Combustion discussion

That's fascinating. Was that the coal she was designed to burn or was that what was available? What was the usual coal used on the boats?

Mainly it was mine run, complete with clay, limestone and mud. Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia coals were preferred. Western Kentucky coal was not regarded as being as good as eastern Kentucky coal. Coal from Alabama could be made to burn. I do not know where they got that coal that day.
The big Pittsburgh towboats loaded their bunkers with Pennsylvania coal, but saved it for the northward run, buying the poorer coals for use as they went downstream.

Were those hard or soft coals? Anthracite?, Lignite? Were there others? Don't the different hardnesses of coal require different grate design and draft? Of did they bother with that degree of specialization? I have read that many boats burned both wood & coal, sometimes mixed.

It was bituminous soft coal. Ohio River cities like Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Louisville and Cincinnati lived under a perpetual cloud of its smoke from November through April. Traffic lights burned from about 4 PM until 10 AM. Ring-around-the-collar was endemic. All buildings, regardless of material, were gray or black.

Pittsburgh in the 40's through the mid 60's was a real mess. I remember my Mom and Dad talking about the streetlights being on in downtown (and that's "dahntahn" in Pittsburghese) at 12 noon and it looking exactly like 12 midnight. But Pittsburgh recognized they had a huge problem with the local industries, realized that the populous was going to leave if they didn't do something and passed laws that effectively forced the industry to clean up their act. This would have been the late 50's/early 60's and I can still remember the bold 2" high headlines in the Pittsburgh Press when the first, real, alive fish was caught off the point, where the Mon' and the Allegheny meet to form the Ohio, I think this was 1968. And keep in mind this was way before the EPA, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act. Those were only a figment of somebody's imagination at the time. I remember that the insides of the Squirel Hill and Fort Pitt tunnels were power washed every 6 months or so or they would become so black that the lights inside the tunnel were worthless. When buildings downtown changed hands it was common for the buildings to be sandblasted, amazing how buildings we always assumed were black were actually light gray or white. I remember that my first new car, 1972, had a fine grit on it every morning. I remember that looking to the southeast the sky was always pink, a pink glow from the Bessemers at night and pink pollution clouds in the day, from the Edgar Thompson works. I remember always holding my breath when my Dad drove past Jones and Laughlin steel mills (that's "still mills" in Pittsburghese), it always smelled so bad.

But that is a true thing of the past as Pittsburgh is now one of the CLEANEST cities in the country, Pittsburgh is beautiful. Am I a true 'Burgher, or what? Steelers rule...

My Grandfather was an anthracite coal miner, best coal there ever was, the good, very hard, shiny, burns exceptionally hot coal. His coal was typically shipped westward over the mountains through Horseshoe Curve on the railroads from the mines he worked in Northeastern Pennsylvania. I was told that the anthracite, the good stuff was bound for coke plants, to make the best coke so that the best steel could be made. My grandpa's reward for busting his buns to fuel the steel industry was that he died in his mid 60's with 7 fingers and one lung. The UMW never helped him one iota when he was disabled in his late 40's and he lived the rest of his life on welfare, CARE packages and the little bit that my father sent him that he could spare. And northeastern Pennsylvania was left with the beauty of worn out, abandoned strip mines. Think about that the next time DUBYA refers to the wonderful, country saving qualities of "CLEAN COAL". Oh pluhhheease... But I horribly digressed from this thread...

Anyways, the real purpose for me posting is that I believe that I can potentially have the same situation in my house, fortunately very rarely, that Capt. Bates refers to in the initial posting. If I get my woodburner good and hot, stuff it with really dry maple or apple, wait a bit and then turn off the air intake (draft control), in a few minutes when I open the front door there is a small, minor explosion when the oxygen, which has been thoroughly depleted inside the firebox, now rushes into and mixes with the carbon monoxide and other goody gases that have formed from the poor combustion, and boom, actually more like a waaaaa-UMMP. Scared the bejezzus outa me the first time it happened...

Okay, Alan, so what did he finally deduce from that? Was there a saving or not?

Hi, Bob & steamboating colleagues:
Glad you asked the question on "savings or not?" Alan, Hank's and Bruno's [Along with Tom Schiffer's on another thread] is pretty fascinating stuff. Just what we enjoy reading. Their postings are ones to hit 'Print' and save for the manila folders for future reference. Some of the old vintage photos of steamboat engine rooms do show pipes and cylinders wrapped for insulation purposes. I'd assume they used asbestos in those days. I found Alan's account of Jim Howard having a moment of divine revelation to drill holes in the doors of the boat's furnaces interesting. This is the stuff we need to post and save. Okay, Alan B. and Tom S., the furnaces were lined with fire brick or some kind of tile, weren't they? Was there a 'heat up' and 'cool down' factor/time span with the hot furnaces to avoid cracking or damage similar to the huge boilers on steamships?

Cheers,
R. Dale Flick

The Loretta Howard was built on speculation in 1929, just in time to get hit by the great depression. It laid around until 1932 and was bought by Captain Leo Birch McBride, who started towing coal out of Kanawha River. The coal company went belly-up and so did Captain Birch.
Captain Jim had made all his experiments and proved their worth on trial runs using indicator cards, etc. The cut-off was shorter than ordinary usage. The wheel bucket dipped less than on other towboats. The first thing Captain Birch did was increase the depth and lengthen the cut-off. He didn't believe in Jim Howard's theories and Jim never forgave him for those changes.
As a result her costs were about the same as other boats.
The Loretta Howard was sold to D. W. Wisherd, who leased her to Charles T. Campbell. Campbell eventually bought the boat. Rumor has it that the boat shoved well, but was a bad backer. She shoved on until 1952 and now Steve and Barbara Huffman own the hull.

The furnaces and boiler casings were lined with fire brick. The deck under the grates was also protected by fire brick in a sheet-iron pan. The only times I saw boilers cooled down and fired up, no mention was made of cracking. I may be wrong, but I believe the bricks were laid dry, that is, without mortar.

The bricks that were recovered from Heroine weren't even fire brick, just a poor grade of commons.

Alan, Hank & steamboating colleagues:
Alan, thanks for the insights on brick/fire pan etc. Hank, I'll admit to ignorance on my end here. You mentioned "from HEROINE." What's her story/history and where was she recovered? Yes, there are two boats with that name in WAY'S PACKET DIRECTORY, dates 1851 & 1862. The 1862 HEROINE was Clyde built as a blockade runner with a walking beam engine. During the Civil War Great Britain built, supplied a number of Confederate vessels as they 'winked' at the Confederate cause for much-needed cotton to keep the mills of Britain running. Won't get into the diplomacy and economics of that era. Not 'pure inland rivers steamboats,' but I'd suggest the book, 'LAST FLAG DOWN: Epic Journey Of The last Confederate Warship' [*SHENANDOAH], John Baldwin & Robert Powers, Crown Publishers, 2007.

Cheers,
R. Dale Flick

The Heroine I was referring to sank in Red River in 1838 and is being recovered by Texas A&M and the OK Historical Society. I've posted about her several times before. I have a fairly complete history of her put together by Dr. Kevin Chrisman at A&M if you're interested.

The reason I asked about the grates was because I vaguely remembered that the Erie Lakawanna railroad at one time burned anthracite and their locos required different fireboxes. Its been so long since I was an active rail fan that I've forgotten the detials though. However if all the boats were burning grades of bituminous, the question is not relevent. I have noticed that the later coal and oil burning boats seem to have smaller diameter chimneys than the earlier woodburners. Would this be due to the different burning characteristics or to use of forced draft?

Yes, Campbell Transportation bought the D.W. Wisherd (ex Loretta Howard) in 1936. It sold to Capt. R.C. Lucas in 1945, and again to Island Creek Fuel & Transportation in 1948. Capt. John Beatty bought the D.W. Wisherd in 1952 and stripped her machinery out by September of that year. He used her as an office at Fernbank for many years. She still had boiler deck cabins and pilothouse at this point. I think by 1969 C.W. Kinsler bought it for use as an office at Columbia Marine at Cincinnati. Sometime (maybe late 1970s?) the boat moved to Madison and became a marina/boat store for Madison Marine Services. The boiler deck cabins were gone by then. I don't know if Lloyd Poor ever owned it at Madison, but it had his usual color scheme. Around 1996 it went to Eagle Hollow Marina as a breakwater/marina boat. We got it in September 2002.

I have read that the Loretta Howard had steam engines rated at approx. 600 HP.

Cannel Coal

Alan mentioned at the beginning of this thread that Cannel coal was used in the trials on the Loretta Howard. He also mentioned that it is a very volatile fuel. I just thought that I would add a little more information about Cannel coal although I am not an expert. However I am from Cannelton, Indiana which is named for Cannel coal. It was mined for a time in Cannelton in the hills and forests east of town. In the late 1950’s to early 1960’s we could hike up into the woods above town and find the old rutted out mine roads that led to a couple of remains of underground mine entrances. They were in very poor condition in those days and are probably impossible to find today. Evidently Cannel coal was used for a light source because it burns very bright. My early knowledge of its use was for fireplaces because it left almost no ash after it burned up. Wikipedia tells that it could also be carved into shapes and polished. There are two Cannelton’s in the US. The other is located in West Virginia.

I wasn't familiar with Cannel coal, so I looked it up on the net after Capt. Bates posted yesterday. I found that its a hard grade of bituminous with low sulpher and high volitiles content. The high volitiles content outgasses when heated resulting in a bright illumination, or the after-burner phenomenon described by Capt. Bates. I had thought that most Pennsylvania coal was anthracite, but learned that its mostly bituminous. The things you can learn on this site!

Alan Bates;8767 wrote: The Loretta Howard was built on speculation in 1929.....Captain Jim had made all his experiments and proved their worth on trial runs using indicator cards, etc. The cut-off was shorter than ordinary usage......

Captain Bates - any idea just how short Captain Howard's cutoff setting was? I proposed same during my indicator study on the "Belle", but was concerned that there seems to be no evidence of such practice on the Western Rivers engine in general.

I really do not recall, but I seem to remember it was less than half the stroke, maybe, perhaps, possibly, subject to correction. He wanted to use every possible ounce of push while saving every ounce of steam. At high speeds (rpms) a very short cut-off was desirable on steam locomotives, so why not on steamboats, too?
I should point out that Birch McBride was a double-ender and had engineer's license. He stuck with what he was used to doing.