From NDG over at the Trains “String Lining” thread.
This one has the Bundle under the smokebox abaft the Pilot Beam.
So the bundle is the feedwater heater in this case or something else?
Usually see it on top of the smokebox in front of the stack, but not always, and different types as well.
Some railroads famous for “the look”…Texas and Pacific, Indiana Harbor Belt and so forth.
That could be an Elesco feedwater heater, but if it is it’s in an unusual location. Typically they were mounted high on the smokebox front.
The other common feedwater heaters were the Worthington, usually mounted on the “port side” of the locomotive, (just keeping up with the nautical terminology here, 'abaft" is a cool word, as is ‘athwart’) in the neighborhood of the cross-compound air pumps, or inside the smokebox, and the wierd Coffin feedwater heater, mounted on the front of the smokebox and draping around it like a shroud.
Whatever it is, it may not be a feedwater heater at all, some 'roads didn’t bother with them, not believing they were worth the extra maintanance work, and some who had them removed them later for the same reason.
I don’t know anything about feedwater heaters but here’s the loco in question:
This isn’t the first time that I have seen the mounting of an Elesco FWH down on the pilot deck. This same subject came up somewhere else in the past year or so. As for Santa Fe’s reason, I am not read enough in Santa Fe practices to know for sure. However, being on the pilot deck does make it closer to the source of exhaust steam. I would like to see more pictures of this loco as I am not seeing a mounting of the normal cold water pump associated with Elesco.
I believe this is an ex PRR L2s USRA design 2-8-2. PRR had 5 to go with their L1s 2-8-2 of which there were hundreds. All had their air tank on the pilot. I suspect that when the USRA forced these on the PRR they were outfitted like the L1s engies. The L2s engines were dumped at the first opportuity and IIRC ATSF bought them. PRR M1 and M1A 4-8-2 engines also had pilot mounted air tanks,
So is this an air tank or a feedwater heater?
What exactly is a “bundle”?
Worley says all SFe 3800-class 2-10-2s had Elescos.
By the pipe coming out of the side, running up beside the steps, down the side to the “Boiler Check Valve”, it is the feedwater heater. The “bundle” would be the array of pipes inside the casing. Exhaust steam surrounds these pipes transferring heat to the feedwater.
Learn more about Feedwater Heaters here: http://www.icsarchive.org/icsarchive-org/bb/ics_bb_508d_section_2517_locomotive_feedwater_heating_equipments.pdf
Look again, it is a 2-10-2.
Allrighty that settles it. It’s an Elesco Feedwater Heater. Yes, now I remember what the bundle is, one of those things I had forgotten…thanks Big Jim!
Perhaps 20 of them didn’t, if not in the blueprint?http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/221763/page/264
I don’t know, however, many many locomotives on many many different railroads went through evolutionary changes over the course of their useful lives. So, even if they originally weren’t so equipped, perhaps later they were…especially if it was a heavily used road locomotive!