After years of seeing pictures of T-boilers, such as the ones used on early Shay's and Climax's, I am curious about their construction. Does anyone know of a place where I might find more about T-boilers? I have a basic idea of what happens inside but would like to know know more about the details. Also, what was the concept behind them? Was it that the construction was less intricate than a standard locomotve type boiler while being more suited to rail use than a vertical boiler? Did they have any major advantages/disadvantages?

Thanks,
Roger



Belpaire@aol.com

> After years of seeing pictures of T-boilers,
> such as the ones used on early Shay's and
> Climax's, I am curious about their
> construction. Does anyone know of a place
> where I might find more about T-boilers? I
> have a basic idea of what happens inside but
> would like to know know more about the
> details. Also, what was the concept behind
> them? Was it that the construction was less
> intricate than a standard locomotve type
> boiler while being more suited to rail use
> than a vertical boiler? Did they have any
> major advantages/disadvantages?

> Thanks,
> Roger

I don't know much but the California Railroad Museum has some old Lima blueprints of them. I saw a small one that had been cut up in a junkyard, (not from a loco) and asked a boiler inspector about it and he said some were built as low pressure heating boilers.


2rivers@upstel.net

As I recall one of the major disadvantages was a weakness in the joint between the vertical section and the horizontal one....and the fact that most were of single riveted lap seam construction.

The percieved "advantage" at the time was that it was two tubular shapes rather than having large flat surfaces to requiring staying.

There is another boiler design, also sometimes called a T boiler that was used for some non RR applications (marine and steam lorries or waggons) that was a horizontal boiler tube, with a center chimney that was actually fired from both ends.