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Civil War era steam locomotive questions
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by Jetrock</i> <br /><br />Indeed, water is the limiting factor--you could easily load enough wood to keep the firebox going all day, but have to stop every 10-20 miles for water. <br /> <br />One thing to keep in mind is that often the limitation on the length of trains was not a locomotive's pulling power, but the ability of a crew of brakemen to manually stop the train. Longer trains mean either more brakemen (harder to coordinate, adding risk) or a longer time needed to brake due to more cars per brakeman (also adding risk) and more brakemen means more crew costs for the railroad. The brakemen had a fairly exciting job, racing across the top of a speeding train yanking on brakewheels in any sort of weather... <br /> <br />Also, coal-burning locomotives have been around as long as wood-burning ones--wood was more common on the west coast only because there isn't that much coal there, but lots of wood (and later lots of oil, which is why lines like SP powered their 20th century steam with bunker oil.) <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />Your point about the braking power is interesting. As I understand it, locos of this era did not have brakes, but instead relied on brakes on the tender and/or rolling stock to bring them to a halt. This required the brakeman to get out and go apply the brakes on each car as the train was moving...! <br /> <br />Andrew <br />
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