Fireless locomotive
They were also used where a source of air or steam was readily available, and for moving loads within limited areas, such as a switch yard or within an industrial factory.
[5] Lamm's fireless engines were briefly popular, both in the United States and in France, but were soon displaced by electric trams.
Any factory which possessed a stationary boiler could use it to charge a fireless steam locomotive for internal shunting operations.
[6] As of 2020, fireless locomotives were used for shunting the heavy coal hopper trains for the thermal power station in the German town of Mannheim.
Major builders of fireless steam locomotives in the UK included Andrew Barclay and W. G. Bagnall.
Some 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge 0-10-0 fireless locomotives from the German company Henschel were used in the construction of the Baghdad Railway, probably to avoid the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning during the boring of tunnels.
[9] Another German company, Hohenzollern, built some articulated fireless steam locomotives with a cab at each end.
[10] A well insulated modern steam accumulator can preserve pressure over many hours, but is nevertheless ready to provide tractive effort immediately.
Thus the operating cost of a fireless steam shunter can be far less than that of a comparable diesel, is an environmentally-friendly alternative to the internal combustion engine.
A fireless locomotive eliminates this danger—if it runs out of sufficient water, it simply ceases to move—although precautions must be taken as with any other pressure vessel.
One example is the large coal-fired power station in Mannheim where coal is delivered by rail in long trains of self-discharging hopper wagons.
East Germany, preferring to use its abundant supply of lignite to imported fuel, used fireless engines extensively.
In 1882, the steam tramway in Batavia (Jakarta) Nederlands-Indische Tramweg Maatschappij started this traction with a series of 20 fireless engines, supplied by the German Hohenzollern with the track gauge 1188 and the serial numbers 244 to 263, labeled as I to XX.
In 2017, Semboro sugar mill in Jember, East Java[12] used two fireless locomotives due to the presence of flammable bagasse.
In the 21st century the steam company Dampflokomotiv- und Maschinenfabrik[17] refurbished two locomotives of the German Meiningen type and modernised them for use on industrial sidings.
[19] The Electricity Supply Commission of South Africa (ESKOM) has preserved two fireless steam locomotives.
[20] The Ayrshire Railway Preservation Group has rebuilt its Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 fireless locomotive (Works Number 1952 of 1928).
shutdown in 2000 and donated "The Pot" to the Carter County Chamber of Commerce and is on public display in Elizabethton, Tennessee.
[27] The Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum in Calera, AL has a recently cosmetically restored 0-4-0 Davenport on display.
