Hello

I easily understand how a boiler works on a railway locomotive but i have never been able to understand how a boiler works in a steam car. Please may someone enlighten me as to how they work?

Thank you very much.

Instead of a coal fire, you have a giant petrol, kerosene, (or in some modern burners, 50/50 Petrol Diesel) blowlamp under the boiler. A simple feedback control shuts the burner on and off according to steam pressure.

In Stanley steam cars, the boiler is like short section of a railway locomotive boiler barrel set on end - a water-filled drum stuffed with hollow fire tubes.
Water leverl is controlled manually or by an autonatic feedback control.

Some more sophisticated cars, Whites, Serpollets, and Dobles for example have 'flash'boilers, a cold of steel tubing into which water is injected, 'flashing' into steam. However the simplicity comes with a price; more sophistivated feedback controls are needed to run the boiler.