How does a tender booster work? It seems to look like a small drive line on the truck of the tender. Does this operate on steam or some other way?
Low pressure steam pipe from the locomotive to a small piston steam motor on the tenders leading truck. Not popular with train and engine crews. Very seldom used outside of yard switching service mainly because these devices severly limited the top speed of the locomotive.
Another problem with tender boosters is that as your consumable stores (fuel
and water) are used, the tractive effort severely decreases due to the declining
weight. Most railroads did not stay with tender boosters very long. Trailing truck
boosters, on the other hand, did tend to last-at least some places where speed
wasn’t an issue.
Not really–the booster is disengaged at high speeds, so it won’t limit the engine’s running speed. Also, boosters usually ran on whatever steam pressure was admitted to the throttle (the steam comes from the cylinder saddle usually).
Sincerely,
Daniel Parks
Some steam locomotives had boosters on their trailing truck. This was useful for faster acceleration when leaving the station.
As I learned it, the only reason you would go through the trouble of putting a booster on a tender truck is if your engine had no trailing truck (like a 2-8-0 or 4-6-0). Otherwise, you would mount it on the trailing truck.