ashpan

ash +‎ pan

Diagram of a steam locomotive. Ashpan is #2.

ashpan (plural ashpans)

1. A container beneath a boiler's furnace, catching ash and clinker that falls through the firebars
2. A container that fits below the grate of a domestic fireplace.
3. (rail transport) A large pan below the grate and firebox of a steam locomotive.
   • 1944 September and October, “New Pacific Locomotives for the L.N.E.R.”, in -Railway Magazine, page 286:

     They have been fitted with a complete rocking grate and a hopper ashpan so that the ashes can be released without the necessity for a man to go underneath the engine.

   • 1960 March, “Testing a rebuilt "Merchant Navy" Pacific of the S.R.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 167:

     A new ashpan has been fitted, however, with four bottom doors for self-emptying, and a rocking grate with twelve rocking sections.

   • 1961 January, “Talking of Trains: Flooding at Lewes”, in Trains Illustrated, page 5:

     During the day conditions worsened quickly—for example, a 2-6-0 on the Uckfield line suddenly encountered flood water high enough to enter its ashpan and extinguish its fire—until lock gates up-river at Barcombe gave way and a tidal wave rolled down the valley meeting head-on a spring tide rolling up from the coast.

• “ash pan”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• hanaps