Rich Melvin posted:Dan Padova posted:In the description it states that a fireman would shovel several tons of coal. Larger steam locomotives mostly had Archimedes screws, did they not ?
They were called “Stokers.”
They were not “automatic” stokers. There was absolutely nothing “automatic” about running a stoker.
I'm not sure what type of stoker you are thinking about. I thought a screw ran from the tender to the firebox. The coal would fall into the screw chute and be pulverized as it was move up the screw and into the firebox. I believe the screw was powered by a small steam boiler or possibly mechanically by some other device on the locomotive. It sounds automatic to me.
