A friend tells me that at the engine servicing complex near where he grew up there was a small three-sided brick or concrete structure near the rails where steam locomotives would pull up next to and let off steam pressure—most likely they would perform this task before the loco was pulled into the service sheds or possibly before the ashes where dumped. Has anyone heard of such a minor trackside structure?
Cheers,
Fred
When a steam locomotive was blown down to clear out mud and scale from the boiler there was a large shot of steam out to the side. The structure that you refere to was to contain this shot of steam so that no one or thing was blown away. We have this problem when we blow down our live steamers. We usually try and do this before we get on the steaming bay. In place of the structure I’ve used a short piece of 3" pvc pipe with a 90degree elbow to direst the blast onto the ground.
Some locations in the UK and probably in the US had signs prohibiting blowing down exactly to prevent the blast of steam (and stuff0 causing problems. I’d never heard of a fixed screen such as you describe though. I would have thought that it might relate more to the ash pit. We also had signs prohibiting dropping ash at some locations… mostly where there was a specific fire risk.
In one of the Burlington Bulletins it tells of an unfortunate accident with a blow down box in southern Illinois. Seems a transient (hobo) crawled inside to keep warm, no one checked the box before the next blow down and they cooked the poor fellow, I believe it said all that was left was his skeleton. The started putting grates over the boxes after that so it wouldn’t happen again.
Rick