Just when I get to thinking I know a little about steam....<p>I read yesterday that steam engines use sand not only for limited traction situations but also to clean the flues while in motion? Is that for real? If so, how does the sand actually clean the flues? I.e. what and how is it cleaning, and how is it injected and removed from the flues?<br>



hkading@rypn.org

The fireman shovels it right into the firebox, and the draft sucks it through the flues and out the stack. Sandblasting on the go! If you ever see a cload of dark sand colored smoke briefly shoot out the stack, its the fireman sanding the flues!<br>



wowak@usa.net

Well. OK. How does the sand get to the cab? Or do they have a reservoir in the cab or tender, neither of which I've ever seen any evidence of. Or is there a sand pipe from the dome into the cab?<br>



hkading@rypn.org

In the cab of the steam locomotive there is a steal box with about 100 # of flue sand in it. the engineer will set the brakes on the train or wait for a good hill to climb (to get a strong draft) making the locomotive work a little harder. The fireman will then feed the sand into the firebox through the peed hole in the fire door with a good sized scoop. The strong draft will suck the sand into the flues with the force of a good sandblaster. Several scoops of sand will go into the firebox maybe 25 # or so. Then things return to normal. At the next locomotive service stop the sand box in the cab will be filled up for the next time.<br>

Sanding flues was/is done on oil fired engines. Coal has enough solids to scour the flues without needing sand.
DBH

Here are some shots I took of sanding the flues on Alder Gulch #12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vt9phoCrdY
And in the following clip you can see how it's accomplished (Fast Forward to about 4:05)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LrHLBER_Xs

The sand box is usually a quite visible feature of the cab of an oil-burning engine. Besides holding the sand, it was a place for the head end brakeman to sit. Also, according to some old heads we had around, the sand box was also used by the crew as a "sand box" when nature called.

The video posted by "alder gulch 12" shows a funnel being used at the peep hole. In my experience firing SP 2353, a funnel was totally unnecessary. When the engine is working hard, the draft sucks the sand right off the scoop in a real hurry. Not a good idea to do this when passing close up-wind of somebody's house, especially if fresh laundry is drying out on a clothesline (does anyone do this any more?)

Jim Baker, PSRM

Jim -

After the Second World War, my folks bought their first home (a small Cape Cod) in a new housing subdivision being built in Dolton, Illinois. Right behind our house was the Indiana Habor Belt's main line east from the railroads Blue Island Yard. My folks stated that they never saw a train on the IHB on the number of visits they made to the site before they purchased the house. Come that first Monday after we moved in and my mother hung out the wash. Well, you guessed it; an IHB (or maybe NYC) steamer did a job on it! She was NOT happy!

Fortunately, the IHB crews soon got the word that the new houses next to their tracks had people (angry people) living in them, and learned to sand the flues a little further down the line. And then shortly thereafter, the railroad dieselized.

Les

Regarding clothslines: Some friends of ours recently built a nice beach house and figured a 4 sided clothesline in the yard would be good for wet towels and swim suits...makes sense, right? Well...nobody at any of the hardware stores (or the BORG) had any idea what they were asking for. "What do you use it for?"

One day...we will have clothsline museums...imagine rows of rusty clotheslines with no money to sand and paint them. What is this world coming to?

T7 President of the NCLHS

T7 -

Ah yes! The National Clothes Line Historical Society (NCLHS). I have some more clothesline stories, but guess I better not list them here and "hijack" this thread on SAND. Let me know of the NCLHS website, and I'll post those stories there.

Les

All of the sand boxes I have seen have been mounted on the tender to the oil tank.
Ours on #401 is to high to make it a seat. I think we are looking on making a "Jump Seat" that is removable to be attached to the ladderto the top of the tender.

Dave Huffman

We had what was basically a right angle funnel on the 148. The idea was to be able to direct the sand to all areas in the firebox, very much like firing coal in a pattern. Dumping the sand in one end, while directing the other end in a figure-eight pattern, seemed to do the trick.

We did the same on #12.

Another thing that should be mentioned is that the sand should be used when the engine is pulling hard so there is a strong draft to pull the sand thru the tubes hence cleaning the carbon from the tubes. The carbon build up acts as an insulator reducing the steaming rate of the boiler.

DBH