Steam & Excursion > Southern Pacific "flue cars?"

1) One of the H.L. Kelso negatives from the Jeff Moreau collection that ended up at the Western Railway Museum Archives shows an SP 4-8-8-2 minus its tender outside the shops at Sparks, NV with what the caption on the envelope described as a "flue car" in the foreground.  Doing a quick search for "steam locomotive" and "flue car" online doesn't turn up much other than an Alamy stock photo showing a wheeled cart on short rails atop a table structure in front of a steam locomotive:

https://www.alamy.com/american-engineer-fig-3ryerson-overhead-type-flue-cleaner-on-a-flue-carrier-or-car-fig-5-conveniently-located-at-the-frontend-of-the-locomotive-as-represented-in-fig-2-when-thecarrier-is-loaded-it-is-picked-up-by-the-crane-carried-to-theboiler-shop-and-set-down-on-the-cross-service-track-which-is-fig-2removing-tubes-from-the-boiler-and-loading-on-the-flue-car-in-the-erecting-shop-1safe-end-machine-for-cutting-and-scarting-tubes-jfurnace-for-heating-superheater-flues-kcut-off-saw-and-expander-for-superheater-flues-lwelder-and-swedger-designed-for-flues-from-2-in-image371841365.html?imageid=59693F8C-44FA-4746-AEFC-1CEE97D697B8&p=1331751&pn=11&searchId=027c4f791e503ac4767d418e7104cf42&searchtype=0

That exceedingly long path includes a description of how the cart was lifted by a crane onto its table.  Presumably the comically tall wheels on the SP car at Sparks avoided the need to have a crane lift the whole car onto something else to get the flues to smokebox level, but without couplers, it's also not going to be moved in conventional fashion by the shop goat.

2) Nosing around the portion of the Jeff Moreau collection at the Southern California Railway Museum, I think I might have found images of a similar car at SP's Taylor roundhouse in Los Angeles, CA.  I haven't found a photo that shows the whole thing, but this view shows about half of it coupled to PE-assigned 0-6-0 #1507 (ex-SP 1146) probably around the time that locomotive was written off in 1947.  In addition to having couplers at standard height, the car also rides on fairly normal if antique arch bar trucks. 

3) This view of 4-6-0 #2103 (a former EP&SW locomotive that had a date with the scrapper in just over a month) appears to show the middle of the car and its road number, SPMW 3786.

I leafed through Harrison's Southern Pacific Maintenance of Way Equipment, but didn't find anything on flue cars.  Based on the photos, one can speculate about how they were used, but can anyone flesh it out from experience or research?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/25 01:18 by Evan_Werkema.

---

---

---

Thank you Evan for sharing images like these and for showing west coast railroading at its finest with razor sharp B&W images that were the norm back then.

Wonderful photos,thanks.

They may have not been in the SP MOW book because they were considered to be shop equipment?

The Sparks one doesn't have any ladder to get on it.  The converted flatcar at Taylor yard looks more usable.

wingomann Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Sparks one doesn't have any ladder to get on
> it. 

That particular "flue car" appears to be designed specifically for cab forwards, thus the men would be able to walk from the "monkey deck" right onto the "flue car".

The converted flatcar at Taylor yard looks
> more usable.

For regular locomotives, i.e. not cab forwards.