开云体育

Wood Vs Coal

lnnrr #1174 There was a fairly basic difference between fireboxes made for wood burning and ones designed for coal. When you look at Civil War era locomotives, one sees that it was common for fireboxes to be no wider than the frame of the engine. This gave a long narrow firebox that generally was quite deep to allow layers of wood. Example: the American Standard 4-4-0. Fireboxes designed for coal used a wider shallower firebox that needed to hang behind the drivers or spread above them. This led to the trailing truck. There were exceptions, of course. Not to mention design failures as builders experimented with improvements. As the railroads evolved, many locomotives were given quicky conversions from wood to coal but these were generally locomotives put into secondary service because of poor efficiency compared to engines built for coal. One historic example was when the L&N converted a number of locos along the Gulf Coast where there were few grades. Then a hurricane blew through Mobile and Baldwin County Alabama. Farmers there lost most of their crops which often were shipped by L&N. The RR reconverted several engines back to wood in order to burn fallen timber and give the farmers a bit of cash until the next year. Chuck Peck
DONALD HENNEN #1215 There were many coal burning locomotives built with the firebox between the drivers. There were also many engines built, with essentially the same boiler, which could be ordered with different grates for wood or for coal (or with an oil burning setup). The above-the-drivers fireboxes, with their larger grates, likely had more to do with the boiler size and intended steaming capacity, regardless of fuel. These were usually coal or oil fired, because the wood burning railroads were either long ago or little short lines with small locomotives. The one case I can think of where coal determined the grate size was if the engine was intended to burn anthracite. Engines on the anthracite railroads (Reading, Lackawanna, etc.) had huge grates and wide fireboxes because hard coal burns so slowly. As a spotting feature, I would not expect to see a wide firebox burning wood but, in my experience, the mere presence of a narrow one tells you little about its intended fuel. toggle quoted message Show quoted text --- In yardbirdtrains@..., "lnnrr" <lnnrr@...> wrote: There was a fairly basic difference between fireboxes made for wood burning and ones designed for coal. When you look at Civil War era locomotives, one sees that it was common for fireboxes to be no wider than the frame of the engine. This gave a long narrow firebox that generally was quite deep to allow layers of wood. Example: the American Standard 4-4-0. Fireboxes designed for coal used a wider shallower firebox that needed to hang behind the drivers or spread above them. This led to the trailing truck. There were exceptions, of course. Not to mention design failures as builders experimented with improvements. As the railroads evolved, many locomotives were given quicky conversions from wood to coal but these were generally locomotives put into secondary service because of poor efficiency compared to engines built for coal. One historic example was when the L&N converted a number of locos along the Gulf Coast where there were few grades. Then a hurricane blew through Mobile and Baldwin County Alabama. Farmers there lost most of their crops which often were shipped by L&N. The RR reconverted several engines back to wood in order to burn fallen timber and give the farmers a bit of cash until the next year. Chuck Peck

Previous Topic Next Topic