Steam & Excursion > Communipaw Commemorative - Jan 1982

"The Seashore's Finest Train" The CNJ Blue Comet ran from Jersey City, NJ to Atlantic City, NJ from 1929 to 1941.Reseverd seat tickets at a coach fare. Unheard of!

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Hey, Scoop!

What was the grate area on those Bad Boys?

W.

Unlike the 500,000 sq ft of the Camelbacks, the Bad Boys only had 84.3 sq ft of grate area and stoker fired at that. Just great for a "landscape fireman", whoever he may be. 

That’s great (pun intended), the fabled PRR K4 class engines had 69.9 sq.ft. of grate.

The CNJ locos were not really anthracite burners,  anthracite doesn’t go well with stokers....stokers are for ‘soft coal’..but, then like a 70/30 (soft-to-hard coal ratio) would work just fine.   There might have been a period when mixes were common, but I’d bet that soon they simplified, and just burned 100% soft coal.

CNJ engine’s, with 85 sq.ft of grate,  even Scoop could keep a nice, thin firebed—- with a heavy heel across the back of the grate, and nice deep rear corners... Throw theses engines, and a heavy train, at a good, hard,  up-grade, and you’d have a battle to keep the safeties quiet!!

You’d have to work really hard to get these engines to produce dense, black smoke...


W.

W.

Upon further check in my "library, I discoverd that the CNJ modified a number of the G pacifics with a more narrow firebox. Originally, they were built with a firebox that was 108 1/4" wide. They were reduced to 96 1/4" to better burn all soft coal or a mixture of mostly soft coal with some mud/slack hard coal added to the load.

HW