Steam & Excursion > Every Once In A While The Fire Simply Gets Away From The Fireman!

For anyone who has ever had the pleasure of firing a steam locomotive, you can relate to this photo.  There are times that due to a mixture of circumstances, you find your fire and the fuel you are using simply reach a point that you see you are unwittingly producing a volcanic cloud of smoke until you can get the situation calmed down.

This is what Emery J. Roberts captured on film in Union Pacific's Pocatello, Idaho yards back in July, 1938..  He was watching UP #3135 sitting in the yard tracks being readied for her next run, when all of a sudden this huge cloud of oil smoke was produced with this dramatic effect.  Before the fireman got things back under control, Emery managed to get off this shot.

Let's just hope no one had their laundry hanging on lines nearby.

Martin



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/20 00:14 by LoggerHogger.

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Damn GE helper!

An 'Oil Fired' loco I would say.

Malcolm
New Zealand

Must be an Alco.

More smoke for the runpast please!

I remember following 8444 (844) in the early 1980's when they ran most of the time with absolute black smoke exhaust.  If you got under that cloud you could find oil droplets all over you.

We had that problem in Mojave back in the day. My Dad's Shell service station was repainted in about 1950 and a week later you
could wipe your hand over the wall and it would come up black. Think what it did to your lungs!
Much of that smoke came from cab-forwards. Santa Fe was mostly all-diesel by then.

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

a sure way in todays world to kill steam locomotive operations is to have runbys with excessive smoke....another stake in the heart we don't need.    Arlen

The soot is coating, nearly plugging, the inside of the flues & tubes with
a thick, cold layer of carbon soot --- a near perfect thermal insulator.

it is possible that sitting around for hours, previously, had built a first layer of
insulating carbon soot &  sticky 'strings'...

Over-firing, too much oil for the available oxygen, has no justifiable excuse.

So, my guess is that in this picture, the gang is trying, in vain, to raise steam....
Their efforts are doomed to failure... Until they get that coating removed...

Oh, well... it's a startling lesson to see so well captured..

​W..

( Better grab a fresher loco...it'll be several hours, before this one recovers....).
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/20 14:49 by wcamp1472.

Or perhaps the fireman pulled open the oil valve when he he thought he was opening the damper...

Don't ask how I know that this can happen......

Oh go ahead and tell us Earl.

Didnt notice at first glance, but the locomotive is standing under some structure, possibly a coaling tower?  If it was a yardmaster's or trainmaster's tower Id speculate that it was intentional.  Maybe bad blood between a couple individuals?  Trying to smoke out a yardmaster after a receiving a lengthy switch list?  A spying weed weasel?

Not a coaling tower, but an ash hoist maybe.  Could this be over the ash pit?

Maybe that is the old time attempt to photo shop a photo.  The edges of the smoke are too sharp and defined, no wiskers of smoke.

tomstp Wrote:
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> Oh go ahead and tell us Earl.

Locomotive in question had a lever-operated damper, located just below the firing valve.  The damper was closed in the far-right position.  Just above it was the firing valve, set for a nice spot fire.  

The fireman climbs into the cab, stashes his grip under his seat box and at the same time reaches for the damper lever to open the damper, while looking the other way at his grip.

He missed, and grabbed the firing valve, and pulled it wide open.  By the time his brain cut itself in it was WAY too late.  

Flames, smoke, huge rumble of fuel trying to burn where there was no more oxygen.  It was apocalyptic.  Burning oil on the ground, flames out the the door.  Thankfully, he cranked up the blower and slammed the firing valve closed in the same motion.  What a mess.  It took about 5 miles to sand the thing out to make it steam again.

He made quite an impression on his engineer (me)........

PlyWoody Wrote:
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> Maybe that is the old time attempt to photo shop a
> photo.  The edges of the smoke are too sharp and
> defined, no wiskers of smoke.

No, this is one the original negative just as you see it here.  No photoshopping.

Martin

Another scenario similar to the one Earl described is that not all firing valves open the same direction. The majority close to the right and open to the left, but some are the opposite of that and a few are oriented completely different. In any event, I’m involved at an operation where one locomotive’s lever operates the opposite of the other’s, and yet another works front to back like a UP locomotive. I can just tell you that there has been more than one instance of momentary confusion as to which way the valve closes, sometimes even by those of us who should know better.

Scott

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