Why do USA steam trains make smoke, but UK ones don't?

[Simon D.]

See this video: 

Coming from the UK I found this really interesting.  Apparently often the fault of railfans!  (Then and now I suspect).  However in the final days of steam in one of my Santa Fe books Lloyd Stagner comments that Bunker C fuel oil at the time was of poor quality and produced more smoke.




Perhaps the PRR had better firemen:

/>

For UK steam see this:

[Mark5]

On the N&W, black smoke was the sign of a poor job. This is likely true on any railroad.

N&W tenders had "BLACK SMOKE IS WASTE" stenciled on the front (facing the cab) of the tenders:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/uptrain/19147021179

[wazzou]

Running a clean stack is/was a sense of pride for a fireman but makes for lousy railfan photos.
Sand can be put in the flues which is pretty common or just a healthy dose of fuel oil in an oil burning firebox can liven up the shot.

[nkalanaga]

On oil burning steamers the flues needed to be sanded every so often, as carbon would build up in the flues.  In regular service, this was usually done as far from populated areas as possible, as it does produce a lot of very dirty "smoke".  Today it's done during run-bys because the audience wants smoke!

White "smoke", on the other hand, is mostly steam, and will likely always be present when the engine is working.  US roads didn't usually use condensing tenders, but where those were used, there wouldn't be any steam visible.

[eric220]

Something to keep in mind watching that video about Horseshoe Curve is that it’s on a steep grade. The trains coming down the hill looked pretty clean, but some of those I’s and J’s headed up the hill were sure belching.

I couldn’t help but think of a comment that @Dave V made at a rail-b-q as people were complaining about all the “fat heads” and stack trains. 70 years prior to our outing, around the time of that video, the rail fans were probably complaining, “Jeez, another J with I’s pushing. Let’s see something interesting!”

[dem34]

Something to keep in mind watching that video about Horseshoe Curve is that it’s on a steep grade. The trains coming down the hill looked pretty clean, but some of those I’s and J’s headed up the hill were sure belching.

I couldn’t help but think of a comment that @Dave V made at a rail-b-q as people were complaining about all the “fat heads” and stack trains. 70 years prior to our outing, around the time of that video, the rail fans were probably complaining, “Jeez, another J with I’s pushing. Let’s see something interesting!”

Don't even get started on trying to find where switchers worked. Oh a common class of locomotive on a class 1? Heres 5 pictures total if you don't want to hunt down a book that went out of print in the 70s.

[thomasjmdavis]

My own favorite video on steamers (principally because it features Dearborn station)-
It does seem that photographers - or cinematographers- are particularly adept at getting GTW (and other) firemen to smoke the place up when a steam loco is inbound or outbound with a passenger train. See, for instance 3:32 or thereabouts-

[Simon D.]

Thanks Tom - wonderful film.  All the engineers seem to have been respecting smoke ordinances!


I think my interest in this was sparked by the twinges of discomfort I feel looking at photos of the old engines I love belching out horrible black smoke, especially shots like 3800's grunting up places like Raton Pass.  I also love PA's, but they were real polluters too.