A fireman, stoker or watertender is a person
whose occupation it is to tend the fire for
the running of a boiler, heating a building,
or powering a steam engine.
Much of the job is hard physical labor, such
as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the
boiler's firebox.
On steam locomotives the title fireman is
usually used, while on steamships and stationary
steam engines, such as those driving saw mills,
the title 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.
== Nautical ==
=== 
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
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.
=== Royal Canadian Navy ===
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.
=== United States Navy ===
In the United States Navy, watertender (abbreviated
WT) was a petty officer rating which existed
from 1884 to 1948.
Watertenders held a paygrade equivalent to
today's petty officer first class.
A chief watertender (CWT) paygrade was established
in 1903.
In 1921, the lower paygrade was split into
watertender first class (WT1 or WT1c) and
watertender second class (WT2 or WT2c).
Another lower paygrade, watertender third
class (WT3 or WT3c), was established in 1943.
The watertender and boilermaker ratings were
merged into a new "Boilerman" rating in 1948
and continued to 1976 when the rating was
changed to "Boiler Technician" and subsequently
merged into the "Machinist's Mate" rating
in 1996.
== Railways ==
On steam locomotives, firemen were not usually
responsible for initially preparing locomotives
and lighting their fires.
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.
Whoever was responsible for fire-starting
would clear the ash from the firebox ashpan
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).
The engine itself was cleaned by an engine
cleaner instead of the fireman.
Some firemen served these duties as a form
of apprenticeship, aspiring to be locomotive
engineers themselves.
In the present day, the position of fireman
still exists on the Union Pacific Railroad,
but it refers to an engineer in training.
The fireman may operate the locomotive under
the direct supervision of the engineer.
When the fireman is not operating the locomotive,
the fireman assists the engineer and monitors
the controls.
== 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.
== Notable stokers ==
Vladimir Lenin, disguised as Konstantin Petrovich
Ivanov, escaped to Finland in 1917 on train
293 from Udelnaya Station.
Guro Jalava, a co-conspirator and the train's
driver, helped to further conceal Lenin by
having him work as his stoker.
Jalava later recalled that Lenin shovelled
with gusto as he fed the engine, making the
train run fast.There were approximately 176
stokers on board the coal fed ocean liner
RMS Titanic.
During the sinking of the ship, these men
disregarded their own safety and stayed below
deck to keep the steam driven electric generators
running for the radiotelegraph, lighting,
and water pumps.
Only 48 of them survived.Simeon T. Webb was
the fireman on the Cannonball Express when
it was destroyed in the legendary wreck that
killed engineer Casey Jones.
Jones's last words were "Jump, Sim, jump!"
and Webb did jump, survived, and became a
primary source for information about the famous
wreck.KFC founder Colonel Sanders worked as
a railroad stoker when he was 16 or 17.A 14-year
old Martin Luther King Sr. worked as a fireman
on the Atlanta railroad.
== Depictions in popular culture and art ==
=== Art ===
Torsten Billman, a Swedish graphic artist,
drawer, and mural painter - himself coal trimmer
and stoker on various merchant ships from
1926 to 1932 - has portrayed the hard work
in coal bunkers and stokeholes.
=== Events ===
Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson acted as stoker
on the steam locomotive No. 60163 Tornado
while performing a Race to the North against
Richard Hammond and James May.
It was an homage to the historical Race to
the North, a rivalry between British steam
engines, trains and men of different companies
between London and Edinburgh.
=== Film ===
The lead character Bill Roberts (George Bancroft)
in Josef von Sternberg's motion picture The
Docks of New York (1928) is a stoker.
=== Literature ===
The first chapter of Franz Kafka's novel Amerika
(published posthumously in 1927) is entitled
"The Stoker".
Mat Burke, a principal role in Eugene O'Neill's
play Anna Christie (1921) is a ship's stoker.
Yank, the protagonist of Eugene O'Neill's
play The Hairy Ape (1922), is a stoker on
a ship.
=== Music ===
"Stoker Dreams" and "Stoker Love" are songs
by the Russian indie group Chimera.
The RMS Mauretania (1906) is remembered in
a song, "The fireman's lament" or "Firing
the Mauretania", collected by Redd Sullivan.
The song starts "In 19 hundred and 24, I ... got
a job on the Mauretania"; but then goes on
to say "shovelling coal from morn till night"
(not possible in 1924 as she was oil-fired
by then).
The number of "fires" is said to be 64.
Hughie Jones also recorded the song but the
last verse of Hughie's version calls upon
"all you trimmers" whereas Redd Sullivan's
version calls upon "stokers".
== Notes
