NW-Mailing-List Digest, Vol 49, Issue 33

[NW Mailing List]

The article says the crown sheet failed, but didn't specifically describe a complete boiler launch scenario.  I'm assuming 484 would have been an M class 4-8-0 with a deckless cab?  If the crown sheet blew but the boiler held, it's possible that the explosion blasted steam out through the fire door and killed the fireman standing behind the backhead, and injured the brakeman (presumably standing somewhere on the tender deck), but the engineer would have been relatively safe in his position at the side of the boiler.  Does anyone know the subsequent history of no. 484?  She would have only been 3 or 4 years old at the time, was she repaired and put back into service?

Richard Jenkins



> Bluefield Daily Telegraph

> May 24, 1910

> 

> ENGINE BLOWS UP, KILLING FIREMAN CARVER

> ------



>     Engine No. 484 blew up this morning...

> ------

> [It is difficult to understand how the engineer escaped

> injury in a boiler explosion...

> 

> Gordon Hamilton