I'll never forget that night......blew all our front windows out! Thought it was the end!

What is the purpose of those 'shrouds' on either side?

Stolen from Yahoo...
Those were there as an aerodynamic item. When the locomotive was moving those sheet metal pieces were capable of creating a slightly higher air pressure next to the boiler. The increase in air pressure wasn't much, only slightly higher. But that was all that was necessary to keep the exhaust smoke up on top of the boiler and out of the visual sight line of the engine crew. Say a cross wind of 30 mph was broadsiding the engine that was going 25 mph. The smoke would blow over and down the down-wind side of the engine because of less air pressure there - and impede the sight of the Engineer or Fireman. Not good. The "ears" (sometimes called) funneled a directed stream of wind against the sides of the boiler to keep the smoke up where it belonged.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1369152193.jpg

Thansk! I did a search using the term 'shroud' and came up with beauties like this

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1369152435.jpg

I searched shroud, then went with "blinders"

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1369152967.jpg

Some of the locos in this video illustrate the effect of the smoke deflectors.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/78Rl6BWoQp0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>