Hoping someone could point me in the right direction on info for a Standard (of Toledo) fire door, particularly the valve or standard practice. They are not covered in any of my personal books, though the Franklin and Economy doors are very common.

The only engines I've personally seen with them are the 190 class WP&Y engines running here in the south, and the New York Central 3001; they seem to be a bit rare compared to the Franklin design. They are also a little hard to search for as the name turns out a lot of irrelevant topics in a search engine.

Well this has a drawing and discussion of what it calls a "Standard Firedoor":
http://books.google.com/books?id=_inyAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=%22standard+firedoor%22+locomotive&source=bl&ots=C0667luJRa&sig=Ez_uSqgaEymqZP4z5BTiWiiuhrc&hl=en&ei=7ausTtuYJ6ivsAKuqpHaDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22standard%20firedoor%22%20locomotive&f=false

Thank you for the time and the link. I had to search old photos and load them so they could be visible for this post so we all have a "Standard" viewing experience.

These were taken spring of last year when the engine was still in the shop.

The Penn was know as the "Standard RY of the world", or something like that, but that was from thier own marketing dept(!), so everyhing about the PENN was "the" Standard to them. It might have been a Penn RY owned subsidiary company, but most likely its an aftermarket company supplied part, probably Baldwin owned.

What company owned Standard at the end of steam? What else did "Standard" they make?

I can probably locate the archive, (if it made it into a collection) if I knew who owned the company at the pivitol years of the end steam; 1930-1940 and maybe even 1945.

Were these the fire doors listed in the sales order information of the WP&Y #70 series from Baldwin?

Have you noted and recorded all the cast in numbers and letters that are on the front and back of these doors? Look every where and write down everything. You will need every clue you can get, if the achives can be located.

Well, Pennsy used them a lot too it seem browsing through images on this site.
http://www.billspennsyphotos.com/apps/p ... d=71118755
http://www.billspennsyphotos.com/apps/p ... d=88303617

and by the looks of the second one it says, Locomotive Equipment Co., Toledo, Ohio.

Birmingham & South Eastern #200 (aka Valley RR 97) was built with one of these doors. It was a stock "Cuban sugar" 2-8-0 from Alco-Cooke, built 1923 and sold 1926.

The original "Standard" door was removed during a later rebuild (1990s?) and replaced with a new Chinese firedoor. I recall there was no "smoke latch" or middle position for hand-operating the door--- it was either full open or full closed.

I always thought the "Standard" doors were the product of Standard Stoker Co., although the Franklin doors were most common on stoker-equipped engines. The Berkley Stokers used their own make of firedoor.

Howard P.

What are the remainder of the words on the door? I remember seeing these in one of my books as the thought came to mind that it is the product of evading the franklin patent, in theory. It is possible(likely) that it may be superior design as it looks as though it relies on pivot points rather than gear type teeth. Rather similar to the advent of "baker" valve gear and the elimination of all sliding wear surfaces.
Now I want to see one in person!

Cheers, Jason

In the PRR pics, all left I see are patent dates and some random numbers.

Only the casting numbers and the location of the company.



This is a closer view of the door. Someone made a good observation that the design could be compared to a Baker/Walschaerts improvement by eliminating the sliding surfaces to just a series of pins. I'll have to get a better picture this week illustrating the movement if anyone is interested.

They do not have a smoke notch that allows them to be held partially open. They are a bit more finicky to manually hold open without any air because the handle has to wedge against one of the back rotating linkages and will eventually wear down enough that you can accidentally prop it past that piece and you then have to grab the door with your glove to open it enough to get the notch out. However, this is easily fixed, and far easier than having to swap out a hot Franklin door when one of the teeth has busted.

I've got an idea, check the patents.

It says its PATENTED on that standard door, its probably listed in the patent records somewhere.

The Franklin butterfly firedoor lists a patent date as July 1912. If you can find that patent, you should be able to either: find the STANDARD patent in the "priors", find it connected to another patent that is notedin the "priors" on that Franklin patent.

Happy hunting

Take a look at U.S. Patent 1,443,144 issued to C. J. Pilliod on January 23, 1923.

PC

I just found the same link before checking here and noted you found the same patent. Thanks for the direction. Our valve is a bit different than the illustration, but I'm sure it's been cobbled together several times over the last 50 years.

Use the patent info to find the company name and history.

Find out as much of a time line for the end of that company as possible.

Get whatever info about the last known corporate name to me, and I'll find the archive.

If you are considering using a standard door I would suggest not. I fired #97 aka B&SE #200 as a full time fireman. I don't know if our situation was typical but the valve would regularly get gummed up and make the door sluggish or not open at all. #40 had a Franklin and never had that problem. Nothing like being in full swing with the scoop and having the door stay closed! Just what you need to make a hot summer day more difficult!

Fred Jordan

This symptom is not privy only to Standard doors. Numerous times I've encountered the dreaded "flaccid firedoor" on Franklin's as well. Firing a locomotive, while swinging the doors manually, will drain every last ounce of energy one has on a hot summer day. Especially those that are not accustomed to atypical working conditions such as that.

The main reason behind this type of failure is either carburization of the airlines and the valve due to improper high-temp pneumatic system lubrication aka incorrect air oil. Or, another more prominent cause is the mixture of soot and air lubricant in the valve chamber itself. This WILL happen to any pneumatic fire door without proper PM. Five minutes with a torch solves this problem, although I've heard of more radical "over-the-road" fixes such as disassembly of the system and placing everything on a shovel in the firebox to burn off all the crud stuck on the parts. Never tried that method myself, nor do I want to but, stranger things have been done on locomotives.

Best,
DC