What are these on the front of the engine?

Trains.com General Discussion (Trains.com)
1

I’ve seen these details on the front of locomotives before and I have an old Rivarossi C&O 2-8-2 that has these on the front as well.

What the heck are they and what do they do?

http://www.chessieshop.com/gallery/showphoto.pl?id=41457

Thanks,
Doug Focht
[:)]

2

Those are smokebox-mounted air pumps for the braking system.

3

Cool. Thanks!

Were these in addition to the existing braking system?
Perhaps for mountainous areas or for pulling heavier heavier loads?

4

I think that they are the entire braking system, just in a different place.
Matthew

5

Because of the large boiler diameter and clearance issues, some locomotives were designed and built with pumps up front like this or even on the pilot deck. Many on the pilot deck had shrouds and an air cooler between them. It wasn’t unusual for larger locomotives to have two double stage air pumps for the braking system, regardless of where they were mounted.

6

They are what we now call air compressors.

7

It’s great to finally know.

Thanks everyone![:D]

8

AAWWWW, everyone beat me[:(!]

Yeah, dfocht, that is pretty much all there is to know about those things.

WELCOME [#welcome][#welcome][#welcome] to the forums by the way.