A vertical boiler is a type of fire-tube or water-tube boiler where the boiler barrel is oriented vertically instead of the more common horizontal orientation. Vertical boilers were used for a variety of steam-powered vehicles and other mobile machines, including early steam locomotives.
Many different tube arrangements have been used. Examples include:
The main advantages of a vertical boiler are:
The main disadvantages of a vertical boiler are:
Several manufacturers produced a significant number of vertical boiler locomotives. Notable amongst these were:
The Sentinel Waggon Works also produced a range of road lorries (steam wagons) based on their high-pressure vertical boilers
The Best Manufacturing Company of San Leandro in California produced a range of steam tractors that used vertical boilers.
Certain designs of steam roller departed from the conventional traction engine style of a horizontal boiler with an engine mounted above. Vertical-boilered rollers were built around a substantial girder frame chassis, with the boiler being mounted low down between the front and rear rolls. Such designs were not common in the UK.
The traditional form of steam donkey (as a mobile winch used in the logging industry) married a vertical boiler with a steam engine on a rigid base fitted with skids for mobility. Since the ground to be traversed would be rough and rarely level, the water-level -tolerant design of the vertical boiler was an obvious choice.
Construction equipment such as steam cranes and steam shovels used vertical boilers to good effect. On a rotating base, the weight of the boiler would help to counterbalance the load suspended from the shovel bucket or crane jib, mounted on the opposite side of the pivot from the boiler. The compact boiler footprint permitted smaller designs than would have been the case for a horizontal type, thus allowing use on smaller worksites; the extra height of a vertical boiler being less critical for such a generally tall machine.
Some steam boats, particularly smaller types such as river launches, were designed around a vertical boiler. The small footprint of the boiler permitting smaller, more space-efficient designs, with less of the usable vessel being occupied by the means of propulsion rather than the payload.
Vertical types such as the Cochran boiler provided useful, small footprint, package solutions for many stationary applications, including process and space heating.
Stephenson's Rocket was an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement. It was built for and won the Rainhill Trials of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), held in October 1829 to show that improved locomotives would be more efficient than stationary steam engines.
A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. A tank engine may also have a bunker to hold fuel.
A fire-tube boiler is a type of boiler in which hot gases pass from a fire through one or (many) more tubes running through a sealed container of water. The heat of the gases is transferred through the walls of the tubes by thermal conduction, heating the water and ultimately creating steam.
A high pressure watertube boiler is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which boils water in the steam-generating tubes. In smaller boilers, additional generating tubes are separate in the furnace, while larger utility boilers rely on the water-filled tubes that make up the walls of the furnace to generate steam.
In a steam engine, the firebox is the area where the fuel is burned, producing heat to boil the water in the boiler. Most are somewhat box-shaped, hence the name. The hot gases generated in the firebox are pulled through a rack of tubes running through the boiler.
Sentinel Waggon Works Ltd was a British company based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire that made steam-powered lorries, railway locomotives, and later, diesel engined lorries, buses and locomotives.
Novelty was an early steam locomotive built by John Ericsson and John Braithwaite to take part in the Rainhill Trials in 1829.
De Winton & Co (1854–1901) were engineers in Caernarfon, Wales. They built vertical boilered narrow gauge locomotives for use in Welsh slate mines and other industrial settings. At least six De Winton locomotives have been preserved. But these quarry tramway locomotives, for which in the 21st century they are largely remembered, were just a small part of this company's engineering output.
Boulton's Siding was a British locomotive-hire business owned by Isaac Watt Boulton and situated alongside the Oldham branch of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway at Ashton-under-Lyne. It operated from 1864 to 1898.
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.
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.
A vertical boiler with horizontal fire-tubes is a type of small vertical boiler, used to generate steam for small machinery. It is characterised by having many narrow fire-tubes, running horizontally.
Boilers for generating steam or hot water have been designed in countless shapes, sizes and configurations. An extensive terminology has evolved to describe their common features. This glossary provides definitions for these terms.
The Sentinel boiler was a design of vertical boiler, fitted to the numerous steam waggons built by the Sentinel Waggon Works.
A transverse boiler is a boiler used to generate steam to power a vehicle. Unlike other boilers, its external drum is mounted transversely across the vehicle.
A cross-tube boiler was the most common form of small vertical boiler. They were widely used, in the age of steam, as a small donkey boiler, for the independent power of winches, steam cranes etc.
A vertical fire-tube boiler or vertical multitubular boiler is a vertical boiler where the heating surface is composed of multiple small fire-tubes, arranged vertically.
A launch-type, gunboat or horizontal multitubular boiler is a form of small steam boiler. It consists of a cylindrical horizontal shell with a cylindrical furnace and fire-tubes within this.
A steam motor is a form of steam engine used for light locomotives. They represented one of the final developments of the steam locomotive, in the final decades of the widespread use of steam power.
The East London Harbour 0-4-0VB of 1873 was a South African steam locomotive from the pre-Union era in the Cape of Good Hope.
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