There was some discussion over on another forum that stated that the UP steam crew fires up their engines by pumping in house steam, letting it condense and repeating the process for a few days until the boiler is full and at 200psi. I've never heard of this process before. My question is, what process are most steam operators doing these days to fire up and shut down? I also read a post where the SP2472 guys use an electric swimming pool pump to circulate the boiler water to help get even heating. I always knew that a slow fire up and shut down was ideal, but perhaps it's become a much more complicated process than simply filling the boiler and lighting the firebox.

On a related note, this got me thinking about monthly boiler washes. Are 30 day boiler washes still required? If so how is this accomplished on say a tourist railroad with daily operations if it takes 2 days to cool the boiler and another 2 days to fire back up? I would think that a boiler wash on a hot boiler would be detrimental correct?

A torpedo or salamander type heater blowing into the firebox for 8-12 hours before a fire-up will do the trick nicely. On cool-down it's important to cover the stack to slow the cooling process. I'm sure many folks have their own ideas and systems.

The most important thing to remember is that in a boiler temperature causes a lot more stress the pressure. The boiler is made of parts that are many shapes, sizes, and thicknesses. These parts all see different temperatures and will expand and contract at different rates. The slower you can go from cold to full steam and back the less stress you are putting on your boiler.

The what you do is way less critical than the how long it takes foryou to do it. An Australian gentleman recently posted a MOP for fire up and shut down on the Steam_Tech list, will see if i can find and cross-post it.

Basically, you want to warm it up slowly, and let it cool slowly, so that everything pretty much expands and contracts together in stead of one bit stressing the other until it catches up. Small fire on the center of the grate until the bottom of the firebox gets warm to the touch, then a larger fire when some wisps come out the vent, then a larger fire when there is a hint of steam on the gage, you get the picture........

Shutdown - very grradually fill the boiler with hot water using injector / FWP while maintaining a good spotfire (assuming running again soon). This leaves the boiler full of hot treaterd water, and maybe some steam to fie up with the next day. If not running again soon, don't fill up. Lay in a bank and button up everything from the dampers to the stack capand let it cool gradually and slowly. When just warm to the touch open the vent and blowdown at the lowest point and drain, allowing the remaining heat to dry out the interior before buttoning up the boiler.

Slow and careful both ways.

dave

The most important thing is warming up and cooling off the boiler gradually.

This goes double for an oil fired engine, since it's far too easy for a sloppy fireman to blast heat into the firebox and get steam in a ridiculously short time. Of course, with an engine burning Bunker C, forcing the fire might be exciting at the least. Engines burning lighter oil such as diesel can be forced easily, leading to all manner of firebox and tube ailments.

As long as the temperature is brought up gradually, there should be no need to force circulation- but if you're intending to force the fire it would (possibly) reduce the damage you're causing.

Filling a boiler with hot water from a stationary boiler is good practice that was common in the steam era, but it requires tremendous capacity on the stationary boiler. Not many museums or tourist lines have that luxury.

Whether burning wood, coal, or oil, use as low a fire as possible and minimal blower pressure, at least until you hear the water rolling around the boiler nicely and pressure is rising. By that time everything should have warmed up pretty evenly, but even so keep any changes gradual.

Don't forget to bottle in the heat on shutdown by capping the stack. It probably won't hurt to leave a small fire, nicely cleaned, on a wood or coal burner's grates, to make the cooling even more gradual... this depends on where your engine is kept, of course.

As mentioned previously, think ahead to what comes next, and either top up the water level while you have steam or plan to drain the boiler before it's stone cold.

Steve Hunter
Cardinal, Ontario

Pressure up is critical in that all the sheets need to be heated evenly. A smimming pool pump is interesting however I would question at what point the parts would suffer from heat. An old boiler feed pump (electric) would be a better bet and they are around and easy to get. We use a reciproating pump, soemtimes called a steam lizard. These recip type pumps will move some water and will take heat and some pressure on the water side. They will run on air supply just fine.

On cool down filling the boiler is fine however an injector is going to put a lot of oxygen into your boiler . If filling on shut down is what you do then treat the water with your boiler chemicals so that you do not have corrosion problems. If you are putting the locomotive away then perhaps filling is not needed. If so then just cap everything and let her cool down. You can dump the boiler while the water is still hot in order to help dry the boiler.

Santa Fe used to do hot boiler washes. The entire boiler was blown down into a receiver. The boiler was washed and then refilled from a boiler used for this purpose. A boiler was was done in a day and the locomotive was back in service in 12 hours.

Here's the MOP from down under I referred to in an earlier post.

dave

In the group I am in we have a fairly rigidly enforced system for "putting away" an engine after a days work:-

1) If it is going to be used again the next day;

a) Keep a fairly well burning fire all over the grate, with an absolute minimum of blower working, while you clean off any clinker and drop the clinker in to the ashpan through the drop grate. Pull up the drop grate and spread a clean THIN fire all over the grate adding some small coal to fill in any bald spots.
b) As the new coal burns and the pressure rises, slowly fill the boiler untill the water level is well above the top nut and out of sight.
c) Carry out the above with some expertise, born of practice, so that you end up with an almost full boiler (but below the safety valves) and the boiler pressure just below blow-off point (200 psi in our case).
d) Turn off the blower and put the cap on the chimney (we have a specially made piece of round steel plate bout 3/8 inch thick, complete with handle, that is heavy enough not to blow off in the wind).
e) Hang around for 10 to 15 minutes putting away all the tools and gear, check all the valves are OFF, pin the snifters and clip the drain cocks open, lock the regulator shut, and keep an eye on the pressure gauge. If it shows any tendency to increase a quick burst of an injector will keep it under control. (Alternatively one can crack open the blower for a short time and the steam will very effectively kill the fire). One can then head off for a shower, a meal, discuss the days events and bed.
f) In the morning there will usually still be around 50 to 75 psi in the boiler (depends on the ambient temperature) and the water level will be at about half glass. Lighting up simply consists of raking the ashes off the grate, throwing a few oily rags and dry pieces of wood in the firebox along with some coal, take the lid off the chimney, light the oily rags turn the blower SLIGHTLY on (just enough to keep the smoke out of the cab) and throw in some more coal as occasion demands. Once the fire has spread all over the grate one can open up the blower a bit more and have full steam pressure within about 45 minutes. Plenty of time to check that the injectors are working, do the oiling and greasing, fill the tender with coal and water, test the brake and one can be away to find the train.

2) If the engine is NOT going to be used the next day, or for some time;

a) Carry out a) to e) above and let the pressure drop to zero (can take 48 to 72 hours or more). Do NOT take the cap off the chimney !!
b) While the boiler is still "hot" take out the filler plug on top of the barrel, open the manual blowdown and empty the boiler. When empty, take out the washout plugs round the foundation ring to allow air into the boiler and the residual heat will dry out the inside very quickly (it's amazing how much heat the brick arch will hold). The firebox and outer shell will maintain very similar temperatures; result, NO corrosion and NO broken stays. DO NOT take the lid off the chimney untill the boiler is COLD !! One should then do so, and open the smokebox door, to help prevent condensation in the firebox and tubes in humid weather.

After reading the messages on Steamup and Cooldown, I realized something we did on the Frisco 1522 at the end of a year, was very dramatic and possibly detrimental. We would bring the Frisco 1522 up to operating pressure, then run the locomotive out to the tail track. There, the engineer and fireman would open the blowdown valves and let all the steam out. The roar of the escaping steam was very exciting. The blowdown took at least half an hour, not sure of the time length after all this time. After the steam was all gone, we would pull the Frisco 1522 back into the Museum of Transportation yard. The locomotive would sit for a week. The next weekend we would blow all the pipes out with compressed air so that no water could be trapped in the pipes over the winter and freeze. Washout plugs would be removed and stored away. Basically we were putting the locomotive to rest for the winter. I do believe this would not be considered a slow cool down. From full steam to empty boiler, and then left to go cold, would be very quick in steam time.

Jim described the winter shutdown accurately. The purpose of blowing her out was to cook all the water out of staybolt sleeves and low spots.
When we went back the next week, we charged the boiler on air and ran all of the appliances until no water came out. We put oil in the booster line and ran the booster engine to get oil in it, ran oil in the air to the dynamo and air pump.
Last but not least, I would always run the engine back and forth on air until no more moisture came out of the cylinder cocks or stack. Then we pulled washout plugs so there was air circulating in the boiler. We drained any valves and pipes that could hold moisture, including the booster throttle body, cylinder cock lines and feed lines to any of the steam gauges.
In all the years that we operated, the only winter damage we suffered was a split aux water valve on the back of the tender.

I had to think about this for a sec, yeah, you have to be careful about heating and cooling then I think...wow, these beasts are hauling mega tonnage over the rails so they have to be able to withstand some twisting/flexing, pulling/pushing, some lumpy rough track and so on. You would think they would boiler explode a lot more....nopers they dont. But being careful is always important.