Does anyone remember which issue of “Trains” magazine contained the article (was it titled “Big Bang, No Theory”?) about steam-locomotive boiler explosions, with a few pages of descriptive text and some before-and-after photos? I’m assuming that it would have been after the June, 1995 Gettysburg incident, but I’m not certain. Can anyone help with the month and year of that article? THANX! AGJ
Trains, April 1995, Page 66, by Ed King.
I found it on the magazine index on this site.
GEEZ, why didn’t I think of that?, Regardless…
Thanks, Tom. Muchly appreciated!
Alan
I think the NSTB (Spelling?) Issued a PDF Report on that Gettysburg Problem. I might still have it on my computer somewhere but it’s gonna be a dig to find it again.
1278 wasn’t a boiler explosion. It was a crown sheet failure,due to low water level.
That’s what causes boiler explosions - low water over the crownsheet.
Mark.
Low Water is cause.
When you dig down to that engine you will learn how it failed under the low water problem.
Even more interestingly how the water was allowed to get low in the first place.
Mark, not wishing to put you on the spot, and taking into account the energy involved in “hard” firing, did you ever have a sweaty moment or two…a close call? I read an account by an old timer a couple of years back where he said you’d dump the fire, descend from the cab, and run like the devil was gaining on you.
-Crandell
That is the definitive (or “classic”) boiler explosion. Water gets too low and does not cover the crown sheet so the cooling effect is lost (it’s typically well over 1,000°F inside that firebox), fire in the firebox melts the crown sheet, high-pressure steam explodes through the molten crown sheet metal, killing the crew and catapulting the boiler off the frame in a similar phenomenon to rocket propulsion.
Before this gets out of hand and we are knee deep in liquid, my understanding is that there was indeed a problem with the boiler with steam escaping and hurting the crew. The bolts that failed in the boiler were designed to fail so that maybe the entire boiler does not get blown across the hills.
The NTSB report calls it a “firebox explosion.” The boiler was never “catapulted off the frame” as you suggest. The report is available on line:
Interesting.
And exercise the tricock valves occasionally - the water glass can lie to you.
dd
.
Fortunately,compared to wrecks and other incidents,boiler explosions were pretty rare.That says a lot about the crews in thousands of steamers traveling zillions of miles.BTW,the first boiler explosion on record was the “Best Friend of Charlston”.Story goes that the fireman was annoyed by the popoff valve hissing,so he tied it shut.
“Tied it shut”
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Thereby qualifying himself for a pre-Darwin award. IIRC, he was the only fatality.
Chuck
I am glade you finde the fact that an African Slave who was purposely kept uneducated died in that tragic incident.
According to a contemporary account, the fireman wasn’t killed, but suffered a broken thigh.
http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/brown/chpt29.html
I have to wonder how “uneducated” the man actually was, if he was employed as a locomotive fireman?
Mark.
Ham549,
There was NO reference to the Fireman being Black, a Slave or Uneducated, the comment referred to someone doing something, that they SHOULD have known better than to do, with the expected results occurring. Let’s NOT turn this into a racial issue PLEASE, as that did not appear to be the intent of the poster.
Thank You,
Doug