In a rather crappy print I have of the innards of a caboose , is a stove…not pot belied , but shaped like a pouring funnel . OK , vee shaped ,
Now I could ruin a good thread by saying it was to give a big top surface for cooking on .
But is it ?
And is it cast ?
Is it in one piece ?
Why ?
Why not ?
Mike ?
Almost looks like an upside down bell, a large one…
Regards, Greg
Bruce ,
I burst out laughing aloud when I read “perhaps” .Seriously funny , thanks .
Your photos are quite a delight , I shall download them to my little library of photos that never appear in books , and I thank you sincerely .
Mike
Greg ,
Coming from an area where they cast bells , I found that your comment rang a bell (sorry) about casting techniques .
It does look very like a bell casting , and perhaps the same technique was used to make them .
That is , the usual sand , clay , and horse manure or cow manure hand made mould in a pit , the bell shape being cast this way to avoid cooling cracks . There may be more than you thought to what you said .
I wonder if they also put the finished item on a bell tuner to cut the edge for the top ring . Occasionally , one of those would go into resonance as they skimmed the bell , and the sound started to increase in volume with a wo-wo-wo-wo sound gradually making folks look uncomfortable , but the skimmer simply adjusted the cut to stop the noise . The low pitched noise made the groin area vibrate , making some people pee themselves .
As a youngster , I learned more stories like that about the engineering world than I learned about engineering . But by golly , show an interest and those blokes would take you all round the factory to make sure you saw it all . I actually made a chain link when I was about nine , and did a horseshoe blank about the same time .
‘elf an’ safertee weren’t around then .
So , where were these stoves made , were they cast or rolled , and are they for cooking and heating ? Did they actually “spoil” the crew with these ? I bet that’s what the accountants thought when they saw the price .
Mike
Well, speaking as an engineer myself, if I assume the shape was to purpose, I would say that the top needed to be large enough to fit 2 pots/pans, and the bottom being smaller in diameter, saved floor space, and allowed more people to crowd around it if it was very cold. i.e extra room for their feet so they could get closer. Of course this is speculation.
Regards, Greg
That’s an American caboose, so it is vital to have a large area on top of the stove for the coffee pot…
In reality the stove provided 3 functions, heating, cooking…and I’m not kidding, the coffee pot. The caboose was a self sufficient home away from home for the conductor and rear brakeman.
Mike, in case you have not figured it out in your years on this planet, all American work places must have a coffee pot otherwise you will have a riot on your hands…
Bruce Chandler said:
Perhaps.Anyway, maybe these will help?
Bruce ,
Those pictures enlarge nicely too , certainly sufficiently for modelling .
Thanks again ,
Mike
I have an old CNR pot bellied stove right here next to me. It has a large cast iron base to keep the stove from falling over and to protect the floor from the heat. Sadly it will never see another fire as it lacks grates and is in a state that puts it in the “For display only” state. But I like the looks of it, and with a stove pipe running up and into an imaginary chimney in the wall; it looks great. I think this particular one is from a van (Cabbose), but it might have been one of two in a passenger car. One at each end was normal.
Fred,
Get a van to go with it!
I suppose 'elf’nsafety would stopthat now .
I notice in Bruce’s fine photos that one wall has a metal covering .
I would bet that was a retro fit .
So , back to the stoves , I read with interest about the mandatory coffee pot . Was it secured in any way ? Or did the engineer have to respect that aspect of throwing the train around ?
Mike
I hope nobody minds these seemingly daft questions , but I find some of the more human aspects of the jobs more fascinating than the technical stuff sometimes .
Also , I am never scared to show utter stoopidity by lack of knowledge . Looking at NG&SL Gazette which arrived here today , I was taken by pictures of how to build a “slash burner” .
Now , to me , “slash” and "Burn " are mutually destructive , the slash part being the military for pee . Having sat in cars whose radiators have leaked and perfoce had pee as cooling , my immediate reaction is global warming has seen nothing compared with heated slash . But I digress .
Arriving back on camp with an overwhelming desire never to use half consumed beer ever again as a coolant puts you off forever— I mean , have you ever done that ? If not , don’t . Even with all the car windows open or shut , it is not an experience for the faint hearted . Or weak stomached .
So what is slash as in a slash burner ? And why is the loading point so high on it ?
Slash is the remains from logging. ie the branches and other scraps that’s cut off the logs before they are hauled away from the site where the trees were cut down. They generally burn the slash on site rather than haul it away. I’m not sure just what you are looking at. But I’m more familiar with the burners used at the mill to burn the sawdust and bark. they are a large enclosed cone with a fairly fine screen dome. This holds in the ash sparks so they don’t set the whole works on fire. There also has to be an ash pit and the ability to allow air to flow from underneath to insure complete burn. The ones at a saw mill are fed the stuff in a ground state. I imagine that in the woods they also grind the stuff with a chipper.
Oh , crikey , the global warming brigade would have a fit if they realised how much fossil fuel was being burned away .
Now , if this slash at , say , $1000 a wagon load were transported to power staions and made fit for burning at another $1000 a wagon load , it could be called good recycling , especially as it would cost $2000 a wagon load , and another $500 to produce $250 worth of electricity . Get the idea now ?
Come on , let’s have more creative thinking .
Meantime , that cawfee pot is a slidin’ toward the edge of the stove . What’s to stop it ?
Mike
Warren ,
your photo gives an elegant answer to my question , as does the write-up Thank you , sir .
Mike, it really depends on the type of tree as to whether or not the slash gets recycled or burned. Today there is a lot more recycling than in days of old. Bark is mulched, called “Beauty Bark” and sold for beautifying your garden railroad. The branches are chipped and sent to paper mills. Trains around here have lots of chip cars in them. Below are a couple pix of chip cars. The second one is an “end dump” car that’s being unloaded with a bob cat as this facility is too small to have the dump mechanism. That appears to be beauty bark rather than wood chips.
Back to the coffee pot. There is no mechanism that I am aware of that would prevent the pot from sliding around. But, in the days of steam a days work was 100 miles. To go only 100 miles in a day indicates that they spent a lot of time on sidings…enough time to brew a pot. From what I’ve heard with current engineers, they still spend a lot of time sitting on sidings. I also know that as a kid I use to go meet the north bound freight when it sat on the siding waiting for a south bound passenger train. This was a nightly affair and they were there usually for about an hour and a half. Lots of coffee drinking time… I’m sure that most of the coffee brewing was done while sitting, but you can bet that somewhere Yankee ingenuity figured out a way to keep the pot on the stove while in motion.
Warren Mumpower said:They could've asked the Navy. :D
...you can bet that somewhere Yankee ingenuity figured out a way to keep the pot on the stove while in motion.
Chris ,
Oddly enough , that’s what I was thinking about , I seem to recall railings around the top of ships’ cooking ranges , just couldn’t see a rail on the photo of the stove . I doubt that a caboose would get a 30 degreee heel on , but they would be able to stop a bit more quickly .
But what Warren said sounds more than likely .
Interesting about the slash . I have seen plenty of wood chip wagons for the paper industry , but never thought there would be enough tree bark to justify wagons for it . There is quite a demand for the mulch type stuff now though . The local park has it under kiddies’ swings . When I was a kid , we landed on concrete and didn’t get hurt . Made us a bit stoopid in old age , but bent the concrete more than the head .
Anyway , that’s another bit of rail traffic to wangle in to a layout . Thanks chaps .
Mike
Warren Mumpower said:
Slash is the remains from logging. ie the branches and other scraps that’s cut off the logs before they are hauled away from the site where the trees were cut down. They generally burn the slash on site rather than haul it away. I’m not sure just what you are looking at. But I’m more familiar with the burners used at the mill to burn the sawdust and bark. they are a large enclosed cone with a fairly fine screen dome. This holds in the ash sparks so they don’t set the whole works on fire. There also has to be an ash pit and the ability to allow air to flow from underneath to insure complete burn. The ones at a saw mill are fed the stuff in a ground state. I imagine that in the woods they also grind the stuff with a chipper.
I remember these old smudge pots. You could smell them miles off. They had such a wonderful smell. Think of cedar bark burning. Ahhhhh. It was the smell of money! SteveF
Chris Vernell said:The coffee pot was securely latched to the coffee maker, which was bolted to the cabinet, which was welded to the deck plates. It took a strong man to wrestle the coffee pot free of its moorings.Warren Mumpower said:They could've asked the Navy. :D
...you can bet that somewhere Yankee ingenuity figured out a way to keep the pot on the stove while in motion.
The grill aboard Navy ships is much like any grill ashore. It has to be that way to be useful. Hamburger patties and hot dogs are not called sliders and rollers for nothing!
The oven doors had a latch that could be overcome if tonight’s dinner got up enough speed inside the oven before it hit the oven door. Many a crew’s dinner has gone sliding across the galley deck when the conning officer ordered hard rudder (30 degrees of rudder angle is guaranteed to heel the ship over 40 degrees at any speed greater than 7 knots).
madwolf
former conning officer
(yup, it was me who sent the crew’s dinner flying)
