2114 explosion

Fri Apr 5 16:00:00 EDT 2019

The perceived benefit of working low water was that the steam was hotter.  Whether it was enough hotter to make a whole lot of difference is debatable.  Hank Kinzel, who fired on the Radford Division, told me that the guys on coal trains out of Bluefield liked to come up New River with just a flutter of water in the bottom of the glass; the BL and SA feedwater heaters could be adjusted to maintain that height, or any height, very nicely.  It must have worked well.  Countless millions of tons of coal came up that river behind wide-open 2100s and nobody ever blew one up doing it.  Whether they came up the river any appreciable amount faster than a guy working a half-glass of water no one ever said; but they thought they did.

Ed King  

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2019 11:03 AM
To: NW Mailing List 
Subject: Re: 2114 explosion

Ok, so this interests me.  For someone to be widely known as a " low water man " there had to have been some sort of perceived benefit to operating that way.  Can someone please educate me as to what that percieved benefit would be?

Thanks,
Brent 

________________________________
Dr. J. Brent Greer

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From: NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org> on behalf of NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2019 10:24:40 PM
To: NW Mailing List
Subject: Re: 2114 explosion 

The head brakeman was riding in the tender doghouse and was found walking in 
a daze near the front of the engine.  He told me some about the incident, 
but I didn't have enough sense at that time to ask him for more details. 
The 2114 had been reported with injector problems on its westward trip to 
Clare.  Some fishermen fishing under a trestle west of Eastwood reported 
being soaked by water as the engine passed, evidently overflow that wasn't 
being picked up by the injector.  I don't remember whether the water pump 
was OK or not; evidently it was not, because that should have been the 
primary water supplier while working on the road.

The engineer was a noted low-water man and seemed to want to continue to be 
on an engine with known injector and water pump problems.

There was a telegraph pole in the vicinity which had a short length of pipe 
with a 45-degree ell on the end of it sticking out, a souvenir of the power 
of steam.  I noted it every trip past Eastwood when I was riding on the 
south side of an engine.

Ed King - ARFE Portsmouth, 1962-1965.

-----Original Message----- 
From: NW Mailing List
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2019 12:06 PM
To: NWHS LIST
Subject: 2144 explosion

Some details from the ICC report on the 2114 explosion by Eastwood, Ohio.

The force of the explosion tore the boiler from the chassis; tore the 
interior and exterior firebox sheets away from the shell section of boiler. 
The boiler shell was blown upward and descended 130 feet forward and 6 feet 
south of the track with the combustion chamber end down, depressing a hole 6 
feet deep in the embankment; the boiler bounded forward, striking the 
smokebox section on the rails, then rebounded, coming to rest headed east at 
an angle approximately 45 degrees to the track with the smokebox end 275 
feet forward from point of accident and 16 feet north of center line of 
track. The roof sheet with left side wrapper sheet and upper section of 
boiler back head attached was blown forward 475 feet and 46 feet north of 
center line of track; the rear section of crown sheet with a section of the 
door sheet and major portions of the side sheets attached was blown 62 feet 
rearward and 30 feet north of the center line of track; part of right side 
wrapper sheet was blown 675 feet f
orward and 234 feet north of center line of track; the lower section of the 
boiler back head extending below the arch tube plugs was blown 130 feet 
forward and 212 feet north of center line of track; the lower section of the 
smokebox was badly distorted and torn approximately 40 percent through its 
lower rear circumference; the smokebox front was blown 573 feet forward and 
37 feet north of center line of track. The cab was blown rearward 557 feet 
and 72 feet north of center line of track. Various other parts were found 
within a radius of 600 feet from the point of explosion. The chassis of the 
locomotive with tender attached moved forward about 385 feet and came to a 
stop with all of the wheels of locomotive and tender derailed. The first 
three stock cars of the train, loaded with hogs, were derailed; one of these 
was turned over and the other two were slewed on their trucks.
The engineer's body was found in a field 530 feet west and 127 feet south of 
the point of explosion. The fireman's body was found in a field 112 feet 
west and 200 feet north of the point of accident.

Jeff Wood
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