Rolly Martin Country: CPR 1948 Rolly Martin's Student Trips as Fireman

Don't waste coal, don't clinker the fire, anticipate grades and train acceleration needs to ensure there is adequate potential energy in the boiler to meet the demands of the engineer.

With the knowledge of basic science, these key principles of firing are easy to understand.

However, to be able to consistently achieve these goals on steam locomotives with different characteristics, coal of variable quality, the array of valves mounted on the boiler backhead, and the tools at hand ... required knowledge and skills which the student fireman was expected to pick up quickly.

from: The 5137; David Plowden; Trains, Sep 1961; Kalmbach.

Just after the end of Canadian steam, Trains magazine printed a short photo essay of an engine from the same class as the one on which Rolly took his first student trip. The 5137 photos were taken between Brownville Jct, Maine and Megantic, Quebec.

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Rolly had Algoma Central maintenance of way experience and Schreiber roundhouse experience, before taking his student trips to qualify as a fireman. Unlike trainmen on trial trips in 1977, I think these trips were probably done on the candidate's own time - without pay.

These six trips probably represent three round trips taken on the Heron Bay and Nipigon Subdivisions with six different crews. The student might choose to have a shorter turnaround time at White River or Fort William than the assigned crews. The student would also benefit from learning from six different engine crews (engineman + fireman). In some cases, the engine crews would be happy not to have a student with them on the return trip.

I had always imagined that this document represented Rolly firing by hand. However, in checking Lavallee's Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotives, I believe that all of these individual engines had mechanical stokers. (Note: While these devices are often referred to as 'automatic' stokers, they certainly did not work 'with little or no direct human control'.)

Although it would have been a lot of heavy work, hand firing would have been easier to master than being confronted with the controls shown below ...

from: The 5137; David Plowden; Trains, Sep 1961; Kalmbach.

As was often the case in steam locomotives, nothing is labelled in the photo above. Recently we've interpreted this historical fact by inventing a mythical hard-bitten engineer's statement: 'If you don't know what those valves do, you don't belong in my cab!'

The 5100-clast engine had an HT-1 stoker and the 5400-class engines had HT stokers, as shown below.

from: Locomotive Cyclopedia; 1950-1952; Simmons-Boardman.

The stoker was just a steam-powered auger which transported coal from a channel in the bottom of the tender. Over this channel in the tender are 'slide plates' - mentioned in the booklet reproduced below - which prevent all of those tons of coal from pressing down at once and jamming or breaking the auger.

Once the coal reaches the distributing table (16, above) it is positioned in the firebox by adjustable jets of steam operating in different directions.

Right off the bat, the student had to learn how to run the auger to avoid starving or smothering the fire, and how to control those steam jets to evenly spread the coal on the grates.

A steam locomotive cab was an extremely noisy workplace (the banging and rattling of the stoker didn't help) and 'instruction' on the road would consist of shouted advice or commands at key moments.

A builder's photo of one of Rolly's locomotives is shown above.

The builder's plate is enlarged for any CLC fans.

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Although some would see it as anathematic to present a CNR-titled booklet on firing ... in a blog post featuring CPR power ... the same firing challenges were shared by the engine crews of both roads.

In the booklet below the 'Hand Firing' section is considerably longer than the 'Stoker Firing' section.

With hand firing, you could get a good look at your fire when you opened the butterfly doors ... and choose exactly where to place your scoop of coal (albeit on a rocking, lurching engine).

The evolving disadvantage of the finely-tuned craft of hand firing ... was that the fireboxes were getting longer, wider, and hungrier all the time - as steam locomotives became larger and more powerful. With all the rocking, and lurching ... and shovelling literally tons of coal during a trip ... they had reached the limit of human endurance for a single person working on a standard 100+ mile trip.

So with newer locomotives they took away the butterfly doors and installed a steam-powered auger to move the coal into the firebox opening. This made any hand firing into the remaining 'hole' more difficult. Student firemen also had to develop a mental picture of how turning those valves would place their coal exactly where it was needed on the firebox grates.