| I so very much appreciate the informative and interesting replies on this subject. I especially appreciate the fact that one had to only change firebox grates to convert from one fuel to the other.
If I am correct, the Wooten fire box was chosen to test because its vast grate area could conceivably allow enough heat to be generated with a very low grade coal/fuel that -in turn- required a very thin fire to efficiently burn?. Anthracite is a very high grade of fuel (high BTUs), but….it is extremely hard to burn except in a thin layer (I hand-burned seven tons of pea anthracite/winter for seven years, and have a great respect for its qualities). So, from this I might further surmise that even if the slack coal could and would burn enough to be effective, unlike anthracite, one probably would have to use a LOT more to get to the same place- perhaps a significant problem all of its own?
One of the very biggest problems with the Wootens was the fact that the engineer was physically so far separated from the fireman as to almost be in two separate worlds, with related operational problems that one can only speculate about. Just glancing at the speculative picture of a CB&Q Wooten, one can also just imagine what life for the fireman might have been huddling in a rudimentary tender shelter (the firing deck was the tender apron).
There is a wonderful video CD available from the New Haven Hist. Society centering on the New Haven’s Besler steam motor cars of c. 1937. It shows the the back-to-back pair exiting ex-factory from Budd’s original Philadelphia plant on a background of what seems to be a large number of DZ cars under construction. If this is not enough, filling the lens steaming across stage front between camera and subject slowly is a remarkable Reading camelback 2-8-0 whose sheer ugliness is totally interesting.
Besler: Now there is also a significant but little noted CB&Q/DRI connection, but…. another time!
Denny S. Anspach, MD
307 Stanton Road
Quarryville, PA
17566
that _._,_._,_
Groups.io Links:
You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#56507) |
Reply To Group
|
Mute This Topic
| New Topic
Your Subscription |
Contact Group Owner |
Unsubscribe
[archives@nauer.org]
_._,_._,_
|