Okay, just for pure investigative purposes:

A now-deleted post/thread alleged the following, re-written in a neutral form:



I have been unable to find any independent verification or account of the incident alleged above.

Is there any ability to confirm or refute the basic substance of the allegation above? Are there any witnesses to the aftermath, any verification that it indeed happened, any other account of the event, anyone able to give a date or location of the alleged incident, and/or (more importantly and relevant) anyone able to verify why the 2816 has been seldom seen or under rebuild for the past two years or whatever interval? Did said rebuild have any possible relation to this supposed incident?

Or is there someone out there that can confirm that such a relight on an oil-burner with a closed firebox door does not blow the door off the front of a smokebox? Remember that 2816 has a smaller smokebox door than standard--less than three feet in diameter, I estimate--complete with a headlight and number plate hanging from it.

The condition described as the fire going out (on an oil burner) and relighting off the brick is refereed to as a "puff", "puffing the boiler", or sometimes a firebox explosion. It is never called a boiler explosion, boiler explosion means the pressure vessel has had a catastrophic failure. A really bad boiler explosion is when chunks of the failed boiler (pressure vessel) are found 1/4 mile away. The "puff" as described, however scary it might seem, is considered minor in comparison. Oil burners, even when burning "Bunker C", have had a fire going out and relighting off the brick situation as ever since they started burning oil. When this happens leaving the fire door open or unlatched would be a sure fire way (no pun intended) to seriously injure or kill anyone in the cab or even close by, the door should always be latched, otherwise there would not be a latch in the first place.

If someone were to describe a "puff" by saying "the explosion ricocheting off the back of the firebox and gaining force like a tidal wave" they would be plain wrong. The size of the "puff" is a fuel/air equation and does not gain force traveling one way over another. It simply seeks the path of least resistance and into the cab is NEVER where you want it to go. NEVER EVER!

In the past fireman would sometimes (against the rules) relight a fire off the red hot firebrick. This would almost always cause a small puff but if done right (there is not really a right way, you should not do this ever) it would be very small and hardly be noticed. This has happened thousands of times in the days of steam (and a few in the post steam days as well).

We never refer to the pipes used around a boiler as "tubes". Tubes are installed within the boiler and are used to carry the hot gasses from the firebox to the smokebox and exchange the heat to the boiler water. Copper tubing is might be used in some limited situations on a steam locomotive. If someone calls the pipe that delivers oil to the burner a "tube" they just don't know what they are talking about.

There are a number of points made by in the removed post that show the person just does not know a lot about steam locomotives (220, 221 whatever it takes).

I didn't read the original thread, so don't know what the topic was other than what is posted here.

I have been fireman and engineer, and sometimes both at the same time while switching, on more than one oil burning steamer. In each instance, we burned waste motor oil.

I'm probably going to have somebody say I'm a sinner, so I'll admit I'm probably guilty, of whatever I've done wrong, but here's my thoughts:

Yes, the fire can go out while sitting or moving. It's not supposed to, and the crew works to keep it from happening, but it happens. Anybody who says it never happens is either not experienced, or lying.

Yes, I have relit the fire off of the hot brickwork. As long as you know what you're doing, it works fine. The secret that is as basic as can be basic is not to let the firebox fill up with an explosive fuel vapor. By simply creating a draft by using the blower and/or lightly running the engine, and slowly adjusting the fuel/steam atomizer mix, the fire comes right back where you want it and everybody is happy.

Yes, if you don't know what you're doing, or don't pay attention, things can and will go Kaboom.....

A few more comments.

Yes, the fire can go out on an oil burner, for various reasons, and fuel sloshing around is one of them.

Yes, you can re-light off of the bricks (err, so I've been told) and if done correctly it's a non-event. There are many factors involved, the primary one being the type of fuel used and how volatile it is.

Re-lighting off of the bricks with diesel fuel definitely should not be attempted. It can relight explosively with a very impressive bang. The resulting blast could be enough to blast all of the soot off the tubes and scare the heck out of the crew. How do I know this? Uh, no comment, but trust me on this one...

I've seen this done quite a few times. I've never seen it blow off a firebox door. I have seen the fuel ignite in the firebox, and one time I saw it ignite in the smokebox, with a resulting 10 foot flame out the stack. I stood there looking at it going "Wow, I've never seen that before" and when I looked around the crowd had scattered. Somebody asked "Why didn't you run!?!" To which I replied "It had already ignited, if it was going to go bang, it would have done it when it lit..."

I have heard about, but not seen first hand, that the smokebox cover on certain 3 foot gauge live steamers in amusement parks are secured very loosely with only a few small bolts. The intent is that if you have a propane explosion, that allows the force to blow out the front, rather than back into the cab. Makes sense to me. However, keep in mind that's a much smaller boiler, so the blast has less room to expand and dissipate.

As for the 2816 rumor, consider this... These days, every time one of the mainline engines gets the bell polished, a half dozen foamers post photos on the web. Hiding an incident of that magnitude, and keeping everyone involved in the incident and the repair "So, how did all these smokebox bolts get sheared off anyway boss?" "Never mind, just fix 'em...." would be difficult at best.

Also, if you've ever intentionally opened a smokebox door, you'll know there's a lot of large bolts holding it place. A blast severe enough to shear those off instead of venting out of the stack would probably also be large enough to do other damage as well.

You may be right about the difference between a smaller oil-fired locomotive and a full-sized one when it comes to the impact of an explosive re-ignition. I've seen the results of relighting an oil-saturated firebox and flues on a 1.5" scale live steamer - at night - and it was pretty spectacular. There were only 3 bolts holding the smoke box cover on and they immediately sheared off (the cover was kept from flying away by the headlight wiring), plus flames blew back through the firebox door and out the stack as well. Fortunately the owner was not hurt, but an object lesson and impressive fireworks display on the subject for anyone who saw it.

Although my experience is with a relatively small locomotive, the relight can be very surprising and rather pants changing experience. Not something you can easily hide if there is anyone in hearing range. As for the fire going out, it happens.

In my experience with a well known oil fired Pacific (burning diesel), relights generally work well. No more than a quiet "thump" if it's done right. However, we were always taught that if a quick flick of the firing lever didn't do it, a full relight was necessary.

I witnessed an incident where somebody forgot this rule with pretty exciting results... big explosion, lots of black smoke, and a shower of fire brick. A couple of big red trucks with flashing lights followed. I was SO glad I wasn't on crew that morning.

Except for the firebrick the locomotive was undamaged. I fired her the next week (before new brick arrived) and she didn't handle quite as nicely.

Steve Hunter
Cardinal, Ontario

Some years ago we re-bricked one of our engines. We weren’t experienced with the refractory we used and found it to be cold. The bricks wouldn’t get hot. Needless to say it was difficult to keep a spot fire. After the mortar had cured we built lit fire and the fireman struggled with the fire. Things were going just OK until we reached full pressure and trimmed the fire back to a spot. The fire went out and before the fireman could react, it re-lit with a terrific explosion. I happened to be in the cab at the time. The cab filled with fire and smoke. The fireman and I never heard the blast. It was rather just a huge push and singed our eye brows. Other people heard it and we got calls from ½ mile away. The blast was so terrific that it blew the smoke box door off. The door was original to the locomotive and was tired but still it was pretty impressive. The brick remained intact.
When a fire goes out the approved method of dealing with this is to kill the fuel and atomizer immediately to reduce the fuel load in the fire box and turn up the blower to clear the fuel from the fire box. Then the fire is to be re-lit with an outside source of ignition, burning waste or a fusee or whatever. As nice an idea as this is, it doesn’t happen that way. We have all had fires go out and we all light it off the bricks. Anyone who says they didn’t either isn’t a fireman or a liar. A quick goose of the firing valve, a shot of atomizer, and a slow count to three will usually do it.
As to our dilemma with the cold bricks, as short time remedy we placed a short section of rail on the firebox floor about 2 feet in front of the burner. It heated up sufficiently to keep the fire lit. The permanent cure was to glaze the bricks with broken glass. Crushed glass on the bricks will melt and flow down coating the bricks. The glass would slowly burn off so we added more as necessary. Green coke bottles works best.

The electric utility I worked at had the fire go out in two of the smaller (but still very large - roughly 120 MW) natural gas fired water tube boilers in the distant past; I believe both were the result of tube leaks. They were not aware the fire had gone out; the boilers continued to fill with natural gas until the gas found a hot spot, then the burst occured on a massive scale.

In both instances, the boilers split on the corners and were bowed out; I was told you could drive a truck in through the splits in one of them. One of the boilers was stayed with guy wires and was rebuilt; the other one was scrapped. They were two of four sister units; the parts from the unit with the scrapped boiler was used to maintain the others.

That is why all the boilers are now equipped with flame cameras; that allow them to monitor the fireball and know right away if the fire goes out.

I was standing on the deck of WP&Y 73 at Lake Bennett about ten years ago, chatting with the firemen while the fire was happily woofing away, when I idly asked, "Do you ever have the fire go out?" As if on cue, the fire went silent, and the fireman replied, "You mean like that?"

Count to three, HA! Ten maybe. At twelve I noticed oil vapor curling out around the edges of the fire door (which was properly pinned closed). At fifteen I was edging my way around behind the cab back wall, in case the cab should become engulfed in flame, when she finally lit off again. Little tongues of flame shot out all the way around the fire door, but that was the extent of it. I guess seeing the same thing at IRM multiple times made me pretty blase, but I have to admit, the delay was a bit longer than expected.

OK, we've all had experience with such things on an occasional basis (if we are lucky) and a bit of water in thefuel, a plug of gunk, simple sloshing in a piping system that isn't designed to discourage it through gravity adequately, whatever (yadda yadda old war story).....but at the risk of actually bringing the subject back to topic what happened to 2816 if anything?

dave

Probably nothing. Definitely maybe a noise from lighting off the bricks, but if the incident was as mentioned by the OP, I would think somebody would have been injured or the engine damaged. Given that there are no reports to that effect I would say that nothing notable happened.

Even if something DID happen, well it's on private property and may well be none of our business. Blow ups happen and people (usually) learn from such events. If the events did occur precisely as the OP indicated, then no doubt somebody caught hell for it and safety procedures were updated or more rigorously enforced. Would be simpler to dump the fire, close the dampers, move the engine and relight--it is an oil-burner after all.

Much ado about nothing.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

I think the reason the topic has become "lighting oil burners off the firebrick" is because there is no real story. The original post was by someone who just signed up, hid behind a phony name, and got so many technical details wrong they obviously don't really know much about steam. They totally ignored the guidelines and continued posting in spite of warnings. My guess is the whole story was made up or stretched to make a mountain out of a proverbial molehill.