Re: 488’s First Revenue Trip of 2022

I don’t know if there’s any hard information on that. The Locomotive Firebox Company developed the Cyclone and Anderson front ends as alternatives to the master mechanic and advertised them in catalogs and journals during that period. They claimed that eliminating netting in the smokebox required less maintenance and inspection, as well as better fuel economy, reduced back pressure (due to nozzle size), and on and on.



I suppose that’s all true to an extent but it all depends on what the operator of the locomotive desires to achieve. The savings back then on a mainline RR operating a large number of coal burners may have been justifiable, especially in wetter areas less prone to fire danger.

Right now, at the C&TS and in the west we are significantly more interested in fire prevention than saving a nominal amount of resources, whether that be saving 0.1 ton of coal per trip or paying shop crews to inspect the netting now and then. After much research I have become convinced that the master mechanic front end is superior to the cyclone for the purpose of fire prevention. I believe this is especially true when cyclone front ends are paired with stack screens which was never intended to be done.

There are absolutely people out there more knowledgeable than myself on the topic who can chime in. I know Kelly Anderson is one of them, and maybe someone from the RBM&N since I believe the T1 also has a cyclone front end.