Stoker (occupation)

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). The German word Heizer is equivalent and in Dutch the word stoker is mostly used too. The United States Navy referred to them as watertenders. Much of the job is hard physical labor, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the engine's firebox.

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 naval vessel many years ago.

Large coal-fueled vessels also had individuals working as coal trimmers, who delivered coal from the coal bunkers to the stokers. They were responsible for all coal handling with the exception of the actual fueling of the boilers.

The Royal Canadian Navy had steam powered ships: the last of which were replenishment ships. All marine engineers in the RCN, regardless of their platform (CPF, 280 or AOR) are nicknamed stokers.

On steam locomotives, firemen were not usually responsible for initially preparing locomotives and lighting their fire. As a locomotive boiler takes several hours to heat up, and a too-rapid fire-raising can cause excess wear on a boiler, this task was usually performed by fire lighters working some hours before the fireman's main shift started. Only on small railways, or on narrow-gauge locomotives with smaller and faster-warming boilers, was the fire lit by the fireman.

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