Well tank, well?

Well tanks were't uncommon at one time, and neither were their sister-type, back-tanks. In a well tank the tank was between the frames, under the boiler and almsot invariably wholly ahead of the firebox - this restricted the type to outside-cylinder engines in most cases (in broad-gauge engines a well tank could be fitted between inside cylinders and cranks). In a back-tank the tank was between the frames but behind the firebox

- this was a common arrangement for inside-cykinder engines in the mid to late 19th century.

Many thanks for that - I had never heard of a back tank! Evidently I need to do some more work on this.

Any idea what the rectangular boxes just ahead of the cab were on the Beattie well tanks? When they were rebuilt they got curved splashers but part of the rectangular box remained, looks a bit big for sand.

Regards

Mike

I'm guessing here, but could they have started out as bunkers? having bunkers either side of the firebox rather than at the back of the cab was pretty common in mid-Victorian tank engines, and with Beattie designs you'd need two sets of bunkers - one for coke (for the /hot/ fire in the secondary firebox) and one for coal (this was before the brick arch and deflector plate in a firebox for coal-burning became universal).

I can see I am going to be annoying our local librarian again, I hadn't realised that the Beattie engines had two fireboxes! The 2-4-0 type I have seen models of had a bunker on the rear but you could well be right. This is something I know nothing about (apparently even less than I thought I knew!). My own interests have been 1920s light railways in the North West and BR Green Diesel so the Beatties were not something I ever took notice of in the literature.

Thanks again for the assistance, I put your original clarification in the page, so you are a contributor and hence you can have a link to a website of your choice included ifyou wish.

Regards

Mike

Didn't Wrenn advertise a Beattie well tank in one or two catalogues @% years ago... was it ever produced?

David

An inner and an outer, IIRC with a water bridge between them. There was a legal requirement for engines on passenger lines to "consume their own smoke". This was easy with (expensive) coke, hard with (cheap) coal. Beattie, along with several other designers, came up with complex firebox/combustion chamber layouts so that the smoke from the main fire would be burned off over a hotter, inner fire. Once Kirtley on the Midland came up with deflector plate and brick arch all of these complex boilers went away (generally just after the retirement of their inventor)..

If you can find a copy then Ahrons' "History of the British steam locomotive, 1825-1925" is excellent on this kind of stuff. It was reprinted in the early 70s (David and Charles) and turns up now and again. Not cheap, mind.

Hmm. Could be more complex. I'm looking at a picture of a Beattie tank in original (1863) form, photo on P.152 of my copy of Ahrons. There is a narrow rear bunker behind the footplate (no cab then, of course), plus the wrap-around plates above the rear driving wheels. I'm begining to wonder if these were simply large splashers (having the rear splasher faired into the footplate surround this way seems to have been common at the time

- Kirtley did the same on his goods (tender) engines, as did Beattie on his passenger engines. It could also have housed some of the ancilliaries for the feed-water pump (Beattie used hot-water feed, so no injectors). They might also have housed the filler for the second water tank, as Ahrons says " a water thank was placed between the frames over the leading axle; another, also between the frames, was under the footplate"