explainthatstuff
How a steam locomotive's tender works
You might think a steam locomotive's tender (the truck following behind) is packed full of coal, but much of the space inside is actually filled with water (4000 UK gallons, in this case, which is ~4800 US gallons or ~18000 litres). I'm not sure what volume the coal occupies, but I'm guessing that water takes up more than 50% of the space.
You can see how a tender works if you look down on an empty one from behind, as I'm doing here: there's a sloping metal plate inside that makes the coal fall forward toward the front, where the fireman can easily reach it with his shovel and swing it round into the firebox. If you look closely, you can see a girl in pink standing in the hole at the front of the tender. She's actually in the driver's cab admiring the firebox!
In this photo, the locomotive's boiler is at the very top and the cab is in the middle. I've turned the contrast and brightness right up so you can see how the tender is arranged inside. That's why the outside of the photo has flared up so brightly.
My other photo of a steam engine's cab controls was taken at the same time at the place where the girl in pink is standing,
This steam locomotive is City of Birmingham, which sits inside the Think Tank science and technology museum at Millennium Point in Birmingham, England. It's without question one of the most stunning museum exhibits you'll ever see: the sheer scale is astonishing. You can read more about it (and how it comes to be sitting inside a building in Birmingham) in Andrew Roden's The Duchesses (Aurum Press, 2010).
This from our article on steam engines.
Our images are published under a Creative Commons Licence (see opposite) and are free for noncommercial use. We also license our images for commercial use. Please contact us directly via our website for more details.
How a steam locomotive's tender works
You might think a steam locomotive's tender (the truck following behind) is packed full of coal, but much of the space inside is actually filled with water (4000 UK gallons, in this case, which is ~4800 US gallons or ~18000 litres). I'm not sure what volume the coal occupies, but I'm guessing that water takes up more than 50% of the space.
You can see how a tender works if you look down on an empty one from behind, as I'm doing here: there's a sloping metal plate inside that makes the coal fall forward toward the front, where the fireman can easily reach it with his shovel and swing it round into the firebox. If you look closely, you can see a girl in pink standing in the hole at the front of the tender. She's actually in the driver's cab admiring the firebox!
In this photo, the locomotive's boiler is at the very top and the cab is in the middle. I've turned the contrast and brightness right up so you can see how the tender is arranged inside. That's why the outside of the photo has flared up so brightly.
My other photo of a steam engine's cab controls was taken at the same time at the place where the girl in pink is standing,
This steam locomotive is City of Birmingham, which sits inside the Think Tank science and technology museum at Millennium Point in Birmingham, England. It's without question one of the most stunning museum exhibits you'll ever see: the sheer scale is astonishing. You can read more about it (and how it comes to be sitting inside a building in Birmingham) in Andrew Roden's The Duchesses (Aurum Press, 2010).
This from our article on steam engines.
Our images are published under a Creative Commons Licence (see opposite) and are free for noncommercial use. We also license our images for commercial use. Please contact us directly via our website for more details.