(erielack) Lighting off a steam locomotive

["MDelvec952_@_aol.com"]

In a message dated 12/2/99 11:41:12 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
"hotrains_@_choice.net" writes:

>  how was a fire initially started in the firebox of a steam engine? Im sure
>  it was a slow process and not a favored job but I've always wondered,,,
>  thanx in advance,,,,Todd out!!

Lighting off a steam locomotive is a long and tedious process, depending on 
how much you care about your boiler.  And it's different for a coal or oil 
burner.

Assuming you mean coal, a wood fire is built up first.  Then entire firebox 
isn't filled with cordwood like the old days, but a relatively small pile of 
kindling and stuff is lit off with a match and coal added to that fire 
gradually under there's a hot bed of coals. The process takes hours.  Boilers 
are only attached to the frame one end (usually at the saddle between the 
cylinders), allowing the pressure vessel to get longer as it heats, the 
slower the heating the better to keep the stresses on all the metal parts at 
a minumum.  Some of today's more caring steam operators of main line engines 
try to bring the engines up over 24 hours or more. In steam days I'm told 
that the process from cold to popping was over one or two 8-hour shifts 
depending on the hostler and at white point in his shift he started the fire 
and began working the pressure up. Engines in roundhouses were usually hot, 
since the roundhouse was for running maintenance. Most lighting off was done 
near the backshops or where engines were stored.

Oil burners are easier to light off but more difficult to bring up pressure 
slowly.  Also, the Bunker C oil must be heated to flow.  In most steam shops 
the oil-fired engines were heated on shop steam to warm the metal before the 
fire started.  This is not always the cause, but it often was.  I don't know 
how the Lackawanna handled that one oil-fired engine it had, the 1119.  If 
the driver's slip, it's possible to suck an oil fire out the stack -- the 
signature green-hued smoke of unburnt-but-boiling oil and water are the 
tell-tale sign.  The engine crew must relite the fire, but they have to very 
careful about the fire flashing into the cab in the process.  On one of 
today's engines an official in a polyester liesure suit was burned pretty bad 
when he tried to relite such a fire on an oil burner.

One of today's main line excursion engines, a coal burner, used to have a 
crew show up at 6:00 a.m. to have the engine popping off by 9:00 a.m.  As 
predicted, they went through a firebox in about three seasons, and spent the 
next four seasons replacing it.

About the boilers -- they can expand three or four inches depending on the 
engine. It's undetectible if the cab is fastened to the boiler, but on 
engines where the cab is resting on the frame and the boiler expands into the 
cab, you can usually tell by the sliding marks where the cab meets jacketing 
and where the firebox sits on the rolling slides on the frame.

                               ....Mike

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