1986, with further work being undertaken in that country as well as in Brazil and Paraguay. In 1992, Porta was contracted by the Cuban government to implement an extensive project on rational use of energy, which included modern steam railway traction as well as general industrial steam modernisation of power stations and sugar mill plants. His final steam project was the development of a steam bus in the capital of Buenos Aires along with Gustavo Durán; Porta had already designed a modern steam car whilst at INTI during 1970.{{cn|date=May 2024}}
Porta's influence
Porta continued advancing steam technology right up to the time of his death: from the mid-1990s he worked for the Cuban Sugar Ministry (Minaz) on locomotives using new fuels such as bagasse; he also considerably influenced many later steam projects worldwide, notably those of David Wardale{{Citation
|last=Chapelon |first=Andre
|title=La Locomotive a Vapeur (Translation by George. W. Carpenter C.Eng., M.I.Mech.E.)
|publisher=Camden Miniature Steam Services
|year=2000|pages=615–616
|isbn=0-9536523-0-0
|last=Wardale |first=David
|title=The Red Devil and Other Tales from the Age of Steam
|publisher=Published by the author|year=1998|isbn=0-9529998-0-3
|url=http://5at.co.uk/index.php/references/red-devil-book.html
}} and the 5AT Project,{{cite web
|url=http://www.5at.co.uk/
|title=5AT Advanced Steam Locomotive Project
|publisher=5at.co.uk
|accessdate=2010-01-09
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090124113818/http://5at.co.uk/
|archive-date=2009-01-24
|url-status=dead
}} Phil Girdlestone, Roger Waller,{{cite web|url=http://www.dlm-ag.ch/|website=DLM|title=MODERN STEAM - AN ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL ALTERNATIVE TO DIESEL TRACTION |author=Roger Waller|date=23 February 2009 |accessdate=2013-01-13}} Shaun McMahon, and Nigel Day.{{Cite web|url=http://www.5at.co.uk/5ATengineers.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061012223452/http://www.5at.co.uk/5ATengineers.shtml|title=RÉSUMÉS OF THE 5AT ENGINEERING TEAM |date=September 26, 2006|archive-date=October 12, 2006 }}
In 2001, he supported Shaun McMahon's heavy rebuilding and modification of a {{TrackGauge|500mm}} gauge Garratt locomotive for the Southern Fuegian Railway that had been produced in Argentina in 1994. McMahon included larger cross section for tubing, insulation of the boiler and improved front end as well as combustion system in line with Porta's teachings over the years; the economy of this modern steam engine was improved vastly, more than doubling train length. As a tribute to Porta's lifetime work and in celebration of his upcoming 80th birthday, McMahon named the locomotive "Ing. L.D. PORTA" when it was presented to the public on 11 December 2001. A second Garratt with similar technical specifications was built by Phil Girdlestone in South Africa and delivered to the FCAF in 2006. A third is now under construction again with similar technical features, in Ushuaia.{{cn|date=May 2024}}
Family
He was a devoted family man and he and his wife, Ana Marie, had four children. One of his three sons died of cancer at an early age. On 7 July 1976, during Argentina's Dirty War, his daughter was taken at gunpoint from her home and never seen again.{{cite news|author=Jonathan Glancey |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/aug/02/guardianobituaries.argentina |title=Livio Dante Porta - Engineer who transformed steam technology - Obituary|work=The Guardian |date= 2003-08-02|accessdate=2013-01-13 |location=London}}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category|Livio Dante Porta}}
- {{cite web |url=http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/porta.html |title=The Ultimate Steam Page - Ing. L. D. Porta 1922-2003 "Never Give Up!"|website=TrainWeb|date=23 June 2018 |author= }}
- [http://www.martynbane.co.uk Modern Steam and related articles] at Martyn Bane's Steam and Travel Pages.
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20090124113818/http://5at.co.uk/ Pages for the British project to build a modern steam locomotive. The Advanced Steam Locomotive. (5AT)]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Porta, Livio Dante}}
Category:Locomotive builders and designers
Category:People from Rosario, Santa Fe
Category:20th-century Argentine engineers