[modeleng] Re: Corn

When I look a t some of the crap we have had to burn over the years, Corn
would be an easy firing job! A lot of it but lighter on the shovel. We used
to use Welsh open cast, steam coal???.... Last of the steam coal really that
full size locos can use. A delivery of 10 tons, consisted of 10 lumps!!!!!
This has to be broken into loco-sized lumps, breaking most into slack.
Firing this rubbish from the end of the coal pile was damned hard work, if
you found a lump, you thought it was your birthday!!  When the slack in the
tender got wet, was like shovelling sand into a concrete mixer, you couldn't
spray it! with the blast, the recomended method, just did ones best! An LMS
engine, was harder to fire, this was due to the softer blast. A Western
Bucket however, such a sharp blast, ripped the slack off the shovel and
disposed of 50% of it on or in the coaches. The joke used to be, if we got
the cleaners to sweep all the muck up, we could put it back on the coal pile
again.
Welsh slack or corn? Bring it on, I'll try anything!!

Dave.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JESSE LIVINGSTON" <fernj1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <modeleng@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 2:30 AM
Subject: [modeleng] Re: Corn


> Corn might work exceptionally well if a person stoker fed it into the
> firebox.  Charles

A feller could make a "stoker" like a very early design I saw.  It consisted
of a sort of hopper with a ram in the bottom that you sat right against the
fire door.  Coal was shoveled into the hopper  and the ram then was stroked
to deliver a measured amount to the firebox each cycle. I guess the fireman
worked like the devil to get the hopper filled and then he could tend to his
water etc while the stoker fed a steady stream of coal.  I don't remember
how it distributed the coal to the corners of the grate, but it may have had
steam jets like the later auger stokers used to blow the coal wherever it
was needed.  Something like that would work with corn, but again, you would
need to feed quite a bit of it.  As Bill Bowser pointed out, the heating
value of corn is probably the same as wood, but its uniformity in size would
make firing with a stoker a cinch.

Jesse in Tennessee, but not the part where Charles lives.


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