Things a guy thinks about while scooping snow:
How big was the shovel used by a fireman on an average steam engine?
How many pounds of coal did he (probably a “he”, I’m guessing) throw per scoop, per hour, per shift?
Was there a big difference, as far as the fireman was concerned,about what kind of coal the railroad was using?
How much of the physical part of the fireman’s job was eliminated by the mechanical stokers? Did he just have to push a button, or turn a lever?
Scoops are sized by numbers - but even if I could remember the number it would have not meaning. The typical coal scoop is much smaller than a snow shovel and I would say a typical scoop is about 10 pounds of coal. You actually don’t want to large a scoop because that leads to piles of coal which leads to clinkers which leads to a batch of problems. The fireman is always looking for a thin, bright (uniform flame), level fire. Too much coal in one spot can result in problems.
That said, a fireman would shovel between around 5 tons (10,000 lbs or 1,000 scoops) in a shift depending on train size, speed, grades, and stops. Prior to stokers, some locomotives required two firemen.
Even after stokers became common, there is much for the fireman to do. There is still a need to shovel some coal to fill in holes for a uniform fire. Injecting water, calling signals, adjusting the blower, and checking the fire were additional tasks.
Stokers sometimes failed and the scoop was the backup system. I had a friend who years ago was firing out of Ogden when the stoker quit. The front end brakeman and the engineer also took turns in shoveling. It was not unusual for the a brakeman in the cab to push coal to the front of the tender when firing.
dd
It sounds like your average fireman was in pretty good shape.
Did an automatic stoker dump the coal right into the fire? I’ve read where the fireman had to put the right amount of coal in the right spot. How was that accomplished ?
I have never worked a stoker equipped engine - but the information that I have received is that steam jets were used in the firebox to distribute coal and level the fire. The fireman had some control over the steam jets.
dd
Can you explain what a steam jet is? Thanks
Just think of a hose end sprayer - only shooting out a jet of high-pressure steam that blows the coal pieces across the firebox. Handfired coal was called nut coal with pieces about 3 to 6 inches in size. Stoker coal was much small - pieces about 1/2 to 3 inches in size. Coal of this size is easily moved by a steam jet. As I understand - the steam jets were hard-plumbed into the firebox and control was achieved by turning specific jets on and off.
dd
I looked up fuel mileage for a BigBoy. Twenty eight tons of coal was used getting to Harriman, which is halfway between Cheyenne and Laramie, about 55 miles. I am not sure how long it takes to ascend. I would not want to hand fire that baby if the stoker failed.
The job of a fireman with an automatic stoker is starting to sound a little more fun! Doesn’t the introduction of water into the fire, by way of the steam jets dampen(?) the fire in the firebox? Maybe that’s not a concern, if the coal has varying levels of moisture anyway?
Steam at 180 psi is at approximately 400 degrees so it doesn’t cool the fire much. The coal willl have between 5% and 15% moisture depending on source and elapsed time since being mined. That does not drop the fire much either. With a good draft, the fire temperature is going to be around 1200 to 1400 degrees. Much hotter and clinkers start forming because the coal ash is melting. That can damage the grates.
dd
ps - even an oil fired boiler can form clinkers.
it would take a lot less coal on the descent so the firing rate would be significantly backed off. By the way, the box I fire is about 3 by 5 or a grate area of about 15 square feet. Look at BB’s grate area. I can load my firebox with 9 scoops of coal. A scoop of coal would not even hit the grate in a BB. It would be completely burned before it fell that far.
dd
Awesome. Could you post a link that describes your engine?
I am a volunteer fireman at the Golden Spike National Historical site - the coal burner is the 119. I don’t have the link handy as I am traveling. Just Google the Golden Spike web site and there are pictures and descriptions of both engines.
Is that you?
No - I wear a cap. I think that it is the Engineer.
dd
The stoker crushed and delivered coal to a distribution (delivery) plate located inside the firebox. From there it was distributed (blown) by steam nozzles (jets) to various portions of the firebox.
In 1949-51 I fired both “hand balmers” and stoker equipped steam locomotives on the Illinois Central. That was long ago but IIRC we used a #10 (medium) scoop shovel. Even on stoker equipped locomotives some hand fireing was usually required to “trim” the fire to achieve and maintain an even fuel bed across the entire grate area.
The BTU (heat) content of coal varies from a low of about 9500 to a high of 14,500 BTU per pound. Locomotives of the same steam generation capacity which burned the lower grades of coal required larger grate areas to burn larger amounts of coal than did their counterparts which were designed to burn higher heating value coal. Anthracite (hard) coal had a lower BTU value than did bituminous (soft) coal. That is why wide, Belpaire fireboxes were often employed on the anthracite burning locomotives of many eastern railroads.
Mark
Does a stoker equipped boiler actually build a bed of coals or is the coal mostly burning in the airflow through the firebox - similar to how oil firing works? Did you have problems with clinkers? How hard was it to see when you were building a hump or hollow in the fire?
Thanks
dd
So according to some documentation I just found, I am using a #2 scoop. I suspect that is smaller than Mark’s #10. But I will also bet that he was in better shape in 1950 than I am now.
dd
Can you explain that?
It surprised me at first as well - but what happens is that the non-combustible impurities in the fuel, whether oil or coal, reach a near melting point and sinter together to form a clinker. The clinker then messes up the airflow and can cause damage to the grates and other parts of the firebox.
dd
(quote):
The BTU (heat) content of coal varies from a low of about 9500 to a high of 14,500 BTU per pound. Locomotives of the same steam generation capacity which burned the lower grades of coal required larger grate areas to burn larger amounts of coal than did their counterparts which were designed to burn higher heating value coal. Anthracite (hard) coal had a lower BTU value than did bituminous (soft) coal. That is why wide, Belpaire fireboxes were often employed on the anthracite burning locomotives of many eastern railroads.
Mark
Now I’m confused. If anthracite burned with a lower BTU than bituminous coal, I gather it would take more pounds of anthracite than bituminous to generate the same amount of energy (BTU’s), and hence the larger fireboxes for engines that fired with anthracite.
I grew up near a bituminous coal-mining region in Southwestern Virginia, and when I got my first look at anthracite (as adult) it looked so clean and superior that I guess I fell into the habit of thinking that the anthracite would burn harder and longer. Apparently none of that is true.
Soooo . . . what benefit is there to anthracite over and above its cleanliness?
I won my fame and wide acclaim / for Lackawanna’s splendid name / by keeping bright and snowy white / upon the road of anthracite.
(Lackawanna’s mascot, “Phoebe Snow,” uttered this poem in early 20th-Century print ads.) - al