I’ve read in various places that firemen hand fired incredible amounts of coal into Mallets or other Duplex Drives or Articulateds before they got automatic stokers. Gawd were they built like Arnie or Sylvester? In Australia, NSWGR (New South Wales Government Railways, now State Rail Authority of NSW)‘s huge 38-class streamlined Pacifics were allegedly hand-fired; they carried 2 firemen. Wonder if it was an endurance contest; or if the big Beyer-Garrats used in parts of the Commonwealth were stoker fired. A 3800 was run across the country once, std-ga. from Sydney to Kalgoorlie (now extended to Perth; “Oz” has 3 different gauges) but supposedly never again owing to Oz’ v. strong unions objecting to hand firing all the way across.
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-Crandell
I believe it was normal for a fireman to shovel about eight to ten tons of coal over the course of a run that could last as long as sixteen hours before being hung up by the “hog law”. Hand firing began to give way to stoker firing just after World War I, at least on the larger classes of locomotives. All types of trains began to go a bit faster in the 'twenties and human firemen faced a much greater demand for steam coupled with larger grate areas. Some engines, like the Pennsy’s L1 Mikes and M1 Mountains were designed to be hand fired but really reached their full potential only when converted to stoker firing. Even with the stoker, the fireman still needed to some work with the scoop to keep the back corners and sides of the firebox covered. He was also busy breaking up clinkers and shaking the grates which was just a physical as shovelling coal. Sometimes, when the fireman was “all done in”, the head brakeman would help with the firing and occasionally a second fireman was put on board to “keep her hot” when a train needed to make up time or if the stoker packed up unexpectedly.