Steam & Excursion > Whatzit?

These are Frisco company/test lab shots.   I've stared at them, sent them to a couple of guys who are very savvy and none of us can figure out what the hell kind of a boiler/tube arrangement is going on here.

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Am I seeing 3(?) “tube sheets” at the firebox end?

Maybe separated by 4 or 5 inches?

It’s got me baffled (so to speak)!!!

I get the main dry pipe and the pipes leading rearward towards a turret(?).. but the configuration of the combustion chamber and it’s propose is confusing..

Stilts..

Posted from iPhone

After many years in the U.S. Navy as a Boiler Tech, It kinda reminds me of the inside of an "M" type water tube boiler steam drum. I'm not saying it is, but it just looks kinda like it. Other than that, I haven't a clue.

See, I told you.

From above..... "M" type water tube boiler steam drum...

This is a fire tube boiler, you'd mentioned 'water tube'..
I'm just sayin'..

Stilts

Not enough draft area (or tube collectors) to be a water tube unit. So I'm a bit perplexed as to what this is as well,
almost looks like a classroom model to study except those superheater looking collector tubes make no sense unless
this thing is bas-ackwards and they're position over the combustion chamber.

Out 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/20 19:30 by callum_out.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
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> From above..... "M" type water tube boiler steam
> drum...
>
> This is a fire tube boiler, you'd mentioned 'water
> tube'..
> I'm just sayin'..
>
> Stilts

And if you notice I said "It LOOKS like the inside of an M Type steam drum. I didn't say it WAS!

One of the reasons we now have diesel locos...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Not watertube.  Frisco never dallied with them.  Maybe its for making hand sanitizer
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/20 19:53 by Frisco1522.

In photo #1, the top is hung from 4 turn-buckles ( attached to the roof sheet...)
Between the  'turn-buckle pairs' on each side, are two pipe nipples
mounted to the curved top sheet of the 'box'...How do these pipe stubs figure into the scheme?

Stilts.

As the boiler appears to be saturated - not superheated - perhaps it is some sort of feedwater heating device where the injector fills the tank, and fire gasses pass through the tubes and heat the water within the tank before the water goes out into the rest of the water space..........

There were some pretty goofy feedwater heating devices in the early 1900's.

That would explain both the header tubes and the small flue tubes, strange looking beast plus there's still a
couple more tubes to explain! Who posts this stuff?

Out 

The negative numbers indicate it was 30s or later.

callum_out Wrote:
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> That would explain both the header tubes and the
> small flue tubes, strange looking beast plus
> there's still a
> couple more tubes to explain! Who posts this
> stuff?
>
> Out 

Not someone who makes hand sanitizer, I can tell you that much! (Said with respect, Don.....)

So don't tell anyone but the 1522 was my favorite steam locomotive and I hope this boiler design isn't going to
be part of it's rebirth.

Out 

callum_out Wrote:
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> So don't tell anyone but the 1522 was my favorite
> steam locomotive and I hope this boiler design
> isn't going to
> be part of it's rebirth.
>
> Out 

You have excellent taste in steam locomotives. I'm not worried that the design was going to be incorporated in the 1522 -- then or later. The Frisco knew what fine engines it had in the 1500s -- why mess with success? And in restoration, Don would have never stood for it. And we didn't need hand sanitizer then, either.

MC
Muskegon, Michigan

ironmtn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> callum_out Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > That would explain both the header tubes and
> the
> > small flue tubes, strange looking beast plus
> > there's still a
> > couple more tubes to explain! Who posts this
> > stuff?
> >
> > Out 
>
> Not someone who makes hand sanitizer, I can tell
> you that much! (Said with respect, Don.....)
Hand sanitizer remark was a weak attempt at humor.

Just a thought, but could this be an experiment to provide a "buffer" of sorts between the firebox and cold water entering the boiler?  Perhaps an attempt to reduce leaky flues and wear caused by thermal shock?  Since nobody knows what it is, it would have obviously not been successful enough to repeat.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

What kind of a pretzel of a person got in there to take the picture? Hope he got out. Maybe the boiler had a second hatch besides the regular dome visible in the picture.

-LD

Frisco1522 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ironmtn Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > callum_out Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > That would explain both the header tubes and
> > the
> > > small flue tubes, strange looking beast plus
> > > there's still a
> > > couple more tubes to explain! Who posts this
> > > stuff?
> > >
> > > Out 
> >
> > Not someone who makes hand sanitizer, I can
> tell
> > you that much! (Said with respect, Don.....)

> Hand sanitizer remark was a weak attempt at humor.

Not weak humor at all! I laughed my head off for several minutes. And then I keyed off it. Just wanted you to know I was not being critical, but laughing with you every step of the way. If times of the past were transported to now, and the team was all together again, I could just imagine you saying that to the 1522 crew and Jeff, Wellie, Bob and others, in your droll manner...but with a twinkle in your eye as you said it. And the hearty laughter that would follow.

How I wish we could turn back the hands of time for that...and so many other things. The memories of the 1522 and all of the times around it are one thing to sustain us now. In a time when we really need memories like that.

As for Whatzit...well I guess some things may just have to be weird mysteries. Although we may keep trying to figure it out...

MC
Mark Cedeck
Muskegon, Michigan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/20 09:16 by ironmtn.