I know there are at least a couple of large hoses for water, that run from the back of the Lcomotive to the front of the Tender … but is there some sort of pump involved to move the water from Tender to Locomotive? I’m interested in adding these final details to my Broadway Limited NYC J1-e Hudson. It’s rather tough to find any good clear photos or even good clear illustrations, and written text on how this functioned. It’s not even mentioned in the Alvin Staufer’s “Thoroughbreds”. So … an inquiring mind wants to know. Thanks!
Most steam locomotives use what is called an injector. This device picks up water from the tender using boiler steam pressure like a siphon, like a garden sprayer that picks up the chemical from the jar with the water pressure. The injector funnels down to a small opening (like putting a small nozzle on a garden hose) which produces a pressure greater than the boiler pressure. If a boiler is at 200psi for instance, the injector may convert the 200psi to 250psi thus forcing the water into the boiler. On newer locomotives with feedwater heaters and other gadgets, there would be a water pump which would normally provide water to the boiler. Even on these locomotives there would always be injectors in case the pump failed. There were always 2 injectors, one for the fireman one for the engineer. If water couldn’t get to the boiler somehow, it was almost certain death for the engine crew. Google “steam locomotive injectors” that will produce info and even a video that demonstrates how they work.
John,
I am thinking that BLI has detailed your Hudson more than you realize. read on.
In the case of your J1e, the NYC used the “Lifting” type injector and it is hidden under the jacketing right in front of the engineer. On the fireman’s side, look between the rear driver and the bottom front of the firebox at about axle level for the cold water pump that is part of the feedwater heater system.
The “Lifting” type of injectors are mounted high on the boiler side just in front of the cab so that the operating levers can come through the cab front in order to be operated.
The “Non Lifting” type of injector is mounted under the cab of the locomotive. If there is only one it should be under the engineer’s side. If two are used, the other is mounted under the firemnan’s side.
A lot of cold water pumps are also mounted under the fireman’s side. However, the mounting position of all of these appliances can vary.
Federal law required two means of suppling the boiler with water. That can be either, two injectors or (contrary to the above post) one injector and one feedwater heater system which includes a water pump.
To learn about Injectors look here: http://www.icsarchive.org/icsarchive-org/bb/ics_bb_508d_section_5236_locomotive_injectors.pdf
To learn about feedwater Heater Systems look here: http://www.icsarchive.org/icsarchive-org/bb/ics_bb_508d_section_2517_locomotive_feedwater_heating_equipments.pdf
*Note these are large files and might take a long time to load. But, wait
I can’t thank you two enough for the education! I figured there had to be something, somewhere, that moved the water … and this makes it clearer than ever. The BLI J-1e Hudson does have a lot of little details on the body … but not knowing what I’m looking at hasn’t helped! LOL!!! I’ve detailed the cab, and added a friction wheel and cam box for the Loco Valve Pilot on the Engineer’s side … and the hoses are the last bit of detailing I want to add.
I have been able to find some drawings regarding many parts that are numbered, but alas, have no index as to what the numbers represent … thus my quest or information from those who know. [;)]
I will check on the links and will google for the information mentioned as suggested here.
Again, thanks again for the help and information!
There are articles, and some discussions in forum threads here, about different kinds of feedwater heater – if I remember correctly, some J1es received different installations ‘later in life’ so you may want to compare prototype photos, by date, of the specific road number you have.
The law required two methods of supplying the boiler with water. One was almost always an injector, which is a relatively reliable device with a minimum of moving or adjustable parts. This came in two flavors, ‘nonlifting’ (which was mounted low down, where the water to it could flow ‘solidly’ with enough natural flow by gravity) and ‘lifting’ (which could develop suction even when unprimed that could lift water up from where it could be (gravity) fed from the tender. The lifting injectors needed more careful adjustment and operation to work, as there is a delicate balance between steam and water mass flow.
The feedwater-heater system, when present, is considered one of the two mandatory methods, and its use would be preferred over the injector because it has better thermodynamic efficiency. An injector IS a feedwater ‘heater’, but it can’t work with hot water close to boiling because the induced vacuum causes nucleate boiling or ‘flashing’ of hot feedwater, which ruins the injector ‘action’. Heater systems, on the other hand, can heat water up to close to the saturation temperature of the boiler water (which, remember, can be above 338 degrees on modern road locomotives) and can recover a significant amount of otherwise-wasted energy by using exhaust steam.
The J1es were built with Elesco feedwater heaters (the cylinder at top of the smokebox; you can get a better idea what the exchanger looked like by seeing it ‘exposed’ on locomotives like the Lima A-1 Berkshire prototype) which is a ‘closed’ type heater. Later systems, notably from Worthington, were ‘open’ type, where the exhaust steam
None-- right? Just gravity?
Then after the water’s on the locomotive the injector or FWH goes to work.
Yes … between the descriptions in the text of the PDF’s I downloaded, I have been able to locate the various pumps and lines on the body of the Locomotive.
My main concern was the attachment of the large hoses seen in old photos, and newer photos of some of the large Locomotives, and Canadian Hudsons that are still running. I have been thinking up some sort of swivel device at least on the front of the Tender attachment. I think I can fabricate something in this respect. If not, the magnet idea sounds, well … pretty sound! I have several scale sizes of small black rubber tubing to try out for this. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Again, thanks for all the helpful information!
Good luck with that.
To get close to the atmospheric boiling point of 212 F let alone the water/steam saturation temperature that you quote of 339 F at boiler pressure, you probably need some 2-stage scheme, possibly even compound expansion where you divert some of the steam from the intermediate pressure receiver into a feedwater heating stage.
A feedwater heater is helpful in not only reducing fuel consumption but also reducing the “water rate” by 7-10 percent. This may reduce fuel consumption by even more because you are placing less demand on the firing rate to the grate and hence may get less carbon caryover up the stack.
But to get anywhere close to the boiler saturation temperature, you may want to employ an “economizer” extracting heat from the flue gases. There was that Franco-Crosti scheme tried in England and other places that was “Rube Goldberg” and had the added problem that it took too much heat from the flue gases that you got acidic condensation and wrecked equipment. A much better scheme was devised by Chapelon, I believe, and considered by Wardale for the unfunded 5AT mainline “tourist train” locomotive scheme. ’
You just put a barrier inside the boiler water space to reduce the mixing between the front part of the boiler where the flue gases have cooled a little and the back part of the boiler, and you pump your feedwater into the front part. That allows the downstream flue gases to give up more of their heat and cool closer to the atmospheric boiling point by heating feedwater below the boiler saturation temperature.
You don’t wa
This is an example of what happens when I have two somewhat unrelated things in one sentence and then forget to edit properly before posting…
Rather obviously the amount of heat transferred from exhaust steam (at something like 14-18psi) is not going to be anywhere near saturation at boiler pressure. As Prof. Milenkovic notes, for this you need a combustion-gas heater (aka ‘economizer’) which, in turn, requires some form of effective pumping to pressurize the feedwater to keep it from ‘steaming’ (look up shipboard ‘steaming economizers’ for a case where that phenomenon might be desirable, and consider the reasons why it would not be on a locomotive). That system might be a positive-displacement pump or the kind of pitot pump used for some “BFP” applications on once-through/supercritical powerplant boiler setups.
With the aforementioned point that there is some effective ‘superheat’ in exhaust steam at ‘back pressure’ relative to 212F, which allows a somewhat higher temperature from the hot-water pump into the boiler, yes, you’d need bleeds. However, I doubt there is much to be gained at ‘typical’ locomotive comp
How do they maintain the purity of the water as to not foul the bolier tubes? There is hard water in coal country.
In answer to your two-part question 1) they don’t maintain water purity and 2) the water does foul the boiler tubes.
The standard way of dealing with hard water is to use frequent “blow downs” where you discharge water from the boiler so the minerals don’t build up too high inside the boiler. This consumes the coal needed to heat the water that replaces the water that was discharged by blow down. The second part of this is frequent boiler washdowns to remove as much of the scale as they can, and at some point condemning a boiler and replacing it with a new one.
Another way is to chemically treat the water by adding chemicals to the tender. The French had this treatment system they called TIA that was said to extend boiler washout intervals and boiler life, and Livio Dante Porta in Argentina developed his own version of it. Instead of trying to remove the minerals, you use chemicals to keep them in suspension, forming a kind of boiler soup that is said to fight scale formation.
In The Red Devil and Other Tales of the Age of Steam, David Wardale tried to use such a treatment system in South Africa, but it had problems. This boiler soup will start forming a head of foam unless you have the right kind of anti-foam chemical, and the anti-foam the chemists at the South African Railways dispensed for his locomotive either didn’t work or wasn’t mixed correctly by the crews. His book expresses his frustration regarding the resulting “foaming and priming” that served to make the superheater ingesting that water to start leaking.
Funny, when cooking, I just use a small bit of margarine in my pots to keep them from foaming! [;)]
NYC John,
The Lionel 700E model was an example of the New York Central J1e Hudson 4-6-4 locomotive and used an external water pump mounted on a frame bracket just ahead of the rear four wheel locomotive truck - on the firemans side.
This was a bracket cast into the frame extending out behind the rear drive wheel. Lionel replicated this detail by a small screw and simulated pump mounted through a hole in this bracket. The detail supply pipes also attached to some degree to simulate the actual pump design.
The Lionel 700E had these details which were eliminated on the more simply detailed Lionel 763E and later 773 post war Hudson locomotives.
Al Staufer in “Thoroughbreds” has some fairly good photos of the system if you know what to look for.
I personally was able to work on a similar feed pump on the Pere Marquette Berkshire PM 1225 2-8-4 in East Lansing, MI and later in Owosso, MI. This was the real feed water system in which a large pipe and tap was located on the front firemans side of the tender. A shut off valve would allow working on the system without draining the tender.
This large tap - about 5" in diameter was connected to a rubber type flexable hose and on to a similar diameter pipe attached to the left side of the engine and piped to the feed water pump mounted on a similarly designed frame bracket - just ahead of the rear four wheel locomotive truck as discribed above. I believe the pump was centrifical and was steam powered from the engine.
Consequently there was a similar output supply pipe system to the feed water heater. Also steam supply lines to the pump to operate it and also suitable shut off valves to control the pump with operational gauges indicating the pressure. This was controlled by the fireman.
One of the most spectacular discriptions of the failure of this fairly o
Hey Doc,
I appreciate your reponse. While I appreciate all the in-depth, detailed information contained in the previous responses - which were above my pay grade LOL - you provided an answer I can make something out of.
With the other responses I learned the how, where, and why of water moving from Tender to Locomotive … most important and informative. It also helped me look for the parts that are included on the model … the feedwater pump and injector … well, on the NYC Hudsons they were located under a panel door on the side of the boiler.
What I needed, and unfortunately guess I didn’t make clear in my original post, was … what was connected to the hoses in their connection to both Lcomotive and tender. However, from the technical explanations, and your model explanation, I have really been able to put two and two together, and come up with the understanding needed to make this connection happen.
I have seen the photo in “Thoroughbreds” where the hoses connected on the Hudsons, and after finding some of the current, out-of-service AT&SF Hudsons, clearer color photos have assisted even more! Now granted, they differ some from the NYC Hudsons, but the connections are what are important to their recreation in miniature.
“The Mighty NYC Hudson” … a vintage film, shows all the goodies discussed here, including testing and treatment of the water! A fascinating old film!
The likely reason for the prompt explosion was the presence of Nicholson syphons.
You may remember that these were touted as ‘helping prevent crownsheet failures in low water’ by pumping water via the syphon effect from the throats over the crownsheet. What actually happens is that the water flows randomly over the crownsheet, with the Leidenfrost effect active, continuously partially quenching the waterside of the crown sheet in random patterns that may then be rapidly heat-cycled. This is a recipe for prompt and effective crownsheet failure on a scale that propagates dramatically fast once it starts anywhere.
The crew was likely dead before any recognition, let alone any pain signals, made it up the nerves to the brain.
http://specialcollection.dotlibrary.dot.gov/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+4157)
If you read through the contents of 'Locomotive
BaltADC,
Thanks for the accident report citations on the Department of Transportation files of Intersate Commerse Commission ICC.
Being a New York Central fan I was quite interested in reading the accident reports from that railroad filed at the very end of steam locomotive operation in the United States. Only about three or four accidents involving steam locomotives happened on the New York Central after the year 1950.
One of the most heroic occured near Oneida, NY about two months after I was born in October 19th, 1950. Apparently, a full 11 car Pullman passenger train #21 northbound pulled by NYC 5422 a J3 4-6-4 “Hudson” locomotive wrecked at high speed!
I mean this accident was right out of the “Twilight Zone!” Apparently the 11 car passenger train consisting of a baggage car a combination coach baggage car another coach and two pullmans followed by a second coach and five more pullmans running at over 80 mph.
At about 1:30AM - passenger train 21 on track 1 followed and passed a 126 car NYC freight train Extra 3124 West going the same way on track 3.
An empty automobile boxcar #9103 owned by C.&W.C. Railroad built in 1919 - decided at a very inopertune moment - to drop a defective boxcar door. Right onto the mainline track in the path of the speeding “Hudson” locomotive and its passenger train No 21.
Well the “Hudson” hit the boxcar door at 83 mph which went under the pilot - aka cowcatcher - after traveling 53 feet and derailed the front truck at speed. Which front 4 wheel locomotive truck grabbed the fallen boxcar door and drove it down the track where the friction cut the door into three pieces. 500 feet from the impact with the door the train went into emergency -
Yikes
While they chemically treated the water as best they could, as needed, I have learned that there was a “strainer” at the end of the hose that lead the water to the boiler. I can only guess this - as most strainers - kept out any pieces of heavy sediment and/or rust flakes that made their way through the hoses. This kept that ‘junk’ out of the boiler.
The strainer is seen at the juncture of the water hose and the suction pipe in this vintage NYC Hudson photo …
And seen here too, in this photo of the juncture of the water hose and the suction pipe, on an AT&SF #3450 …