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For a freight car, it makes sense to have an extra axle in the center so the floor doesn’t give way. But between stagecoaches on train tracks and actual bogey coaches, why were there six-wheel variants?
My understanding is that it’s incredibly efficient and very common in stationary engines. For the record, it might’ve happened outside the UK but I kind of have to ask in one place at a time.
In pictures, their boilers all seem to have large superheater tubes in the top half of the boiler and smaller, saturated tubes on the bottom. Why is that?
That's a really stupid idea. You don't pour water in the firebox for the same reason you don't boil an empty teakettle -- the metal can warp and destroy parts of the engine!
The impression I got from reading a million and one coffee table books as a kid was that wider boxes could burn more caloric and poorer-grade fuels. I also heard that GWR/Western region locomotives couldn't easily burn bad coal, and they all seem to have Belpaire fireboxes.
So how does this work?
So a branch line might not be able to tolerate a heavy boiler? I had assumed it was the general size of the locomotive but not necessarily the construction, but this makes good sense!
I remember when Chris Eden-Green's YouTube channel was very young and his videos were free, and learning that the GWR 5700s has higher boiler pressure than the LMS Jinties, and were more powerful because of it.
This kind of felt like you wanted the boiler pressure to be as high as possible...