Hinged Boiler

The way the photo is cropped, it is difficult to determine what it is.

Probably AT&SF. They tried the "hinged" or "flex joint" boiler concept on some early articulated locomotives, during the very early 1900s.

Its Santa Fe 2-6-6-2 3322.

Wonder if this was like their failed 2-10-10-2 where the front section of the boiler was pretty much a super heater unit.  I hadn't seen a close up photo of the joint before.

Bob

The forward section probably functioned little more than a big feedwater heater tank...

DV

So there were two seperate enclosed boilers with their own tubes etc  to allow them to flex around curves with the flex part just carrying the fire forward from one boiler to next one as I understood it.  Right/wrong?

Looking more closely at the picture. It looks like an expansion joint between two boiler tube sheets. Expansion joints are common in large heat exchangers where the tubes are of a different metalurgy and the shell expansion joint is used  to prevent excessive stress due to the difference in expansion between the shell and tubes

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!

http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/blwmal00.Html

I'm glad I kept this link. Someone always seems to need it once or twice a year.

Santa Fe did some interesting experiments with articulated locomotives in the early 1900's, all with generally unsatisfactory results. After that they abandoned using articulateds entirely except for some secondhand units used temporarily during WW2.

http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.co...lexmallet/mallet.htm

I've been through my copy of Corbin and Kerka's "Steam Locomotives of the Burlington Route" backwards and forwards and I can find no evidence of the Q using a flexible boiler.

What I did find was the 10 T2 Class 2-6-6-2's and lone T3 Class 2-8-8-2 had sectional boilers.

Quote:

"The most novel feature on these Class T-2 engines was the boiler: it was comprised of two sections bolted together to form one rigid structure. The joint was located forward of the high pressure cylinders.  The rear section of the boiler was built along conventional lines and contained a smokebox and superheater of the Emerson type.  The forward boiler section consisted of a smokebox containing the exhaust nozzle, netting, and deflection plates; and a feedwater-heater compartment, which was closed by front and rear tube sheets connected by 406 smoke tubes, 2 1/2" in diameter, and one large flue 17" in diameter and 8'11" long."

The T-2's were scrapped in 1949, the T-3 in 1934.

Rusty

What a great explanation for us less astute steam engine neophytes!!

Another home run, Big Jim. Thank You.

          --Bob Di Stefano