Steam & Excursion > How many air compressors could one locomotive need?

A friend of mine swore he saw a photo of a steam locomotive with a side mounted air compressor and two mounted on the pilot deck. He said the photo was from around the mid ‘20s but he said the road name was unreadable. Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of the image, but it got me to wondering if there was ever a locomotive that y’all know if that had 3 air compressors? I asked if it could have been a water pump and he swore it was an air compressor. He said those on the front hand shields, making it impossible to see clearly the pilot mounted compressors behind them. So, 3 compressors... Could it, would it have happened?

Posted from iPhone

Sounds like he's referring to the Yosemite Valley RR. They had a couple of locos that had some single phase air pumps mounted on the pilot deck while still retaining the one air pump on the side.
The pilot deck pumps were there to provide air for side dump gondolas while they were doing the clean up from some big land slides and they seem to have never been removed.

Was the 3rd pump on the left side? If so, it could have been a feedwater pump, that looked like an air pump

-LD

That was kind of my thought too, but he swore against it.

LarryDoyle Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Was the 3rd pump on the left side? If so, it
> could have been a feedwater pump, that looked like
> an air pump
>
> -LD

Posted from iPhone

Santa Fe 3751 had 3 air compressers, book Classic Power 3 has a picture showing 3rd air pump under fireman's side of cab.
I wonder if other Santa Fe steam engines  also had 3 air pumps?

hollywood
NS B Line MP 74



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/21 07:24 by holiwood.

holiwood Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Santa Fe 3751 had 3 air compressers, book Classic
> Power 3 has a picture showing 3rd air pump under
> fireman's side of cab.
> I wonder if other Santa Fe steam engines  also
> had 3 air pumps?
>
> hollywood
> NS B Line MP 74

3751 does NOT have 3 air compressors. It has 2, one is on the firemans side of the pilot deck and the other is by the trailing truck on the firemans side.
The water pump for the Elesco feedwater heater is on the pilot deck on the engineers side. 

Wonder if Ore dock engines might have had three? Missabe SD-9/18s has 6cyl compressors instead of the standard 3cyl. Unloading the cars was the reason the shop foreman said. And the side dump cars.