Ozone

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Thanks for the wonderful opportunity to get way off target!  I love it.
Obviously, visible smoke is the result of very incomplete combustion ... a heavy
fire.  But the larger American locomotives used stokers to screw run of the mine
dirt and dust into the firebox ... a lot of that crap simply went through the
flues and up the stack unburnt.  I fired for several years at Strasburg; it is
possible to run with a relatively clean stack if you have nice lumps.

The British always tended to run with a clean stack, but I don't have any
knowledge of how good the coal was that the burnt.  I do know that few if any
British locomotives had stokers ... they never dragged the weight that we expected
an engine to maul around.

And Wismer's West Penn picture at Hopwood was not retouched ... but no one needed
to with a stoker-fed Mallet throwing out the dirt.

Lester had a remarkable talent at catching steam and trolleys together ... three
perfect hits and ten or so near misses at Hatfield on the LVT (he went out every
Sunday after church once he determined that the steam train should overtake the
interurban there).  He had one similar hit with a Bethlehem to Hellertown local
car and a Reading drag.  And then there were the two on the West Penn.  Makes me
think he must have have been going to the right church ... should I trade in the
Episcopal church for the Mennonites?  Will it help?  Rhetorical of course.  The
fact is, though, that Lester Wismer really understood how to merge trains and art
into one great package.

Kenneth and Tracie Josephson wrote:

> Bob Schmidt wrote:
>
> > If our List discussion re Ozone production continues any further, and
> > the EPA gets wind of it, the demse of the trolley may well be added to
> > the list of causes for Ozone depletion. Move over flurocarbons!
>
> I'm going waaaaaaaaaaaay off topic, but I doubt you'll have to worry about the
> EPA anytime soon. They'll probably go after those jokers running the steam
> excursions first.
>
> You know, the guys who insist on having the locomotives smoke far worse than
> they ever did in regular service for a more dramatic runby and photo op.
> Smoking so much that the hogger and the fireman would be docked an entire
> day's pay for wasting fuel back in the days of steam.......
>
> How can I get back on topic? By mentioning that great photo of the West Penn
> car racing the smokin' steamer . That shot kicks butt! Ken J.