Hi,
I'm no expert either but I've seen an awful lot of them in my time - CNW, IC, GTW, and several tourist roads.
Those that burn coal spew the sparks and smoke. Oil burners tend to have less smoke. That said, a working coal burner is a real testimony to the power of steam.
On the tourist roads its the same. The coal burners pop out sparks and cinders, even with the suppressors on the stacks. The C&T had a water train following the excursion I was on a number of years ago, for the purpose of putting out any spark ignited fires. I rode in an open gondola, and experienced a cinder in my eye. That was the last time for that.
The Texas state RR has an oil burner. Its massive and powerful, but the excitement just isn't there............
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Steam engines emit steam, they also emit smoke. Whether the smoke is white or black will depend on how hard the engine is pulling. Coal fired engines emit cinders. I remember riding behind RDG 2102 back in the 1970's and I had little tiny cinders in all my pockets and my face was covered in soot. If the engine is coal or oil fired the number of "sparks" should be minimal.
PS : Modern diesels also emit sparks, that's why many non-turbocharged engines were equipped with spark arrestors.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Once the steam has done the job in the cylinders, it is ejected through the blast pipe in the smoke box and then out through the smoke stack. This creates a draft, which "sucks" the heat gas through the flues. That in mind, steam engines will always emit steam - with the "heartbeat" of the cylinder cycle.
Back in the day the railroads had rules about "excessive smoke" and would send assistant road foremen out with camera to record any fireman in violation of course anybody track side with a camera was suspect..
Of course firemen would "sand the flues" in order to clean them resulting with a lot of smoke from the stack but,this was usually done in the middle of nowhere because no fireman wanted a irate house wife screaming to the road foreman of engines about how her washed clothes hanging on the clothes line was soiled by a passing train..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I'm no expert either, but I also read that sparks was mostly a wood burning issue. The video is not clear enough to tell if that one burned wood or coal. Maybe the quality of the coal was poor... One thing the video does show is that it occured in a snowy area. The crew was probably not worried about the risk of causing a fire in these surroundings. In dry and warm climates, locos burning wood would be equipped with fire arresters, which was common in logging operations. Some locos would carry hoses to extinguish fires if that happened. As for the smoke, well, old pictures and videos show that hard working locos produced a lot of it, for going up hills for example...
Simon
I am no expert in steam locomotives, buit since no one has replied yet... I might as well get the conversation going.
.
As far as sparks are concerned, I think this was generally a trait of wood burning locomotives. Coal and oil fired locomotives should have been far less prone to sparks and hot cinders coming from the chimney. However, when the flues were "shaken", it is my undrtsanding that quite a show of sparks was produced. I am sure there were rules about where and when this could be done.
Smoke... in reality there should have been very little smoke coming from the chimney during normal operation. Just as in diesel trucks, smoke is just wasted fuel. Since all steam locomotives were company owned (I doubt there were owner-operators like we deal with in trucking), I would guess smoke was discouraged. There are instances, like when the fire is lowering, or maybe in a hard pull, where smoke might be a necessity, but I doubt all that much.
I have heard stories that in most publicity pictures of trains the smoke was somewhat artificial. They would run the engine producing excess smoke to make the photographs more exciting. Since most of what we know about locomotives comes from these photographs, it seems like they smoke more than they did.
I know the Tennesse Valley Railway Museum used to run their steam locomotive smoking more than it should because that is what visitors wanted to see.
That is pretty much all I know.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Member Batman posted a video the other day showing a steam loco raining sparks all over the countryside...and the cars behind it...I am completely baffled by the video...How is it the cars and countryside don`t catch fire? I believe in the vid it`s snowing, but...what am i missing here?
I was gonna post, asking how much clearance is needed for a steam loco to pass under a building(i`m working on model power "old coal mine"), but after seeing that video...
Am i ever gonna be able to lay any track???