Livio Dante Porta

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 higher performance, energy efficiency and reduced pollution. He developed the Kylpor and Lempor exhaust systems. The Lemprex was under development at the time of his death.

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.

Naturally Porta's first projects were in Argentina. Taking the work of Andre Chapelon in France as his starting point he set out to show that the steam locomotive was far from reaching its maximum potential. His first locomotive project in 1948 took the remains of a metre gauge 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.

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 Río Turbio; 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 Argentinian National Institute of Technology (INTI). His writings on steam technology are of considerable volume, mostly unpublished.

In early 1983 Porta and his family moved to the United States to work on steam locomotive development for the American Coal Enterprises project. This was the only time in his life he lived outside of Argentina for any great length length of time. After the collapse of this project he returned to Argentina in 1986 with further work being undertaken in that country as well as Brazil and Paraguay. During 1992 Porta was contracted by the Cuban government so as to implement an extensive rational use of energy project which included modern steam rail 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.

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