I have an idea, if a steam locomotive's boiler was heated by a metal heater instead of a fire, how much less maintance would be needed as it does not produce any ash or soot because it has no fire.
Most of the steam locomotives I've seen require the fireman to pull a cord attached to the bell, thus ringing it, however I've started seeing locomotives with automatic bell ringers; the fireman does not touch the cord but the striker in the bell automatically, rhythmically strikes the bell. How...
I noticed that the sheet metal on locomotives is really thick and every other aspect like hand rails is extremely heavy duty. Why is that? I can of course understand why the frame needs to be heavy duty, it's pulling the entire train, but why is everything else so thick and heavy?