Gentlemen,

This is slightly off topic, as it's not about preservation (well, maybe the preservation of and correct presentation of information) but there are more people here with hands-on steam experience than anywhere else on the web. I'm trying to help a friend who is preparing captions for an article. At the following URL:

http://www.accurail.com/accurail/dennis/mystery_appliance.jpg

There are clips of four photos of Green Bay & Western ten wheelers. On the engineer's side running board of each was a cylindrical object about 4" - 5" in diameter, and 16" or so long. It appears to have a rod and clevis coming out each end, but we can't see what they are attached to. The old Kalmbach "Steam Loco Cyclopedia" has a builder's photo of one of these engines, and this device was not on it when built. What is it? What does it do, and what is it called?

Any help is appreciated.

Can't see what it attatches to, but could it have housed a spring to partially balance the weight of the valve gear so that the reverse lever would be easier to hook up?

dave

Dave,

That was my friend's suggestion, and no, the engines aren't equipped with power reverse, so it makes sense. By the way, these are Moguls, not Ten Wheelers, my bad. The problem is the device is mounted so high above the valve gear, and the air reservoir seems to be in the way of any direct connection. He also suggested a spring in the rod to the cylinder cocks, but in one of the full pix (which I didn't post in entirety for copyright reasons) I can see the lever and rod running most of the way to the cab, and it also is much below the running boards. Likewise it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the sand pipes.

I was kind of hoping, since the device appears to have cast end bells, that it wasn't something homemade but an off-the-shelf appliance that someone would recognize. Could it possibly be part of some propriety "self cleaning" front end?

CV 220, which has a Johnson bar reverse, has a similar "spring in a can" device to aid moving the reverse lever.

IMHO It looks to be somthing other than a spring counter balance for the valve gear as it is out of position to move the block or link. Most of the time (for the ones I have seen / worked on) the counter balance spring is located below the belly of the boiler centrally located on the tumbling shaft, mounted to a boiler brace or frame member.

Looks like a cylinder with opposing pistons. When air or steam is applied, rods would move out of each end like a shay brake cylinder.

I can't imagine what it does though. Not sand, bell, brakes, cocks, and looks too light for off setting valve gear weight. The rod from the rear of the cylinder looks light and sloppy. The other end more solid. I don't see running boards as the most solid location to mount something heavy or that handles any great weight. Its a light duty device then.

J.R.

As mentioned it looks too light to handle anything heavy. But notice that on all four engines the device is mounted more or less under the sand dome locatation and is in between the forward and reverse sand pipes.
Some kind of additional control for sanding maybe?

Good point on its mounting between the sand dome pipes. Notice also that the front shaft is all the way in, while the rear shaft is fully extended. Its a long throw also. One shaft, common piston, moves back and forth about 18 inches or so it looks like. In three of the four pictures, the shaft is extended to the rear. Really need more information on the locomotives in general.