Firebox Questions

[BigBoyFan4006]

I've aways wondered something: can you use wood to fuel a coal fired loco, or use coal to fuel a wood fired loco? For some reason I've never figured out why. Is it the way the firebox is built on a locomotive?

 

[JIb228]

Often fireboxes are built for a specific fuel source. Wood burns colder then coal, so larger fire boxes are needed to burn wood. Putting coal in a wood burner might result in damage to the lower temp fire box. While wood might not be able to properly heat a coal fired box.

This is not to say that it has never been done before. I dont remember which railroad it was. But I do believe that there was one that burned both coal and wood depending on where the locomotive was at when it refueled. Heck, Italian locomotives where converted to use electric heaters during WWII.

 

[pcas1986]

Big Bertha (aka Lickey Banker) was converted to burn oil during coal strikes in the UK. I've often wondered why oil was not used more back in the days when it was much cheaper.

 

[whitepass]

The very early locos burned coal but used wood when they ran out of coal.

 

[kws4000]

Wood fireboxes are long and deep, due to the long flame (historically fitted BETWEEN the frames). Anthracite burns best with a shallow draft, hence the wide Wooten firebox. NP used Rosebud, which demands a very deep ashpan and a large grate area to get any amount of heat (ref size of NP Z-5 2-8-8-4). I believe that most soft coal fireboxes could be easily adapted to oil burning, provided proper thought and design go into the construction. As to historical precedence: it was discovered that for a comparable loco size, you needed a significantly larger grate area in order to fire it on coal than for wood.

 

[Azervich]

When firing up a loco after the fire has been put out you lite up with wood, I did that allot when I did Volunteer work, sometimes chop up old sleepers and use that, after the boiler reaches about 110 PSI you change it over to coal, so you can use wood in a coal firebox, it's just not effective for steaming conditions.

 

[BigBoyFan4006]

Thanks for all the answers, guys! I really appretiate it!