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Worseter - update


Killybegs
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20 hours ago, richbrummitt said:

 

Usually on hooks on the rear of the bunker. 

Yes, apart from the pricker bar which has a channel which often hangs from a hook on the firemans side roof and a dart which has a channel across the back of the cab inside which it goes inside. They tend to be the two you would go for on the road to sort things out. 

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I've seen a few photos of panniers with the firing shovel stuck vertically in the top bunker handrail on the fireman's side. No doubt frowned on by officialdom but there is nowhere to keep the firing shovel out of the way when it's not being used.

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After looking at a great many photos of pannier tank bunkers, it would seem that less than half carried shovels on the hooks, even fewer carried prickers there and the occasional bucket was to be seen. Interesting. What was the principal use of the long handled shovel carried on the bunker, I don't think it would be for firing as it's too long.

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44 minutes ago, Killybegs said:

After looking at a great many photos of pannier tank bunkers, it would seem that less than half carried shovels on the hooks, even fewer carried prickers there and the occasional bucket was to be seen. Interesting. What was the principal use of the long handled shovel carried on the bunker, I don't think it would be for firing as it's too long.

 

Isn't it for shovelling out the fire at the end of the day for locos without a rocking- or drop-grate ?

 

Alasdair

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3 hours ago, AJCT said:

 

Isn't it for shovelling out the fire at the end of the day for locos without a rocking- or drop-grate ?

 

Alasdair

It is, but if you could / can get it through the bars without having to use it then all the better, The shovels are a pain to use. In the past there are lots of stories about shortages of fire irons so they would have taken what they had. The pricker and the bar with an angle (brain has failed) are the ones of choice and tend to live in the cab. 

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4 hours ago, AJCT said:

 

Isn't it for shovelling out the fire at the end of the day for locos without a rocking- or drop-grate ?

 

Alasdair

If that's the case, why carry it around on the loco all day?

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1 hour ago, Killybegs said:

If that's the case, why carry it around on the loco all day?

 

Well, as Blandford implies, you'd want to be sure of having it available at the end of the day.  Many years ago I did a few Trainee Fireman turns on a heritage railway and there was occasionally also a need during the shift to rake over the fire, to break up clinker and drop the ash through the bars into the ashpan.  Most modern tender engines (eg the BR Standards) had a fire-iron rack or "tunnel" in the tender accessible from the footplate, though accessing the irons and turning them end-for-end to insert into the firebox could be unwieldy in the cab.  The pic shows the rack on my rewheeled Bachmann WD  (247 Developments etching, I think).

 

HTH...

 

Alasdair

 

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Edited by AJCT
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The GW had the sense to fit a fire iron tunnel alongside the firebox on tender locos, so (outside the loading gauge) reversal of the irons was not necessary.

 

I’m surprised it wasn’t more common.

 

atb

Simon

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3 hours ago, Killybegs said:

If that's the case, why carry it around on the loco all day?

Simple they are heavy and if you don't need to move it, you don't. The law of sod says if you did not have it you would need it. They are useful for getting a baffle out of the box when its fallen in. Then would come the questions of why did you take it off and leave it behind. 

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14 hours ago, Killybegs said:

If that's the case, why carry it around on the loco all day?

Mostly because you might need it out on the road.  If your fire got clinkered up and wouldn't drop through the bars then the engine wouldn't steam properly, affecting your ability to do the job.  If that happens and the clinker won't go through the rocking grate/drop section (happens more often than it ought to!) then the only way to get the rubbish out is to use the clinker shovel.  I'm a fireman on a preserved railway & sadly speak from experience...

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If you lose the injector or or suffer any other low-water situation from whatever cause - and there are many - and drop a plug, you need the rake and the clinker shovel,  you need them fast and you don't bvgg@er about making use of them!   If you hang about scratching your head and fail to get the fire out in time, the dropped crown which is likely to result will kill you, your driver and possibly many others.

 

THAT is the reason such things are always carried!!

 

Trick question - how many "Ducheses" suffered a dropped firebox crown?  Answer - there were three incidents of a dropped corwns on Duchesses.  BUT two of them were the same loco (Princess Alexandra), and occured within a mile of each other 8 years apart.   These three incidents were one third of the 9 low-water explosions to UK railway locos in the 20th century.

 

And in case anyone thinks it "hardly ever" happened or is a thing of the past, the last fatal steam loco accident in Europe was a dropped crown in November 1977 at Bitterfeld in East Germany.  The loco was a replacement after the crew droppped the plug on their previous mount (yes really!) Nine dead and 50 injured.  Perhaps some idiot had left the clinker shovel behind ;)

 

Great modelling - very well done and many thanks for the thread.

Bfeld 1977-1.jpg

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24 minutes ago, BenW said:

Mostly because you might need it out on the road.  If your fire got clinkered up and wouldn't drop through the bars then the engine wouldn't steam properly, affecting your ability to do the job.  If that happens and the clinker won't go through the rocking grate/drop section (happens more often than it ought to!) then the only way to get the rubbish out is to use the clinker shovel.  I'm a fireman on a preserved railway & sadly speak from experience...


Yes. I know a chap who is a current main line fireman. No names, no loco ID but he once took over a large Pacific with the fire  already in bad shape with clinker. Inevitably  it got worse. 
 

The rocking grate wasn’t much use so they ended up stopping at the earliest possible location and had to resort to paddling out lumps of clinker with the dumping shovel. Hot, difficult and potentially hazardous work but it saved the day.

 

I don’t think any crew ‘back in the day’ would, even if allowed, go off shed without a clinker shovel. Double injector failure on an engine with no drop grate? It’s happened.

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I use Humbrol matt enamels thinned with Precision Fast air drying thinners. The mix is mostly 32 with just a dash each of 33 and 186.

This reproduces pretty much the same affect as Railmatch Weathered Black enamel which I don't seem to be able to get hold of these days.

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