Locomotive Engine Running and Management

by Angus Sinclair

BADLY PROPORTIONED SMOKE-STACKS.

Mistakes are frequently made when the open stack is adopted, as is practicable with the extended smoke-box, of making the stack too wide for the exhaust. This leads to deficiency of draught for the steam that is passing through the stack, because the steam does not fill the stack like a piston creating a clean vacuum behind it. Where an engine fails to steam freely after being equipped with an extended smoke-box, attention should be directed to the proportion of stack diameter to the size of cylinders.