Dog House on modern N&W steam

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

Ever wonder why engines were fitted with dog houses on the tenders?

On a hand-fired engine, the fireman doesn't spend much time on the left hand seat.  But the head end brakeman does.

However, on a stoker fired engine, the fireman practices his art while seated.  Most of his work is done with five globe valves located right in front of his seat box, governing the stoker jets.  The few times I've ridden stoker engines, I've been impressed with how very few times the fireman even had to open the fire doors and look into the firebox.  (I was also impressed by the deafening roar caused by the blast of the stoker jets.)

As engines grew in size, the grate area and the coal consumption became more than one man could keep up with.  Eventually, the ICC required stokers on engines of a certain weight on drivers.  As the firemen became "sitters," there was no place for the brakeman, so he spent most of his time standing on the apron.  Some brakemen made sure a wooden spike keg was on their engine, to furnish seating.

Several years ago I made the attempt to find out the earliest date at which the Narrow & Weedy Ry. equipped an engine tender with a dog house.  The only evidence I could find was photographic.  I can't recall the exact result of the research, but they first seem to have appeared on the late Z's or perhaps the Y3's.

-- abram burnett
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20060414/afe0e1c3/attachment.html