I have been wondering how cab-forward steam locomotives were stoked with coal on the cab forward locomotives.
Was this done automatically without having the traditional fireman on duty as with the traditional locos?
Looking at pictures of these locos, there does not appear to be any way of feeding coal into the engine, or were they oil-fired ?
Thanks
Frank in Anderson, SC
I believe SP was the only railroad to have cab forward steam locomotives. They were oil fired so no stoking was necessary. The oul was pumped into the firebox from the tender.
Ira Goldberg
Southern Pacific’s Cab forwards were all oil fired, so the firemen was up fron in the cab with the engineer:
They certainly were not the only user of cab ahead locomotives. The Italian State Railways also had a cab ahead locomotive design based on a ten wheel passenger locomotive design.
Hi, Frank - [#welcome]
You got it - cab-forwards were generally oil-fired, at least the SP’s several classes of them. See:
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/cabforward/?page=sp
Trains had a thorough article in the late 1960’s - 1970’s on them which started off with a brief review of the state-of-the-art then. There may have been a sketch or mention of someone else’s that was coal- fired, but I believe the coal bunker would have been small and in the front, the same as on a ‘tank’-type engine running backwards:
Those go-ahead and back-up locomotives
Southern Pacific�s cab-forward articulateds
by Ranger, Ralph D., Jr.
from Trains August 1968 p. 20 - ?
4-8-8-2 cabforward
Thank you, getlemen.
After engaging my brain, I did think the only way to get to the engine at the other end would be to use oil, pumped in. Just wanted to be sure.
Frank
Saw this while browsing, which prompted me to do a google search, and I found this thread. Seems there was a coal-fired cab forward, if this model is in fact prototypical, but it is unclear to me what the feed mechanism is. It looks like some sort of "tunnel’ protruding from the front of the tender to facilitate the coal transfer, but I’m not sure if that was meant for humans or something mechanical.
Heh, I just realized that it’s an AC-9 and NOT a cab forward DOH!
SP with their Cab Forwards turned the entire firebox-boiler assembly around to have the firebox in front.
Did anyone ever do a ‘Cab Forward’ with the Engineer ahead of the smokebox and the fireman in the traditional location at the firebox? The only thing I have seen were some of the Reading & CNJ ‘Mother Hubbards’ with the engineer located mid-way on the boiler with the fireman at the firebox.
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/cnj594s.jpg
BaltACD mentioned the “Mother Hubbards” Camelback Locomotives of CRRNJ.
The above link is a pretty good side shot of one of this type locomotive, shows both Cab for Engineer and the Fireman’s station on the rear of the locomotive.
Most shots seem to be a ‘quartering’ shot from the front of the locomotive. RdgRR and CRRNJ seemed to have large number of these types of engines in several wheel arrangements for NJ/NY and the other Eastern areas wich hosted Commuter services…
Another interesting link on these Types of Engines:
All,
They weren’t firebox forwards but the camelbacks had cabs over the boiler ahead of the firebox. Why does the term “mother hubbard” persist? Maybe because the roads that didn’t have them called them that. All the eastern anthracite roads had them in all the Whyte arrangements from RDG’s 0-4-0-‘s up to LV’s 4-6-2’s and then there was Erie’ 0-8-8 0… Many were ugly and some were sexy. Most plodded but some could go 90 to 100 mph. Pennsy tried them and UP used them in the Dakota coalfields and I think somebody used them in Missouri.The wide fireboes were needed to burn anthracite, anthracite culm (leftover small or dust coal , and lignite which needed a wide firebox and forced the cab onto the boiler to accomodate the loading gauge. The fireman was in the elements on the deck between engine and tender protected sometimes with a tender-mounted canopy or CNJ’s more protective semi enclosed cab.
I beleive voice tubes connected engineer and fireman. All the jobs were not much fun. The engineer and head brakey over the hot boiler with the nightmare of a rod breaking loose and cleaning out their cab (it happened), and the firemen (sometimes two feeding one or two butterfly doors on a bucking and swaying open deck.
True cab-forwards of course had valves controlling oil feed and spray.
Now I’ll have to look at Jawn Henry and the Garratts.
RIXFLIX.
The Beyer-Garratts carried the fuel on the rear engine and the water on the front engine. Thus the stoker could reach both fuel and firebox–and the farther you went, the less weight you had on the drivers.
Respectfully, Jim
Jim,
The Trains article from the late 60’s mentioned a cab-forward involved in a rear end collision not too long before they were retired. The weather was foggy and the engineer was following another train, kept seeing yellow blocks and assumed the next one would be yellow. Of course one of the “yellow blocks” turned out to be red and the preceding train’s caboose was not too far past the signal…
SP turned the entire locomotive around and ran it backward. The NPC had a 4-4-0 (0-4-4?) which had the boiler reversed on the frame. The cylinders were under the firebox.
Judging by the location of the throttle linkage, the Japan National Railways E10 class 2-10-4T was meant to be run bunker first, so I guess that makes it a cab forward. They were built to be used as helpers on a single grade and met early retirement when that route was electrified.
Chuck