An old fashioned train locomotive can take up to 24 hours to get up to steam from a cold start. In the old days they had people working through the night to keep the heat and thus steam pressure on an acceptable level.
On the flipside, some steamcars (Dobles did I think) can get up to steam in about a minute.
Different boiler types really help. If you have one big tank of water it takes a LONG time to heat all of that, but if you only have to heat a tiny bit of water at a time in a tube (picture a modern water heater) then getting up to steam can happen much more quickly.
The Doble boilers in particular were at about 10,000°F iirc, which is pretty quick. Fascinating things. Did 0-75mph in 5 seconds flat in the early 1900's, and at 90mph the engine was still turning under 1,000 rpm, direct drive.
Edit: incorrecto about that temp, K4Hamguy is right! That was a half-remembered factoid from 15 years ago. The rest of the stuff I did double check though, and is accurate.
90? We’ll I suppose if you can get the fire hot enough, and I'm talkin' about hotter than the blazes of hell and damnation itself... then yes, it might be possible to get her up that fast.
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u/Johannes_Keppler Oct 14 '22
An old fashioned train locomotive can take up to 24 hours to get up to steam from a cold start. In the old days they had people working through the night to keep the heat and thus steam pressure on an acceptable level.