SP 1912 Locomotive Firing Technology - Down Where the Oil Burners Run

The locomotive diagrams come from one of Rolly's books:

Firing Locomotives; JW Harding; 1912-1928; International Textbook Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

... ICS/ITC was a huge correspondence course operation. They provided educational materials for many fields. Today, their extensive coverage of railway subjects provides a valuable insight into many old technologies. 

Sheet music title page. from: archive.org scanned by Newberry Library.

... The section on oil burning steam locomotives dates from 1912, and the particular technology used by the Southern Pacific Railroad is often cited. The SP and the ATSF were the pioneers in oil burning. This came about because most of the developed deposits of coal were found in the east or midwestern US. For fueling locomotives, the cost of transporting coal halfway across the continent could not compete with California's  abundance of cheap, heavy crude. 

The discovery of oil in the US southwest began circa 1890-1900 and heavy oil could be had for under a dollar per barrel. In the Firing Locomotives text, it explains that the lighter oils are richer in hydrogen content, while the really viscous oils are heavier in carbon content. Their respective heat outputs are fairly close, with the heavy stuff yielding slightly more heat. If you're a railroad buying in bulk, the heavy oil was the fuel of choice. 

from: Geology of Petroleum; William Harvey Emmons; 1921; McGraw-Hill.

Unused, undated postcard.

from: Google circa 2026
Summerland, California.

Unused, undated postcard.
It has nothing to do with California, but I thought you might enjoy it. 
I suspect this long-lens shot was actually taken from the Oklahoma Capitol Building - not an aircraft.
Today, all of the oil producing structures are gone and a large tree obscures this view of the governor's mansion.

In addition to avoiding the transportation cost of coal, there was another advantage to oil. Fuel oil can be convinced to flow in pipes. Everywhere coal went, something had to physically take hold of it and lift it or move it where it was wanted ... from mine, to breaker, to hopper car ... [half way across the continent] ... to coal dock, to tender, to fireman's shovel or mechanical stoker. And then the ashes had to be handled.

... But, as we'll see, lighting heavy bunker oil on fire would not be as easy as lighting a propane barbeque. 

*  *  *

But, be careful what you buy and store on railway property!

You'll remember that the untested Bakken crude oil involved in the Lac-Megantic Disaster (6 July 2013) was more volatile than its Safety Data Sheet classification had suggested. Its initial boiling point (an indicator of the presence of dissolved gases like methane, propane etc) was probably closer to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees C). Its correct classification was probably UN 1267, PG1, 'High Danger'. 

A century earlier, this book is raising a similar caution about petroleum sold to the company as 'fuel oil'.

*  *  *

Looking at Southern Pacific Railroad equipment circa 1910 ...

The Tender

With the warning above about volatile components in the oil, they definitely did not want to be running a propane barbeque. The design of the tender supported the type of fuel being used. 

A important feature of this tender plays a critical role in a future post. That is, the oil feed valve. The oil can be shut off at the tender by using that bell-crank arrangement. The seat of the intake valve is built up slightly so the oil is not drawn from the lowest level in the tank. See 'drain valve', below.

Another key feature of the valve assembly's design it that it is spring-loaded to ensure it closes.

Some tender designs have the oil reservoir above the tank holding water. Given the viscous nature of this fuel oil, having a greater hydraulic 'head' helped the oil to flow more freely. 

... Failing that, steam is piped directly to the location near the oil feed valve. No effort is made to heat the whole volume of oil held in the tender. The 'tank heater pipes' end in simple T-connections which send the steam into a total of four different directions. 

The drain valve removes fluid at the lowest level of the tender oil tank. One important function of the drain valve is to prevent water contamination in the oil from entering the burner at the firebox. As some steam from the tank heater pipes may condense and lie under the oil above, this is another source of contamination the drain valve is designed to remove. 

*  *  *

from: The Central Pacific & the Southern Pacific Railroads: Lucius Beebe; 1963; Howell-North.

Built by Alco in 1909, the 3066 will take the Pacific Limited from San Francisco to Roseville, California.

Photographed at Oakland in 1915.

*  *  *

Under the Firebox

Here is what we find under a Southern Pacific firebox. The front of the engine is off the diagram to the left, the tender is just beyond the right margin. We're just going to follow the oil from the tender to the single burner at the front of the firebox. The dotted lines represent the locomotive frame.

To oil feed pipe on tank (bottom right)... is where we get our fuel oil from the tender. 

The oil enters the superheater.

It comes out at the oil burner.

Usually, 'superheater' refers to a device designed to give the steam for propulsion more energy. To make things confusing for us, they use the same term for a completely different device. At this superheater the oil enters a pipe which is jacketed with steam because the oil needs to be very hot when it enters the firebox. 

Near where it says 'oil burner' is where the fireman's controls terminate for the fuel to the burner ... and to control the 'damper' which admits more air at this location.

For extra credit on the test: The blowback valve allows the fireman to use steam to blast out blockages in the oil line in either direction. They don't show it here, but there is a drain on the front of the superheater to get rid of the water condensing from the steam inside the steam jacket.

Do you see where it says Atomizer Pipe to Oil Burner? 'Atomizer' and 'burner' are synonymous. The Atomizer Pipe carries steam. It is the high pressure of this steam which turns our hot oil into very small droplets, increasing the surface area to the point where it is thoroughly combustible in a very hot flame.

*  *  *

The Firebox

If you've looked at many coal-burning fireboxes, this arrangement looks strange. Firebrick is used sparingly, there is no brick arch, there are no grates. 

On Figure (b) you see the front of the firebox in cross-section, where you find the burner 'a' and the draft tubes 'c'.

On Figure (a) you can see both dampers: 'g' allowing air into the draft tubes, and the firedoor damper 'j'. 

The flashwall 'd' and the deflector 'k' are seen at the firedoor 'h'.

The burner 'a' on Figure (a) is located about 6 feet in front of the flashwall. 

About 5 feet in front of the burner is where the horizontal draft from the burner ... meets the downward draft from the firedoor.

*  *  *

The Von Boden-Ingalls Burner (aka, the 'atomizer')

(Southern Pacific's standard burner circa 1912 and into the late 1940s)

The burner is installed using either one of the oil connections at 'a' and the other is plugged.

The steam is connected at 'b'. 

The hot oil 'drools' down onto the corrugated lip at 'd'.

Driven by the steam, and the characteristics of the lip, the fine mist of oil roars into a broad, flat flame which spreads across the whole firebox.

The SP used only a single burner of this type on even its largest engines, and only experimented with other types of burners in the late 1940s near the end of steam.

I double-checked and the text gives no function for the plugs 'c' ... so we can make up our own reasons for having them, I guess.

*  *  *

The Oil Regulator

The Figure (a) shows the side view and Figure (b) shows the top view.

The fireman would move the handle along the quadrant between the stop pin 'f' - regulator closed ... and stop pin 'g' - regulator wide open. 

Using the latching arrangement standard to things like throttles and reversers (ignore Figure (c) if you want) very fine adjustments can be made to the oil feed. The book says 10 notches to the inch - but I haven't counted them all. 

The regulating stop bolt 'c' is set and tightened in the desired point in the quadrant ...

The regulating stop pin 'd' is designed so its spring-loaded lower edge will push into the slotted head of the regulating stop bolt and stay there.

... this is why ... text from the book ...

"When in use, the regulating stop is locked on the quadrant in such a position that it will hold the regulating lever open just far enough to give a 'drifting fire'; that is, a fire that is as strong as can be carried while drifting or standing without the pops blowing."

... In an internal combustion engine, you would consider this to be the 'idle' setting. 

*  *  *

Firing an Oil Burner

As you can imagine, there are many things to consider when starting a fire, when operating, always avoiding smoke, etc. The text goes on for many pages on all the things to consider. The paragraph below gives a brief sample of the complexity of operating an oil burner.

As you remember, the regulator controls the oil, the atomizer implies controlling the force of the steam to the burner, and there are also the dampers which have a similarly important role in managing the fire. 

from: The Train; Jonathan Glancey; 2004; Carlton.

You will recognize one of the first cab-ahead ('cab-in-front', etc) locomotives of the Southern Pacific. The SP needed this kind of power over the mountains between Roseville, California and Sparks, Nevada. However, the regularly-configured engines of this size (or doubleheaders) asphyxiated crews in the many tunnels and showsheds. Forward visibility was often blocked by smoke. So they put the cab on the leading end, and the smokestack at the back.

Built by Baldwin and delivered in 1910, the 4004 started out as a compound. You can see the high pressure cylinders are fed from the steam dome. Then the steam goes to the low pressure cylinders near the smokestack.  

However, this engine/class was overhauled as a simple-expansion locomotive in the late 1920s. This reduced maintenance costs, increased tractive effort, and enabled higher speeds beyond the usual 25 mph. 

end

First Visit to Turcot Yard, Montreal, 17 July 1961

I was on another PLA-NET! - Sam Kinison, 1980s.

Like a salmon swimming upstream, gathering its strength to surmount a turbulent waterfall and jumping squarely into a bear's gaping maw ... I am always drawn back to work with these slides.

Unlike that salmon, I get more than one try - and I've had many over the years. 

... Back in the 1980s, I followed the advice of my local camera store. I bought a blue filter from them, projected the slides on a white wall, and photographed the images with my SLR.

As you already know, microchips have revolutionized everything since then. Computers and upload speeds get faster, large images become easier to handle and store, websites become larger but continue to remain cost-free, editing software gets better, truly valuable supplementary resources appear on line. 

... And, as I've already exhausted all the wrong approaches, I get a little smarter about how to harness all this miraculous technology.

A veteran of black and white photography with his own home-built print-enlargement set-up. My father (LC Gagnon) started shooting colour Ektachrome slides using a Kodak Brownie Starflash in late 1960. Some of these were 'bad Ektachrome' which discoloured in just a few years to take on the appearance of the slide image at the top of this post. 

As a former CPR employee, he had had at least one authorized cab ride in a new CPR F-unit. In April of 1961, he took me on what would have been a long bus trip (from 45th Avenue in Lachine to Rachel Street) ... to photograph the steam dead line through the Frost fence at Angus Shops.

Around the time that I turned four years old, LC Gagnon saw an 'end of an era' article in the Montreal Star about the lines of CNR steam engines awaiting scrapping at Turcot Yard. On Monday, 17 July 1961 he, his father George Gagnon, and I went on another bus trip (my parents were saving to buy a 1962 VW Beetle) to Turcot. This was the first of three visits there. George Gagnon came along on the first two. 

As a matter of 'blog policy' I've recently worked to use proper names for some immediate relatives. Generally, I think these people deserve to have a 'body of work/accomplishment' on the internet associated with their names ... rather than solely identifying them as 'my relative'. 

I do not wander around in railway yards and I do not recommend that you do so either. 

It seems funny today that a high school teacher and a retired elementary school principal would take a four-year-old to a realm of exposed asbestos and broken glass. I do remember the novel experience of being up 'so high' on one of the running boards. 

... George Gagnon was born into a large family in 1899. In a rural environment it was necessary to learn to manage physical risks. LC Gagnon had had that previous experience on an F-unit and I think he recognized a unique opportunity which he wanted to share with me. 

Map showing Turcot Yard in 1952.

from: Lachine sheet, east half; 1:50,000 topographical map; Government of Canada; 1952.

Above: North of the large letters E and A, you can see an O-shaped roundhouse (CNR Turcot)

and a C-shaped roundhouse (CPR Glen Yard - primarily a coachyard).

This map was obtained by LC Gagnon.

Below: A larger area of the same top map.

It is included so you can see how Turcot was integrated into the railway system.

Angus Shops is beyond the top right portion of the map, 

however, you can see the new CPR St Luc Yard. 

from: Lachine sheet, east half; 1:50,000 topographical map; Government of Canada; 1952.

*  *  *

Aerial survey photos from 1947-8 of part of Turcot Yard.

from: Canadian Pacific Air Lines Ltd, Aerial Survey Division 1947-8 .. at .. https://archivesdemontreal.com/

The first time I saw a much smaller, coarsely pixelated image like this on an urban planning website I thought I had won the lottery. I carefully preserved it. One could make out very few details.

The top right corner shows teardrop-shaped Glen Yard, complete with its loop tracks for turning coach consists. It took me a minute to realize that I would find no stainless steel Canadian consists in this 1947-8 image. 

These images were from aerial survey series which were sequenced so they could be arranged as 'stereo pairs'. Using a stereoscope, contour lines of elevation could be drawn by a skilled operator for topographic maps. These images were not designed for railway equipment identification or to be beautiful. I have joined the best two adjacent images to present the two yards. It's kind of rough, but it works for this purpose of showing the area in which these Turcot Yard slides were taken.

Glen Yard is at the top of the escarpment and Upper Lachine Road travels along its southern side. We arrived by MTC bus on Upper Lachine Road and followed the switchback path, near the roundhouse, down the escarpment. You can see many terraced community gardens arrayed on that unusable piece of industrial land.

The long dark building (left edge) at the foot of the escarpment is the coaling dock. A switch engine would run hopper cars of coal up a long ramp. At the top of the ramp was a level covered track with hoppers on each side. The coal would be dropped into the building's coal hoppers - perhaps sorted by quality, on occasion. For refueling, an engine would be spotted with its tender's coal section under one of many chutes (you can see over 20 chutes on the north side, I think). Coal would refuel the tender using gravity - a spray of water might reduce the size of the cloud of coal dust. LC Gagnon had an enduring interest in this piece of technology.

The Turcot roundhouse is seen at the right. There are some outdoor overhead crane gantries visible to its west - if you look closely, you can see their shadows. At the roundhouse's 'five o'clock' is the inverted 'T' of the Administration building.

The photos below were taken between the coaling dock and the roundhouse.

*  *  *

Slides taken by LC Gagnon on Monday, 17 July 1961.

6218 - Built: MLW Sep 1942. Disposition: Museum, Fort Erie, Ontario.

In the captions, I have noted basic roster details from Canadian National Steam Power by Anthony Clegg and Ray Corley (Railfare, 1969). In this process, it was pleasing to discover that LC Gagnon's small sample of apparently random photos of a few good-looking steam locomotives provided a representation of most of the CNR's predecessor railways.

The photo above has always been blurred and it will always be blurred. LC Gagnon was probably quite excited that we made it here, and he was probably communicating with us. This photo has certainly been good to me. As an 11-year-old, I won the public speaking contest for my school using it and a couple of others to explain my enthusiasm for this particular engine, my lifelong association with it, and my hopes for its future.

In later years, LC Gagnon explained why so many photos were taken involving our party and the first, curiously isolated, engine we encountered. He thought we might be noticed and booted out at any moment. 

The CNR's public relations excursion engines of the era were 6153, 5107 and 6167. These were hold-overs from before the formal end of steam - so they had not required (I believe) overhauls to enable them to provide excursion service. There were strict regulations regarding how long locomotive boilers could be used before overhaul.

... Our next visit to Turcot (two days later) included watching 6153's last-minute preparations before pulling an excursion. 

I think: One hand on the automatic air brake and the other on the cutoff. It seems the independent air brake handle has been removed. This was the first steam locomotive I had ever been aboard. A kind B&M switcher crew had given us a cab ride in the US ... 

Visiting Gerald 'buzzin cuzzin' MacAdam, June 1960

It was a hot, hazy day and I remember the engines being almost cold inside. Perhaps this was due to the fact that large masses of steel will be at an average temperature and never reach the peak daytime temperature. It is also possible that some of these engines still had water in their boilers and tenders - making them even more resistant to heating up on a hot summer day. 

*  *  *

Moving on ...

8392 - Built: Point St Charles, Oct 1930. Scrapped: December 1961.

While I may straighten the image and crop foreground tracks (the Brownie took square photos) - I try to leave as much peripheral detail as I can. If you notice black margin strips - I am just showing that you are seeing the whole photo and that I didn't deprive you of any interesting details.

A couple of flangers mixed in with some snow plows.

These photos are presented in LC Gagnon official slide order ... 

but he may have numbered them to craft an interesting slide show story.

(Notice all the fresh puddles above.)

8439 - Built by GTR, 1923. Renumbered: from 8212 in 1957. Scrapped: Aug 1961.

It may seem strange to renumber locomotives just before they are all scrapped.

However, CNR probably needed long series of contiguous numbers 

freed up for all their new classes of diesels and Budd cars.

Consider that there were several companies operating in Canada which manufactured diesels back then.

The CNR was probably expected to be politically even-handed and open minded, 

as it purchased these complex machines and provided hi-tech Canadian jobs.

Ambushed by a sudden Montreal summer thunderstorm, someone had the idea to take shelter here. One thing which is interesting to notice is that everyday standard steel pipes and fittings were used to put together cabooses such as this. 

If you never had the opportunity of seeing Ross Robinson's carefully restored GTW caboose 77137 at Smiths Falls (today at St Thomas), you might be interested to notice here that there is no 'chair' for cupola occupants, just a platform with a sloped back - on which I am standing.

The storm passed quickly - but you can imagine the humidity.

Notice the cupola handrails - back then they wanted you on car rooves, if only to give and receive hand and lantern signals.

1406 - Built by MLW for CNoR in 1913. Scrapped: Nov 1961.

Notice the sand plant behind the engine's tender.

On this functional little engine, the first rounded dome is the sand dome.

You can follow the sanding pipe from it, to its discharge point in front of the leading driving wheel.

5137 - Built by MLW Jun 1920. Scrapped: Sep 1961.

4193 - Built: Alco-Brooks, USRA design, for Boston&Albany 1919. To CNR Aug 1928. Renumbered: from 4207 in Aug 1928. Scrapped: Dec 1961.

 

46 - Built: MLW for GTR in 1914. Disposition: Museum, Vallée-Jonction, Quebec.

This may be the Administration building.

3293 - Built: CLC for Canadian Government Railways 1918. Scrapped: Nov 1961.

Like Sam Kinison's retired lunar astronauts struggling to cope in a world of unbearable Arizonan trailer park banality, no railway experience since Turcot has had the same gravity. Distance from this experience only increases its significance. 

I think I return to these slides because they represent my own lost world of immense forsaken machines which had collectively travelled millions and millions of miles to places and times in history which I will never see. 

Water Brake - Used on the Big Hill.

An article follows which gives a contemporary explanation on the 'water brake'. 

A simple modern parallel is that this technology is like today's dynamic braking on locomotives - in the sense that an 'opposite force' works against the original engine design to slow the engine and thus the train behind it. Once initiated, this force can be adjusted by the engineer. (Trains are strictly linear in their operation - an operator directs force forward or backward. Trains have no 'bow thrusters' or rudders, they don't swerve, they don't have controls to pitch, roll and yaw)

A special valve is installed on the boiler backhead for the engineer to operate. It is designed to take 'superheated' boiler water to introduce on the 'exhaust side' of the pistons. 

When using the water brake: The throttle (steam supply) is closed. With the petcocks (cylinder condensation drains) open, the special water valve is opened and the locomotive is 'shifted' into reverse gradually. The water valve is adjusted by the engineer to produce the right 'exhausts', while the reverser (steam cutoff) is adjusted to slow/brake the train as required.

A disadvantage of this braking process is that this unusual force displaces the lubricant from within the cylinders and the lubricant must be restored for normal operation.

An advantage is that this braking process avoids overheating the steam locomotive's (steel) tires - the 'replaceable wearing surface' used on the driving wheels. 

... You see ... if the brake shoes (applied on the drivers through 'straight air' brake application during this era) are applied too long on the drivers because extra braking force is needed (braking beyond that coming from the normal train brakes) ... the tires can become overheated. Heating, causing tire expansion, is the method used to fit and install these tires around the wheels at the shops ... and excessive heating out on the road can cause the tires to expand and detach from the driver wheels.

Article from: The Science of Railways; 1891-1900; The World Railway Publishing Co.