Hoe do you fire up a steam loco?

How steam trains were fired up for starting?

rail10 wrote:How steam trains were fired up for starting?

A LOT more involved than just putting the key in the ignition...

This monograph (known as 'boot steam') predates the web, and has been on the web almost from the beginning:

http://www.sdrm.org/faqs/hostling.html

Enjoy.

Hi Rail 10

Much like your cigarette - in principle, that is. Although it does take somewhat longer I'm afraid - time for smoking some couple of more cigarettes (what am I supposed to do - I'm a non smoker)

-J-

Hi Photogenic,

From a cold start, no fire, a coal burner steamer would take somewhere around four hours to bring up to proper steam pressure. As you can imagine, an oil burner would take less. Accordingly, most steamers on call would have people on duty all the time to keep the fires going in the firebox so that a steamer in the roundhouse could be up to steam pressure relatively quickly, an hour or so, and be on its way. This was all part of the maintenance of steamers being "labor intensive" and why diesels were quick to replace them.

Obviously .... you show it a female loco. That'll drive it crazy and get it all fired up!

Show it a female loco TOO FUNNY!!! Seriously I can be from cold to ready to go in about 3 hours with a coal burner. Takes about the same with oil really cause you dont want to get her too hot too fast.
On ours you start with kindling and oil soaked rags toss in some green coal and a match. Stoke it a bit till you reach 50lbs of steam and the blower can be turned on. then add more coal and wait.
If the loco was in the roundhouse ( depending on repairs ) the fire was banked and easy to get back up to snuff in short order. However when in for firebox work or anything involving the fire being dumped, the loco would be dead and a bear to get up in any bit of a hurry.

Hi Route,

Sounds like you are working on a smaller steamer. I spoke with the fellas that worked on # 3985, the UP Challenger, and even though she is an oil burner, from a dead cold firebox, you can have a nice long dinner before you can check the brakes and move out.

And don't you know that ALL steamers are females ??? Either you treat them right with lots of TLC or you will regret the day you were born. 'Nuff said right there.

Add.: June 26th ff (I have re-edited the pictures a couple of times for size and illumination):
Well apart from joking: what Pennsy wrote above will give a good idea of it.
(Emm, I mean both remarks - although a lot more could be said about the second point ...)
May I add that in Europe railways were generally more cautious about lighting up from 'dead cold' - it was usually done over one shift, took about 8 - 10 h. This was to allow a more gentle and more even warming up of the boiler, reducing stress from unequal heat expansion as the firebox proper heats up much quicker and much more while the outer sheets are still left relatively cold as long as boiler water only warms up and there is still no steam pressure.
-

Hamburg-Altona shed in 1966; The shed was characteristic for having two intertwining turn tables - on right table: 01.10 class
oil-fired three cylinder Pacific from Osnabrück; 03 class Pacifics both of visiting East-German DR version (Berlin traffic) and the
shed's own DB version in shed to the right; coaling facilities were torn down in 1969 when receiving oil-fired Osnabrück 01.10s
-
In Germany, lighting up from dead cold was usually begun with a fire made up by a heap of chopped wood logs piled up in the firebox. This was to make a more gentle start of heating the firebox.
In contrast to US practice there was no complete fire dropping at the end of a run but just fire cleaning through drop grate while at the same time smoke box was emptied of char held back by wire net round draughting (in contrast to master mechanics front end). Engines were shedded with a special form of fire to enable them to keep pressure unattended even for hours on end without neither raising nor dropping pressure much. This consisted of a heap of coal in the middle of the firebox which was allowed slowly to burn while the grate around it was more or less bare which was of no harm since there was none but a light natural draught through chimney height and air intake vents were kept closed to reduce combustion rate. Every now and then a shed fireman went through the roundhouse and served all the locomotives 'at sleep' and also put in a first preparing fire as time was coming up for an engine to leave for her assignment. So, when the regular crew came to enter the cab, they found a prepared, well started heap of coal in the firebox which they just had to spread out evenly over the firebox to have a good fire lighting immediately on which they added up, raising pressure from 'sleeping' 10 - 12 bar to full 16 bar (228 psi) while leaving the roundhouse and backing up to their train, adding up further to prepare for a full steaming rate to be at hand when starting the train.
Lighting up from dead cold was only due when an engine had boiler washout or had boiler repairs in the shed. So engines were kept in steam for between 2 weeks to 1 month throughout. Intentions were to prolongue washout intervals to about 2 months or longer with improved water treatment and more effective blowdown but these things were never developed with decission to give up steam traction.
In practice, with a well arranged assignment of engines shed time was reduced to a minimum and consumption and man hours to deal with engines at shed were kept very low. So much so, that oil-fired engines could be left unattended from shedding to leaving with air vents closed. With oil-fired engines held ready for hours or even days as a traffic reserve, said shed firemen had to come by occasionally and start the oil-burners. They used to shorten their work by having the burners run on a high firing rate and raise steam quickly to near full boiler pressure and then cut off. That should have been sort of 'ideal' for upkeep of the firebox of course, but I never heard or read anything about it having ever been investigated how much more boiler repair was caused by such abrupt fire on / fire off handling which was also practiced on the road with a passenger train's station stop. With fully welded steel boxes and staybolts and tubes at throat plate it appears it never caused a noticeable problem, though.
The efficiency of steam traction was thus reduced the more engines assignments were becoming more scattered and irregular resulting in generally lower monthly mileage as better runs were taken over by diesel and electric traction. It was therefore attempted to keep steam busy in 'steam traction isles' like Kassel for 44 Decapods on heavy freight and Hamburg-Altona which in fall 1968 received the Osnabrück 01.10 (then renumbered 012) class oil-fired three cylinder Pacifics and until fall 1972 only had this class handling all express trains to the North. Rheine / Emden became best known in the last years of steam for 44s, 012s and 41 Mikados (all engines oil-fired except some 44s of Emden) for handling all traffic on the Emsland line from the North sea to Münster (later but Rheine) and partly into the industrial areas of the Ruhr, with oil-fired 44s running through to Gelsenkirchen and Duisburg and thus deepy intruding into fully electrified areas heading heavy ore consists. The Emsland line was known for steam powered trains passed through at signal block distance for much of the day and night turning the line into an endless conveyer belt with 44s single and double-headed on ore loads south-bound / running empty consists back to Emden harbour, 012s running expresses and 41s in stopper passenger service and general freight. As long as this was kept up there was little time for engines to stay at roundhouses longer than necessary for servicing and minor repairs or said boiler washouts. In the final years however this inevitably deteriorated as steam traction was being consecutively reduced and although the number of engines held in service was accordingly being cut down there was increasing idling time and thus the number of engines found at shed at any time remained much the same while traffic handled was already much reduced. For the 012s the last fairly good year seems to have been 1973 with engines in - well - tolerably acceptable condition and busy in the heavy summer holiday traffic to and from the North sea; they continued in declining condition until fall 1975 when the Pacific-Mikado-Decapod set was truncated leaving only freight until the final end of steam on DB in 1977.


012 063 of Rheine shed has backed up on North-bound express in 1972 as electrification had reached Rheine, last stonghold of
oil-fired steam on DB. See 'St. Elmo's fire' showing above chimney, a feature characteristic of these engines - this was caused by
steam from auxilliaries exhausting into crescent shape channel within chimney; at any speed it kept on dancing like a white flame
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Too bad, I was only born then and I couldn't go see steam right off the craddle, neither. So all I can do is to take it both from technical books, from engineers having worked with steam and from friends ... put it all together and draw my own conclusions.
Well, in view of preparation time of steam locos to be ready for leaving roundhouse the comparatively short time it takes women to prepare for going out (but two hours approx. depending on completeness of make-up etc.) should appear in a different light, shouldn't it?
Juniatha

Hi Photogenic,

First off, congratulations on your excellent English and command of the English language. Second, your knowledge of German steamers and their roundhouses etc. is outstanding.

Back to the good old USA. American steamers never had it that good. Union Pacific had huge amounts of labor to take care of its steamers and keep them fit. Same for the large RR's. PRR even had its own Steam Locomotive Evaluation Laboratory for engines that were repaired, modified, home built, etc. Classic story is of the roundhouse personnel that needed to deliver a steamer at a certain time. The timing was not right and the engine had not come up to full air brake pressure, and so, could not stop on time and fell into the turntable pit. A very embarrassing situation.

The surviving steamers, still in operation, at Union Pacific are kept in really good shape by hand to this day. Still a VERY labor intensive, backbreaking form of labor, but as their people say, very rewarding and they admit to being a "dying breed". All of their personnel were trained by the old timers that knew it all, and now just they alone survive.

Further information on the PRR facilities and Laboratories;


PRR had more than one facility for the design, construction and testing of its steam locomotives. PRR had a rather large staff for its Engineering Design capabilities, and designed steam locomotives from the rails on up. Construction was spread out somewhat and assembly was in facilities that had extensive experience in trying out new ideas and designs. PRR personnel were easily capable of "tweaking" up the various parameters required to optimize performance. The Laboratories were used to confirm what was accomplished and many times added their own information for further optimization or in some cases further design changes and /or improvements. By the end of the steam era, PRR could easily predict how an engine would perform in the various areas it could be utilized. Atterbury's Own, the M-1 Mountains, were easily capable of performing what was required for two K-4's, part of their original design criteria. Never really happened, double headed K-4's continued, the M-1's were generally used for freight and all were soon replaced by Diesels. End of story.

Good Video if you could find it. "Running and Operating Steam Locomotives", a video that takes place at the Railroad Museum of Monticello and Sigamindolo, in Indania. Goes itno great depth to explain the whole firing procedure of their 0-4-0 #1.

Yep my girl is a 1912 Heisler. Just like a woman TLC and some nice talking and no problem.
Come on up and see us sometime in Freeport Illinois. Next time we run will be the 4th.

There was a story in an issue of the ARROW (Magazine of the N&W Historical Society) a couple or three years back about the procedure for firing up a locomotive.

You could probably scare up an issue by getting into their website and looking for back issues.

ek2179

Just thought some here would get a kick out of this. My routine for getting my locomotive ready for the days running.

Open smoke box
Poke soot out of tubes
Reinstall smoke box front
Fill boiler to half glass
Fill tender tank
Fill coal bunker in tender
Clean grates
Set draft inducer on top of stack ( electric blower)
Lay crumpled news paper on grates
Put lighter fluid soaked wood kindling on paper
Light fire with trusty Burns-O-Matic torch
Start up draft inducer
Grease side rod bushings and cross head wrist pin bushings
Add a little coal on top of wood
Fill mechanical lubricator
Poke fire, add more coal
Lubricate all rotateing shafts with 85/140 oil
Lubricate valve gear
Check fire, add more coal
Have an iced tea (real iced tea)
Check steam gauge, 25lbs
Remove draft inducer, open steam valve to blower
Chew fat with others standing around
Check fire, add more coal
Fill steam oil container, fill lube oil can
Check fire, 50psi
Cut blower pressure back
Poke fire,
Have another iced tea
Add more coal
Check steam gauge, 115psi
Try both water injectors, both OK
Check steam brakes, OK
First pop ready to open/feathering 125psi
Primary safety opens, 128psi
Second safety opens 132psi
Ready for the days running
Blow whistle (very important)
This has taken about an hour and a quarter. Oh, did I mention this is the routine that I go through each and every time I light up my 1 1/2 inch scale Erie Atlantic. And I may have even left a step or two out that I forgot.

Take care,

Bruce

Juniatha,

I visit Hamburg, DE often (my wife is German). Does anything remain of the Altona roundhouse? Any other rail related sights you recommend around Hamburg?

While there last year, there happened to be a steam excursion (to Puttgarden I believe) with a WWII vintage dampflok in, I believe, Bavarian Green. What dampflok might that have been and where may that be stored? Are plandampf's still being held in DE?

I have had the pleasure of riding the narrow guage line on Ruegen, and hope to get to the ones in Harz and Dresden.

Any others that you recommend or museums that are worthy?