Steam locomotive booster engine

You saw the 765's STOKER ENGINE being tested on air. The 765 does not have a booster.

Oppps. Maybe I should pay closer attention to the video next time, Sorry. Still my previous question stands. Are there any videos of a booster engine in use?

SP 4449 has a Franklin Railway Supply High Speed booster, mounted on the trailing. The big issue with boosters, when they are actually being used is, a bystander doesn't see anything different than when it is NOT being used. Thus, those few, if any, movies/videos of 4449 "using the booster" wouldn't show anything different anyway.

The only thing you'd notice different was the sound. 2716 had it's booster back in the early '80s, there are a couple videos floating around of it stalling and slipping on a hill, quite the sound show. It sounds to me like it exhausts through the stack.

Some trailing truck boosters had their own exhaust stack, some had the exhaust piped to the main stack. NYC power had for the most part a separate stack a head of the main stack. Boosters fell out of favor later in the steam era as super power from Lima and Alco had enough starting tractive effort to forgo it's need. Not to mention a PITA for the shop crews. NYC subsidiarity Indiana Harbor Belt even had boosters on the tenders of their 0-8-0's when delivered. They were only good to about 20 MPH then had to be cut out. 

At several times during that video you can clearly hear two different exhaust cadences. First near the beginning at the :16 mark and later at the 2:40 mark. There is the deep throated exhaust from the stack and a quicker paced exhaust from the booster.

It is hard to see exactly what is going on due to the poor quality, but, judging from all of the white steam, I would guess that the booster is exhausting through a separate pipe on the left side of the smokestack.

Great booster sound there, on that K4.   No question about what's going on.  Thanks for posting.  C&O favored boosters on all their big, modern stuff...except for the H8. Hey an extra 15K of T.E. can't hurt!

Thanks for all of the responses. I can't help thinking that having a booster sound effect on an o gauge steam locomotive would be neat.

skinorth

Also at about 1:24 you can hear when they turn the booster off.  In other clips from this trip, you can hear the booster slip at times.

Bob

On page 104 of Gene Huddleston's "C&O Super Power Steam Locomotives" there is a picture of 2734. The last part of the caption states..."Jet of steam at left of stack is evidence that booster is on."

T&P/AFT/Southern/Texas State Railroad 610 2-10-4 has/did have a buster on the trailing truck, I believe.

Is the machinery of a booster engaged when the booster is not in operation?  Is there a clutch to disengage the booster when not in use?

sgriggs,

Wait for this to load and read about it here: Locomotive Booster