Tender Booster

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

A tender booster is a small piston engine operated by steam that is
clutched to the axles of the front tender truck.  The booster is to
assist in starting a locomotive by supplying additional starting
tractive effort.  As the locomotive accelerated to, I think, 10 mph or
so, the engineer had to disconnect the booster drive and turn off the
steam.  Otherwise the unit would/could be damaged.

 

Some railroads applied boosters to many locomotives; some thought they
were mostly maintenance headaches and not worth the expense of
maintaining them.

 

As I recall, the Franklin booster was a two cylinder steam motor
connected by gearing and a clutch to the axle shaft.  The clutch could
be disconnected, separating the booster from the axle so that the unit
would not be 'free-wheeling' or back driven by the tender wheels when
not in use.  Leaving the clutch engaged would over-speed the cylinders
causing serious internal damage.

 

As a mechanical engineer, I can see that any mistake in shutting the
unit down and making the disconnect would result in big damage to the
unit- never small damage.  

 

Good descriptions of the booster can be fond in steam-era Locomotive
Cyclopedia books.  

 

G Rolih, Cincinnati 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org
[mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:22 PM
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Subject: Tender Booster

 

While looking through the collection of photos in the Virginia Tech
collection, I ran across two photos of a N&W Y-3 that had a significant
amount of piping between the locomotive and tender.  One photo has the
notation "Application of Bethlehem Tender Booster 5-19-27."  I have
never heard of a tender booster and wonder if someone can provide an
explanation.

 

The photos are found at
http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/full/ns966.jpeg

and ....ns965.

 

Skip Chamberlayne

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