River steamships

[AWu]

Dear Gentlemen maybe you could help me (as i found a lot of strange knowledge of the milieu in your topics)

I started to build a river steamship (paddle wheel at the back kind) - to be precise it meant to be Roi Des Belges from Heart of Darkness (but it will serve both historical and fantasy gaming)

I've found information on how engines worked and more or less how they looked.
Where boiler should be mounted and where chimneys should be to spread the weight properly.

But I am in the darkness about where coal should be stored and how.

Maybe some of you fine sirs poses information about this topic ?
Or some plans ?

Thats what I am aiming for:


Or similar:


And here I am now:



Any good spirit could help with this ?

[S J Donovan]

Since you wrote 'Heart of Darkness' I would say that coal would not be carried, rather wood.  Anytime the ship needed fuel, which would go pretty fast (wood or coal) a reliable supply is a necessity.  Therefore, wood - which would be stored close to/opposite the boiler door for easy loading into the boiler.  I am pretty sure that a steam engine powerful enough to power a steamboat would need several cords of wood a day (a cord is 4 foot high, four foot wide and eight feet long).  I glued together a stack of straight twigs an inch high, inch wide and two inches long for my boats to use.  It also make a good barricade against enemies.
I hope this helps.

[juergen c. olk]

Great info on the wood supply needed! I wiil have to add to my boat. Thanx

[AWu]

Since you wrote 'Heart of Darkness' I would say that coal would not be carried, rather wood.  Anytime the ship needed fuel, which would go pretty fast (wood or coal) a reliable supply is a necessity.  Therefore, wood - which would be stored close to/opposite the boiler door for easy loading into the boiler.  I am pretty sure that a steam engine powerful enough to power a steamboat would need several cords of wood a day (a cord is 4 foot high, four foot wide and eight feet long).  I glued together a stack of straight twigs an inch high, inch wide and two inches long for my boats to use.  It also make a good barricade against enemies.
I hope this helps.

Ive asked in the right place

Thats great information. I happen to have one cord of wood (in 15mm scale )
But that is a very easy way to go and I dont have to make a bunk under the deck.
It can be stored straight on the deck.

BTW - i found the passage I forgot!! (I started re reading the book just yesterday)

"Some fifty miles below the Inner Station we came upon a hut of reeds, an inclined and melancholy pole, with the unrecognizable tatters of what had been a flag of some sort flying from it, and a neatly stacked wood-pile. This was unexpected. We came to the bank, and on the stack of firewood found a flat piece of board with some faded pencil-writing on it. When deciphered it said: 'Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously.'

Thanks a lot S J Donovan

[Valerik]

~ Thats what I am aiming for ~

Great pictures!!  Lots of inspiration there!!

~ I would say that coal would not be carried, rather wood.  Anytime the ship needed fuel, which would go pretty fast (wood or coal) a reliable supply is a necessity.  Therefore, wood - which would be stored close to/opposite the boiler door for easy loading into the boiler.  ~

This.  Wood.  Lots, n'lots of wood. & even more wood.

Small and medium-sized river steamers burned from twelve to twenty-four cords of wood a day; the large boats consumed as much as fifty to seventy-five cords for every twenty-four hours running time.
Hunter, Steamboats on the Western Rivers, p. 266

Coal is for warships, ocean liners, BIG fast passenger/cargo freighters, not river rompers.  

& you must be operating in a place where coal is commonly mined, and used.  The coal industry of Western Pennsylvania & the Ohio River Valley didn't succeed in rivaling wood until well past the mid 19th Century. Widespread deforestation of areas near the water made even uncertain supplies of coal a welcome alternative.

Settlers in the American 'West', really on any navigable waterway past Philadelphia to the Pacific,
could earn ready hard cash for cutting & stacking dry wood along the rivers.  Captains would put in, load up & leave payment behind as they steamed back & forth doing the nation's business on nature's highways.

In the underdeveloped wilderness of whatever continent wood is the omnipresent fuel of choice,  & convenience.

Not so different in Africa, Asia, or the Amazon I'd imagine.   Probably more organised, by company or line, or the crew would simply stop, cut & take what's needed to go further, property rights being what they are in the jungle.

Steam journeys up waterways absent forests, such as the Nile, would be a logistical nightmare, run outa fuel & you have to burn the boat, or it's bits, to advance, or retreat.  Didn't Verne have Fogg do just that on his final leg?

Go, cut, stack & supply WOOD!!  Burn, Baby, Burn!!

Valerik

Not a boat captain, steam or otherwise, but has the hats to play one on TV

EDIT  Grammar Police Warrant