Fireman (steam engine)

A boilerman, sometimes called a "fireman" or "stoker"

Fireman or stoker is the job title for someone whose job is to tend the fire for the running of a steam engine.

On steam locomotives the term fireman is usually used, while on steamships and stationary steam engines, such as those driving saw mills, the term is usually stoker (although the British Merchant Navy did use fireman). Much of the job is hard physical labor, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the engine's firebox.

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy used the rank structure Ordinary Stoker, Stoker, Leading Stoker, Stoker Petty Officer and Chief Stoker. The non-substantive (trade) badge for stokers was a ship's propeller. "Stoker" remains the colloquial term used to refer to a Marine Engineering rating, despite the decommissioning of the last steam-powered vessel some years ago.

Railways

A fireman working on a German Class 52 steam locomotive.

On steam railways, firemen were also usually responsible for cleaning the ash and dust from the firebox prior to lighting the fire, adding water to the engine's boiler, making sure there is a proper supply of fuel for the engine aboard before starting journeys, starting the fire, raising or banking the fire as appropriate for the amount of power needed along particular parts of the route, and performing other tasks for maintaining the locomotive according to the orders of the engineer (US) or driver (UK). Some firemen served these duties as a form of apprenticeship, aspiring to be locomotive engineers themselves.

The Royal Canadian Navy has steam powered ships: all are Replinshment ships. All Marine Engineers in the RCN are nicknamed "stokers".

Mechanical stoker

A mechanical stoker is a device which feeds coal into the firebox of a boiler. It is standard equipment on large stationary boilers and was also fitted to large steam locomotives to ease the burden of the fireman. The locomotive type has a screw conveyor (driven by an auxiliary steam engine) which feeds the coal into the firebox. The coal is then distributed across the grate by steam jets, controlled by the fireman. Power stations usually use pulverized coal-fired boilers.

Depictions in popular culture

Yank, the protagonist of Eugene O'Neill's play The Hairy Ape is the stoker on a ship. Mat Burke, a principal role in O'Neill's Anna Christie is also a ship stoker.

The first chapter of Franz Kafka's novel Amerika is entitled "The Stoker".

The lead character, Bill Roberts, in Josef von Sternberg's The Docks of New York is a stoker.

Further reading

• Jon R. Huibregtse, American Railroad Labor and the Genesis of the New Deal, 1919-1935. University Press of Florida, 2010.
• Walter Licht, Working for the Railroad: the organization of work in the nineteenth century‎. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
• John W. Orr, Set Up Running: The Life of a Pennsylvania Railroad Engineman, 1904-1949. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.
• Joseph Hugh Tuck, "Canadian Railways and the International Brotherhoods: Labour Organizations in the Railway Running Trades in Canada, 1865-1914." Dissertation. University of Western Ontario, 1976.