A haycock boiler is an early form of steam locomotive boiler with a prominently raised firebox of "Gothic arch", "haystack", or "coppernob" shape. The term haystack is most commonly used, but is avoided here as it is confusingly used for three quite different forms of boiler. [1] This particularly large outer firebox served as the steam dome and was often highly decorated with polished brass. These were popular for early railway locomotives, from 1840 to the 1850s. [2]
The prominently raised firebox first appeared in 1830, in Bury's 0-4-0 locomotive Liverpool . This was the progenitor of his bar-frame locomotives and shared their distinctive boiler design. The inner firebox was D-shaped in plan, with a flat tubeplate. Fireboxes of this time did not yet have a brick arch and so the Bury firebox was relatively short in length but tall, to give an adequate length of combustion path. The outer firebox was a vertical cylinder, formed into a tall hemispherical dome above it. [3] Later Bury designs were flattened on top and became known as "haystacks". [4]
A regular problem with early steam locomotives was that of priming, the carry-over of water with the steam. Many varieties of steam dome on the boiler barrel were tried to avoid this, by taking the steam outlet from as high as possible above the waterline. Stephenson's Rocket of 1829 had used such a small steam dome. In the 1830s, domes became extravagantly large. A drawback to fitting such large domes was the weakening of the boiler shell where such a large hole was cut into it.
In 1840, Stephenson produced their 2-2-2 design which avoided the dome altogether, in favour of a raised firebox in the Bury style of ten years earlier. [4] Boiler power had increased considerably over the decade, now requiring a larger fire grate area. The inner and outer fireboxes were square in plan, with flat sides that required staying. At the top these four sides were vaulted inwards to a point, having a profile approximating a then-fashionable Gothic arch. These provided a large steam space above the waterline, but their flat surfaces limited working pressure.
Stephenson used the Gothic arch firebox for their long-boiler locomotives as well, including their 2-2-2 North Star of 1841 [5] [6] and outside-cylindered 2-2-2s for the Yarmouth and Norwich Railway in 1844. [6]
The Gothic arch firebox was also notably used by a number of Gooch's Great Western Railway broad-gauge locomotives, [4] [7] including the Firefly , Leo and Hercules classes of 1840-1842. The last class to use them was the Premier class of 1846–7, which were also the first locomotives to be constructed at the new Swindon Works. [8] GWR locomotives after this, from the Pyracmon class, used Gooch's stronger round-topped firebox with its wrapper raised above the boiler barrel.
One well-known locomotive that no longer uses a haycock boiler, despite its external appearance, was the L&MR Lion of 1838. This survived by spending many years as a stationary pump in Liverpool docks. It was re-boilered around 1880 with what was then a typical contemporary design, a round-topped boiler with raised firebox. When restored for historical display at the L&MR centenary of 1930, this was then hidden beneath a purely decorative brass facsimile of the original haycock boiler. [9] This simplified round-topped firebox within an external brass pyramid was reproduced in LBSC's 1953 5" gauge model engineering design Titfield Thunderbolt .
Some makers retained the Bury pattern of a hemispherical firebox. The American-built 4-2-0 Norris locomotives for the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway resembled a Bury design with outside cylinders, and retained the small D-shaped inner firebox. [10] Kitson also built a number of long-boiler 0-6-0s around 1845, also using the hemispherical haystack firebox. [4] [11]
Bury also built Furness Railway Nº 3 of 1846, one of the few surviving locomotives of this style and period. This locomotive acquired the name "Old Coppernob" or "Coppernob", on account of its polished copper outer cladding, [12] [13] [14] which it then gave generically to this style of boiler.
By around 1850 the haystack and Gothic boiler had fallen from favour. Boiler working pressures had risen from 80 psi to the 120 psi of the Jenny Lind , making the flat surfaces of the Gothic firebox unsupportable. Future locomotives returned to the use of the steam dome.
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Henry Albert Hoy (1855–1910) was a locomotive engineer with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR). Hoy was born on 13 January 1855 in London, and educated at King Edward VI's Grammar School in St Albans, and at St John's College, Liverpool University.
The Belpaire firebox is a type of firebox used on steam locomotives. It was invented by Alfred Belpaire of Belgium in 1864. Today it generally refers to the shape of the outer shell of the firebox which is approximately flat at the top and square in cross-section, indicated by the longitudinal ridges on the top sides. However, it is the similar square cross-section inner firebox which provides the main advantages of this design i.e. it has a greater surface area at the top of the firebox where the heat is greatest, improving heat transfer and steam production, compared with a round-top shape.
The Furness Railway No.3, nicknamed "Old Coppernob", is a preserved English steam locomotive. It acquired its nickname because of the copper cladding to its dome-shaped "haystack" firebox.
The steam dome is a vessel fitted to the top of the boiler of a steam engine. It contains the opening to the main steam pipe and its purpose is to allow this opening to be kept well above the water level in the boiler. This arrangement acts as a simple steam separator and minimises the risk that water will be carried over to the cylinders where it might cause a hydraulic lock, also known as priming.
The Bury Bar Frame locomotive was an early type of steam locomotive, developed at the Liverpool works of Edward Bury and Company, later named Bury, Curtis, and Kennedy in 1842. By the 1830s, the railway locomotive had evolved into three basic types - those developed by Robert Stephenson, Timothy Hackworth and Edward Bury.
A shell or flued boiler is an early and relatively simple form of boiler used to make steam, usually for the purpose of driving a steam engine. The design marked a transitional stage in boiler development, between the early haystack boilers and the later multi-tube fire-tube boilers. A flued boiler is characterized by a large cylindrical boiler shell forming a tank of water, traversed by one or more large flues containing the furnace. These boilers appeared around the start of the 19th century and some forms remain in service today. Although mostly used for static steam plants, some were used in early steam vehicles, railway locomotives and ships.
The EDWARD BURY to PFEIL series of early German locomotives were tender engines operated by the Leipzig–Dresden Railway Company.
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