Fireless steamer

Steam locomotives or steam engines were usually specified as such, they weren't very often referred to as a steamer, except later on as the diesels came around.

But we're going to look at the one steam locomotive that was referred to as a steamer..the "Fireless Steamer".  Now how can you have a "Fireless" steamer, and why would you want one.

 Fireless steamers were used primarily in places like factories or areas where you didn't want the smoke, or more importantly, you didn't want an open flame. Places that handled explosive materials, chemicals, or gases were often the places to find the Fireless steamer. 

But how can a Fireless steamer operate?

Simply put, a fireless steamer did not produce it's own steam, it received it from an outside source, often it just connected to a factory steam piping system and charged it's tank, pretty much like charging a battery, the steamer was a storage device. It filled the tank, ran around the plant doing it's work and when the pressure dropped to a certain level it went back, hooked up and refilled the tank.

Funny enough though, many fireless steamers weren't steamers at all, many operated on compressed air taken from the company. 

Simply put..no fire...no...BOOM.