Picture -- What is this ?

Well, it's a locomotive firebox that appears to be stoker fed and has a layer of trash on the grates instead of coal ().  Is it one of the UP big boys?

Looks like an abandoned movie theater, with all of those empty soda cups layin around

You are correct. The Big Boy #4006 which resides at the St. Louis Transportation Museum. I could not believe how big it was.

OTOH, it just could be like this:

The photo was taken by a guy in a kayak moments after texting "NOW!!!" to 5000 plus friends all manning the "silver handle".  The adventure of a lifetime through the sewers of NYC is just milliseconds away as the impending rush of water is clearly audible....

Sorry, I couldn't resist

I should take a picture of the firebox on the 4-4-0 I helped fire up the other day.  That thing is tiny (and disliked by the crews because of it)

This is the view Jonas had just before being swallowed by the Whale.

OK...here's the bonus question...

 

What are those big pipes?

thermatic syphons?

 

They are Security Circulators.

 

EdKing

circulators

increased water circulation?

BINGO! Give that man a cigar.

 

Relatively "cool" water enters the circulators at the side sheets, is heated over the fire and then flows out the top over the crown sheet.

 

These are not "Thermic Siphons." While they do essentially the same thing, siphons look very different.

I knew I butchered the spelling, sorry.

It was on the "tip of my tongue" thanks! I couldn't figure it out. Looked very much like the inside of a boiler with cold water circulators......LOL!

 

Nicholson Thermic Syphons are longitudinal; there may be three or four in the firebox going from the crown sheet down to the throat sheet; larger engines may have an additional one in the combustion chamber going down to the bottom of the back flue sheet.

 

N&W's preference was for the Security Circulators.

 

EdKing

Definetly a huge firebox.  Nice photo.

 

Chris

Boston & Maine 4-6-2 No. 3713 has syphons. They are visible in some photos of her restoration at Steamtown. Each has a pipe at the bottom that widens into a tapered "box" at the top, where it is secured to the crown sheet. Kinda like looking at the top of your hand, with your thumb leading to your fingers.

What really surprises me is, NOBODY has offered the REAL reason that those "pipes" are there!!!! 

 

To lessen the temperature differences between the bottom of the side sheets, the lowest part of the boiler - where the coolest water sinks, and the hottest part at the crown sheet. The cooler water is drawn into the bottom of the circulator, is heated by the fire and pushed out by the expansion of the heated water.

 

A UP 4000, being a dirt burner, must have a brick arch in there somewhere...

 

DV

Dan,

 

All the advantages of circulating the different water temperatures is an ADDED benefit of these "circulators". However, the main reason they are there are indeed to support the arch brick!  Good catch.

 

If you will note, that we used the same N&W basic design for the circulators which were added to the firebox of SP4449 during the rebuild for the 1984 New Orleans Worlds Fair Daylight trip. The only design difference was, since 4449 is an oil burner, and SP did NOT use brick arches, the circulator system added to 4449's firebox do NOT "T" in the center, as in the photo above.

You didn't need Circulators or Syphons to support the good ol' brick arch.

 

That's what they invented arch tubes for.  Arch tubes ran from the firebox throat back up to about the middle (heightwise) of the door sheet; small engines might have three, large engines five.  These were parallel, and arch bricks were designed specifically to fit between them and on the outsides to fit between the firebox side sheets and the arch tube. 

 

The purpose of the brick arch was to make the flame travel farther, thus making combustion more complete, and also to lessen the effect of cold air coming into the firebox when the firedoor was opened, especially on a hand fired engine; it interposed a mass of hot brick between the firebed and the back flue sheet, a beneficial arrangement indeed.

 

All three of Bill Purdie's original engines (630, 722, 4501) had arches; the little Savannah and Atlanta Pacific (750) had none.  You could look into her firedoor right into her flues, and if you weren't careful firing her, you could toss coal into the bottom flues, not a good thing.  At one point Bill actually considered putting an arch in her, but it never got done.

 

I fired and ran a 1944 Army 0-6-0 in Birmingham in the 1970s.  It had a 3-tube arch.

 

The revelation that arrangements could be made to improve water circulation in the firebox area came later and gave birth to Circulators and Thermic Syphons.

 

EdKing