Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Got Steam? (or the noggin for appliances?)?
Maybe you've thrown the bar on a nathan injector, possibly you may have even checked the sight glass on a detroit lubricator, or even 'the real 'McCoy' ". and im betting theres atleast one person out there who may have turned on the headlight by lighting the oil in it! But can you tell me about the blower! just when did this lil device become prominant in steam history. not much is usually said about such a simple little device. i know its purpose, but not much about its history. was it around before the 'modern era' of steam? certainly by the 'superpower era', that much i know.
one would summise before blowers became an everyday thing, a hostlers job was more 'attentive' in keeping the kettle simmering, so to say. any stories to tell there? shed some light on this simple, yet amiable device and i shall reward you with 10 yahoo green stamp points. (remember those from shell? then you may remember about blowers! LMAO!!)
Thank You!!!!
2 Answers
- ?Lv 610 years agoFavorite Answer
According to the respected locomotive historian E.L. Ahrons, the blast-pipe was not actually invented by anyone, but was an accidental discovery by Richard Trevithick, and its effect was known by 1804. It was refined to the restricted orifice design by Timothy Hackworth in 1827.
I cannot trace a reference to the invention of the blower, but it must have occurred to someone shortly afterwards that directing jets of steam up the chimney when the regulator was closed would similarly provide a draught for the fire. The earliest sufficiently-detailed general arrangement drawing that I have to hand, dated 1860, clearly shows a conventional blower ring on top of the blast-pipe.
A number of earlier outline drawings of earlier locomotives show what could be the crank for operating the blower valve on the side of the smokebox, whereas a photograph of a 2-2-2WT built by Stothert & Slaughter for the East Indian Railway in 1856 clearly shows a typical externally-mounted blower steam valve mounted behind the chimney.
Source(s): The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825-1925 by E.L. Ahrons (LPC 1925), own archives - Samurai HogheadLv 710 years ago
Well, lets see...
Actually, in many places they had engine tenders for locos with fires in them. But where there was roundhouse steam supply, the fires were put out, not needing to make their own steam, which is used as a art of the blower system. The hostlers primary function was in moving the locomotives around.
They've been around at least since 1928, and a lot older I would guess, but my fireman's manuals for oil burning locomotives only go back that far. There is a lot more info on injectors than blowers, which makes sense. I've never seen a nathan injector. The SP used primarily Monitor and Simplex lifting injectors and the 1918 Special "A" and "B" non lifting injectors. They operate on the venturi principle and running one was more art than science.
Sorry I wasn't more help, but the chap above seems to have a handle on it.
