r/nextfuckinglevel 17h ago

110 HP steam tractor pull

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u/Big_Wave9732 16h ago

Ah yes, the part of the old days that folks have forgotten: The raining down of embers. Steam engines seem all old timey romantic and shit, but they caused a lot of fires everywhere they went. They'd set prairies on fire. The embers in tightly packed cities would land on tar roofs and set blocks ablaze.

u/Q_S2 16h ago

I was wondering about that! I was thinking... wait... theres hot ash flying everywhere! I dont rememberseeing this mentioned berofe

u/wjruth 10h ago

They add wood shavings to the firebox to make the torrent of ash look cool for these shows.

u/Q_S2 10h ago

Ah ok I thought it looked abnormal. It wasnt sure

u/joe-clark 10h ago

Also steam locomotives usually have spark arrestors to help stop that from happing. There's a coal mine in China where they run steam engines without spark arrestors and it looks crazy. I'm not sure if they still run steam these days but I know they were doing it as recently as 10 years ago.

https://youtu.be/8grHpQAB1jA

u/Q_S2 10h ago

Damn thats cool. Dangerous... but cool