Steam Dome

[tatans]

Just sitting here contemplating the universe, Just what does the inside of a steam dome on a steam locomotive look like?? I think it's called a steam dome isn't it?? can anyone direct me to a site with diagrams or photos, any help will be appreciated. thanks

[gmpullman]

Hi, tatans...
I've been in only one steam dome in my life and that was on a USRA light Mikado. The dome has a lid about 1 1/4" thick held down with about 30 or so 1' studs. a copper gasket seals the lid to the dome. Inside, about a third of the forward space is occupied by the throttle valve which is about 12' in diameter and has a double seating valve plug and the linkage and bell crank to connect to the throttle rod coming through the backhead. There are also several supply pipes that feed the turret and whistle pipe. These pipes rise up into the dome to supply "dry" steam to the appliances.
There's barely enough room to squeeze your body past the throttle.
One one occasion, our crew had burned away the studs to renew them and unknown to us, a piece of slag had fallen into the whistle supply pipe. Several weeks later after a station stop, the engineer whistled off and the whistle stuck open! We finished the trip back to Cleveland with a 5 gallon bucket wired down over the whistle to keep down the noise!
ED

[egmurphy]

Here's a rough diagram and explanation:

http://www.midcontinent.org/kids/kids_whatsteam.html


Here's a diagram showing a cutaway section of an old 4-4-0

http://www.sdrm.org/faqs/boilers/page27.html


Regards

Ed