Coal burners

[NW Mailing List]

Gene,

Compared to wood, coal requires a larger grate area because it cannot be 
piled up like logs in a wood fire.  It also requires a heavier rocking 
grate because the fire burns hotter and to break up clinker that is 
formed as the coal burns.  Things like combustion chambers, steel 
fireboxes, etc. are also more important with a coal fired engine.

Most locomotives burned bituminous coal.  Anthracite burns hotter, but 
requires more surface area.  That's why the roads in anthracite 
territory developed Wooten fireboxes, camelbacks, and other means of 
putting a massively wide or long (or both) firebox on a boiler.  As I 
understand it, its not that anthracite is better as locomotive fuel, but 
rather than it was cheaper than bituminous for some railroads.

So, in answer, the major engineering difference is that a locomotive 
needs a larger firebox and grate for the same size boiler.

Ken Rickman

On 04/27/2011 10:55 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:

> What was the significant engineering difference in an "anthracite" coal

> burning locomotive, or any other coal burning locomotive?

> Thanks;

> Gene A.

-- 
Kenneth Rickman - krickman1 at carolina.rr.com
Salisbury, NC