steam engine part

Blow down muffler?

That would be the Wilson Blow Down Separator System. The "round thing" you see up on top of the firebox, is the actual separator, were the sludgy boiler water is slung to the outsides of the "round thing", while the steam shoots out the top. That sludgy water us piped downward to a chute, located right below the Engineer's side of the cab so that he could look down and see what sort of "malted milk" is being expelled out the chute. The system is manually operated by either the Fireman and/or the Engineer.

Visited my dad tonite he still has a new york central firemans handbook which he used way back when......its a automatic blowdown device which cycles out impurities in the boiler water. when necessary the manual blowdown is used when the water is real bad with foaming from alot of,,,,,,,,in the water.  thanks for the replys,,,,conrail john

Please remember that there really is NOTHING "automatic" on a steam locomotive. There WERE/ARE however, continuous blow down devices, but those generally didn't "shoot out the top". The continuous blown systems usually released their dirty boiler water down onto the track, or rail head as a rail washer, behind the drive wheels.

Hotwater.....i referenced the instruction book the part was called a automatic blowdown which vented a bit of steam out the top and the sludge / foam down through a pipe to trackside. they also spoke of a manual blowdown which blew all down between the driving wheels....the book is copyrighted 1944.....just sayin...