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Denny:
Burlington locomotives equipped to burn lignite were outfitted with special firebox grates that were substantially different than those for bituminous coal. Additionally, lignite-burners were originally (early 1900s) outfitted with diamond stacks with mesh
designed to trap the many sparks emitted in burning that fuel. By the end of the 1910s the diamond stacks were abandoned (expect on switchers in industrial districts, where they lasted well into the 1920s) and instead the smokeboxes of lignite burners were
extended about 18 inches and baffles and mesh netting installed in the smokebox to accomplish the same purpose. This lengthened smokebox was known on the railroad as the L&B front end and allowed the burning of either lignite or bituminous coal with only
the change of grates. Most coal chutes on Lines West were designed with separate compartments for the two fuels.
As for the Wootten firebox being designed to burn anthracite coal, that seems to hold true only for Eastern roads, as virtually all the Western roads that I know of with Wootten firebox engines bought them with the intent of burning the polar opposite fuel:
bituminous slack. Maybe that's why they were not successful.
Hol
From: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io> on behalf of Denny Anspach <danspachmd@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2019 7:31 AM
To: CBQ@groups.io
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Coal fires in cars ?
Could the CB&Q’s locomotives designed and built to burn lignite also burn regular bituminous soft coal equally well?
Wooten firebox Mother Hubbard locomotives: I have often shared the very same question about the scattered such locomotives purchased by western railroads: why, when they were designed specifically to burn anthracite hard coal? Although the commercial
heart of anthracite production was and is eastern PA, there were apparently small pockets of anthracite elsewhere, and perhaps the railroads were tapping into these?
There is an excellent major article in the most recent RAILROAD HISTORY on these interesting locomotives (but does not answer this question).
That all said, I am realizing how little I know about this subject.
Denny
Denny S. Anspach, MD
307 Stanton Road
Quarryville, PA
17566
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