Steam & Excursion > SP Cab Fwd Firemans Guage Access

I was wondering how the firemans gauges/valves were setup since the fireman has his back to the boiler.
Was there a bunch of pipes to bring them around or overhead to place them in front?
Did he have a swiveling seat to turn around? 
Does anyone have pictures of the setup?

By doing a quick google image search I found a picture of the firemans side. It looks like the gauges were piped directly to the right of the fireman. The engineers side looks like it was set up the same way.

Posted from iPhone

Wasn't there also a mirror set up high so the fireman could look in it and see the gauges!...(albeit backwards).

http://trn.trains.com/railroads/ask-trains/2011/03/cab-forward-cab-interiors

patd3985 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wasn't there also a mirror set up high so the
> fireman could look in it and see the
> gauges!...(albeit backwards).

No mirror was needed, as the necessary gauges where to the Fireman's right, and slightly forward. The firing valve was at his right hand.

A retired friend was an SP fireman in the closing days of steam.  He worked on the "back up malley's" many times over Tehachapi and answered this question by saying that he sat with his back to the side window much of the time.

I've seen and studied the one at Sacramento....

My halucination is that firing one of these things at night must be a 'real adventure'.
But then, again, I managed to fire many big coal-fired engines, on pitch-black nights, & stormy nights, blizzards, etc, as well as with a full moon.
However, monitoring the fire was easy ------ since the firing doors (coal burners) were on the same 'vision plane'....but it looks like you'd have to get up and look, with the cab-forwards. Probably fairly often.

Engines like the cab-forwards, the DM&IR 2-8-8-4s, and othe similar Baldwin beasts actually do require a full backshop to maintain,

While examining the display engine I got a belly-full of Baldwin's cram-everything-together style of loco manufacture.
I'd bet that the Lima AC-9s were constructed like most of their other Big Power, -----well laid out &'easy access for most of the apparatus.

Its also obvious, that regardless of builder, maintaining these BIG articulateds, actually takes a well-equipped Backshop.
However, I I still love the AC-9's appearance.
Especially when lined-up, in that Lima 'factory photograph....'
What a fantastic machine.

​W.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Engines like the cab-forwards, the DM&IR 2-8-8-4s,
> and othe similar Baldwin beasts actually do
> require a full backshop to maintain,
>
> While examining the display engine I got a
> belly-full of Baldwin's cram-everything-together
> style of loco manufacture..

Oh, I don't know about that, Wes.  This DM&IR Yellowstone cab looks pretty well laid out to me.

Though it might be hard hand firing with the door that high.

-John

---

Thanks, John,

That's definitely Baldwin product.
It well illustrates why they're a 'bear' to do major work on.  Like a total 15-year tear down, with a complete ultra sound of the boiler shell.

Compare to the arrangement of the cab of the Lima-built C&O 1600s, the Alleghenies [ 2-6-6-6 ].

Note also, with the picture above, the fine example of the Standard MB stoker application---- with the 7 stoker-jet control valves, at the fireman's right knee.  

I, however, prefer the Standard HT & Ht-1 designs.  But they have the disadvantage of having the elevator tube, with its internal stoker screw forward section.  It is easier to fire account of the the fact that the coal is delivered OVER the stoker jet manifold, and falls onto the firing table.  The heavier lumps of coal, falling directly into the path of the jests,  get kicked farther down the grate
( than the comparable MB ).

With the HT, the 'fines'  are more easily lofted into the air, and with a good strong draft, the atomized dust burns like a comparable 'carbon liquid' ---- instantaneously!!!!.  The well built firebed, with a strong heel, hats the heavier lumps and provide the constant high flame temperatures.  So, with a good draft, the stoker screw turns intermittently, and almost imperceptibly slowly.

The rapid feed-rate of the stoker is ( ideally) used to rapidly rebuild the partially consumed rear heel of the firebed.
I used a turned-up coal scoop, in front of the jets, to blow the coal directly back, into the far rear corners of the firebox.
The bare corners 'burn down'  fairly quickly ------ that immediately drops the firebox temperature dramatically, with the free rush of the cold air flowing up the door sheet. Fluctualing firebox temps are VERY deleterious to the firebox sheets and staybolt threaded joints.
Constant expanding and contracting along the major axisii, result in premature replacements of firebox sheets.

With a good, well maintained firebed, a well managed a coal burner fire is LESS strenuous on the fireboxes than comparable sized oil-burner engines.   That's because with an oil valve and a single-flame ( hot-spot) for heat, the firemyn can easily open the oil feed valve, and instantaneously make a white-hot flame, burning an immense amount of fuel....and without having to bring the whole firebox temperature to a higher heated-state, the firebox sheets are exposed to intensly searing heats, causing sudden expansion, then when the safeties go-off, the fire is brought, rapidly, down to a low flame,

Uncontrolled, this constant 'thermal cycling' in oil burners leads to more often firebox sheet replacements, due to metal fatigue.
If however the firebrick lining of the oil burner's firepan, is warmed up slowly and more uniformly, this brick 'heat-bank' simulates the broad-firebed advantages of coal burners.

​W.