Can anyone tell me how much water was actually needed to fill a boiler of any of the larger steam loco's - Big Boys or Yellowstones?
No answers? I spent a few minutes looking, but was not successful with any information. I would guess a ballpark figure would be 12,000 gallons. ?
I'll keep trying.
Crandell
I don't have exact figures for the boilers, but I know that the quantities, even with the boiler tubes and siphons, were on the order of thousands of gallons. Remember that water converted to steam expands to ten times or so the volume of the water.
The tenders of both the UP Big Boy and the DM&IR Yellowstones held 25,000 gallons of water. 21,000-25,000 gallon water capacity was pretty universal among later-steam-era articulateds in the U.S.; earlier articulateds could end up carrying as little as 12,000 gallons, or even 7,000 for the very first articulated such as the B&O's "Old Maud" 0-6-6-0
LNER4472 ... Remember that water converted to steam expands to ten times or so the volume of the water. The tenders of both the UP Big Boy and the DM&IR Yellowstones held 25,000 gallons of water. 21,000-25,000 gallon water capacity was pretty universal among later-steam-era articulateds in the U.S.; earlier articulateds could end up carrying as little as 12,000 gallons, or even 7,000 for the very first articulated such as the B&O's "Old Maud" 0-6-6-0
... Remember that water converted to steam expands to ten times or so the volume of the water.
The actual figure is 1600 times the volume.
I also considered the volume of the tenders, and estimated that, considering their innards, the boiler would have somewhat less, and a top surface, so I settled on a guesstimate. It may be closer to 17,000 gallon for all I know.
Water capacity of various tenders: UP 3985 - 25,000 gal, UP 844 - 23,500 gal, NW 611 - 20,000 gal, CP 2816 - 12,000 gal.
In addition, most of the big steamers now travel with an auxillary water tender. The one for MILW 261 is pretty typical at 25,000 gal.
I believe the question that was asked was.....How much water was required to fill the boiler on the locomotive.....not how much water was required to fill the tender.
The boiler itself, I would guesstimate to hold no more than 500 gallons....now how fast that 500 gallons gets evaporated into steam and replaced by more water is where one needs the 25K gallons in the tender.
The 500 gallons is only a WAG. Someone with actual experience with a steam engine needs to answer.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Let us say a Big Boy boiler is 25' long and has a practical/working inner diameter of 7'. The formula for the volume of a cylinder, if we can grant me license to assume/approximate it as a real cylinder, is PiR squared x length. It gives us, rounded down, 3020 cubic feet, or 22,590 gallons rounded down.
The flues and tubes will reduce that volume by near 30%, as a WAG, which will reduce the water volume to near 16,000 gallons.
I don't have the actual figures, obviously, but I'm in the ballpark at the very least.
Maybe you squared the diameter instead of the radius?
We can look up the number of tubes and flues, and their diameter, so we can get a pretty accurate idea of the total volume of that part of the boiler. We have to guess what water level counts as "full", and the volume around the firebox and combustion chamber is a rough guess too.
Aw shucks...so I did. Thanks, Timz. Capacity therefore is, assuming my other dimensions are correct, 962 cubic feet-ish and therefore the volume in gallons is 7200...not far from my original estimate.
Depending on where in the glass the water topped out at and where the low water alarm would trip it could be thousands of gallons.
The engineers (the builders and not the drivers) used pounds and not gallons to measure water volume in working boilers. On the PRR locomotive test plant they measured pounds of water evaporated to determine how the boiler worked. I have a digital copy of the I1s locomotive 2-10-0 decapod being tested in 1919 and it was evaporating 58,000 to 62,900 pounds of water per hour. If you do some math with water weighing about 7 pounds per gallon then 58,000 pounds would be a little more then 8,285 gallons. That's a lot of water boiling away every hour. You could bet a boiler would hold twice what the tender held. Depending on how long the tubes were and diameter of the boiler and combustion chamber/ fire box size water was held everywhere but the front end.
Search google books for locomotive test plant. Very interesting reading for free.
Pete
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I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
Interesting topic.
Thank You.
locoi1sa You could bet a boiler would hold twice what the tender held.
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=63553
This is a really tricky question to answer! First of all, the boiler would never be completely filled with water. If it was, there'd be no room to accumulate steam so most boilers ran about three quarters full or a bit more. Next, as water was converted into steam the level of water would fluctuate with the fireman adding more water to compensate for steam useage. If the engine was being lightly worked not much water would be injected but if the work load was heavy the injectors might be running continually. The fireman had to maintain a delicate balance trading water for steam. Too much water would cool down the boiler and too little would cause the pops to lift which would be a waste of steam, water and fuel. Of course there was a absolute limit to how low the water could get before the crown sheet was uncovered and the boiler exploded. Because of this balancing dynamic, it doesn't make sence to measure the water capacity of a steamer's boiler. It's much more important to know the capacity of the boiler to convert water to steam.
I will be in Steamtown this Thursday and will ask.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
I just did a Google search for big boy boiler capacity and found results and info. Too many to link here.
One is Southern California Chapter Railway and Locomotive Historical Society
If really interested in this issue, do the search. You will find opnions and facts. I try to find facts.
I will be seeing a Big Boy in Steamtown but not sure anyone will know the specs as there are quite a few locos there.
Without calculating the exact volume of the boiler minus the flues, tubes, stays, etc and knowing the height in the water glass, an exact figue of how much water is in a boiler can't be said. Not to mention I dont' have time to do that....
However, using the Big Boy as an example, the light weight of the engine was 697,300 lbs and in working order 762,000 lbs. Subracting the two plus an additional subtraction of 9000 lbs for sand and various other supplies leaves 55,700 lbs of water in the boiler. In other words, about 6700 gallons of water. For the FEF's it was about 4500 gallons and the Challengers 5500 gallons in the boiler, again calculated in a similar manner.
I hope that helps,
Joe
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
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