Quote Originally Posted by stinkyattic
Yeah. That would be great.
Farm Collector - The Medina Tragedy
Boiler explosion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wreck at Rice Hill, Oregon 1912

You know they still run on fossil fuels, not water, right? That's how the water gets hot enough to become steam. Coal is the common one for trains and industrial applications, but you can fuel a steam engine with anything that can heat the water in the boiler. While liquid water can reach only 212'F, steam [water vapor] may be heated indefinitely under pressure and becomes quite dangerous. Remember PV=nRT. Gasoline-fuelled car fires, even racing cars, rarely kill people nearby, but a boiler explosion can, and also cause life-threatening burns to anyone unlucky enough to be anywhere in the vicinity. The boiler of a steam engine requires constant monitoring to ensure that the pressure does not rise above a safe level, and an unskilled or inebriated operator is a downright hazard.

I am personally happy to see a primitive and exceptionally dangerous power plant be laid to rest, and go view steam engines from a safe distance at the three county fair every fall.
Yeah, the boiler system that they had at the hospital was a trip! Ran off from natural gas primarily with an oil back up system. When that s.o.b. would fire up the entire room would shake. I guess years back one blew down there...wiped out the entire room and scorched the maintenance man pretty good.

If I recall correctly, state inspectors come in once a year to check the brick, valves, etc. They'd shut down and relieve the system so the inspectors could crawl inside and check out the internal brick...what a bitch to replace! IF the brick needed to be replaced the inspector had to come back and give the thumbs up before it could be re-fired.

Have a good one!:s4: