As any viewer of westerns is aware, American steam locomotives in the 19th century frequently sported huge and flamboyant diamond-shaped smokestacks. However, their brethren in most parts of Europe more often featured a modest little pipe as the smoke exhaler--a design which was ultimately also employed by later American steam locomotives.
The explanation for the two different styles is simple. Early American locomotives had available large tracts of virgin forests which could easily yield huge quantities of cordwood for fuel. Hence, in young America, it was most economical to employ wood-burning steam engines. One negative feature of this type of locomotive was that it spewed out prodigious quantities of sparks which would ignite vegetation along the roadbed as well as the garments of passengers. The diamond-shaped stack concealed a commonly used variation of a smoke arrestor which would lessen, but not totally eliminate, the risk of ember-induced fire.
European countries were more industrialized and had easy access to coal. The coal-powered locomotive was far less promiscuous about ember-belching and did not require, under most circumstances, elaborate spark arrestors. When the United States settled down and became more industrialized, it too used coal or oil as a fuel for its steam locomotives and converted to the dainty little smokestacks.
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