Thanks Lew, Can you explain "clinkers" in a little more detail? I think I have a pretty good idea what it is......... The coal burns in such a way that the residue forms a "crust" over the grates preventing good draft flow up into the firebox?
Sure glad to see some traffic on the New York Central board. Keep it up, guys. I may have to post a photo of LEW in his "office" back in steam days. :teeth: Here it is:
Clinker You are correct on what it does.The cause is from trash in the coal.This trash is in most coal but in some it almost equals the coal.They did a lot of strip mining in Indiana and the company bought a lot of their coal from these mines. If it was realy bad we called it, Indiana real estate, because there was a lot of dirt in it.How bad was it?, On a heavy raining day when the coal came out of the stoker into the fire box it looked like mud ,needless to say it did not put out much heat.Any kind of material that would melt that was in the coal when the fire was hot could cause a clinker.The better the coal the less chance of a clinker.With some coal that was hot and you would drag a cold clinker hook,(a long rod about 8' long with a circle on one end for a handle and two prongs turned down on the other end to hook clinkers and pull them to the back of the fire box), through the fire it would leave a trail through the fire and start a clinker. I always tried to warm up the hook if I had to pull a clinker from the front to the rear of the fire box.When the coal was bad about clinkering I would crack the grates open on the section of grates where the clinkers were starting. There was 4 sections of grates in most of our engines. You just about had some kind of clinker although small in most fires but if you took care of them they were not a problem.
Clinker I did not explain Trash to well so will try again Coal has various amounts of ,Iron ore ,rock dust and dirt. The lower grade coal contains more of the iron ore and rock dust and so in the melting process in the fire box clinkers are formed. Some coal had ash build up and I have seen fires that were 10 and 12" deep of nothing but ash build up.Of course this restricted the air flow and was great for making smoke. LEW
