On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:20:35 +0100, Sam Wilson wrote:

In article ,
Clive wrote:

The usual way to drop a fire is by removing about six bars of the grate
and scraping the entire fire into it. Fire-droppers had a special
hooked fire iron to whip out the bars with and could drop a complete
fire in a matter of minutes. You couldn't shovel out a fire as a fire
iron is of no use towards the firehole doors and a standard shovel
would just catch fire if you attempted to remove burning coals with it.


Reading this prompts another thought, regarding the development of
locomotives in the earlies. I've not seen it listed before, but surely
one of the major advantages of a separate firebox (as adopted by
Stephenson's works from Rocket onwards, though not by some other builders
until much later [1]) is that it would allow the fire to be dumped
reasonably easily (as above), whereas with a flue-type grate the whole
fire would have to be raked out through the back of the box across the
footplate. Not idea, if the feed-pump has packed in, you're miles
from help and the water level is dropping...


[1] The Albion locomotive in Nova Scotia, built (or at least purchased
from) Raine and Burn in 1856, lacks a separate firebox.

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