Purpose of Smoke Consumers
This is the back of a P&LE 2-8-4, the last class of steam locomotives built by Alco. The caption to the photo says that the round objects are “smoke consumers”. What did they do, inject a draft above the grate? Were they successful?
Looking at 9401, it seems strange that for a company that usually was one of the first to adopt new technologies such as roller bearing wheels and even roller bearing rods (on the Niagaras), the New York Central, at this late date, chose to have an enclosed cab but not to have roller bearings on the trailing truck.
I am learning to fire a coal fired steam locomotive. When you open the firebox, the coal fire seems to be somewhat oxygen starved and smokey – so in theory a little hot air above the fire would consume more of the soot. However, in practice, that last thing you want in a firebox is a temperature difference on the fire tubes. Over-fire air injection would have a high probability of causing that – either through colder air if not heated correctely or hotter flame if all works well. The cab is noisy enough without those.
The idea of the smoke consumer is to introduce more oxygen and achieve thorough combustion, right? Is there a predictable time during the run cycle, such as starting, when it’s smoky and thus useful to have them on, and then shut off the rest of the time?
