Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-09-10
WORKOUT LOCOMOTIVES.
A Chicago Reporter Describes a Visit ts
 the Golsotha of the Track.

Chicago Reporter Describes . Visit t0
 the Golsotha of the Track.
 Few people have any idea of what be- comes of the railroad locomotive after it has passed it's years of usefulness. Where are they buried is often asked, and none but the railroad man can answer. The great locomotive works of the country are busy day and night trying to supply the demands made upon them, and yet they are not equal to the task, so rapidly are railroads being constructed in every State in the Union. The time consumed in build ing one of these Iron monsters has been reduced to minimum, and some of the works are able to turn out an engine com plete in every particular every twenty-four hours. They must pass away rapidly, and what becomes of them you ask A re- porter of the Chicago Times made tour through the scrap-iron yard of the Illinois Central railroad, and all about, bleaching and falling away from the influences of the winds and storms of winter, were the bones and carcasses of these mighty dead. This was the burying- ground for the great To- eomotlves of the country, the huge en- zines that have served out their term of life.
 They have history, though, these dead and rusty masses of old iron. Take this old carcass of engine 192. There IS nothing left now but the boiler, and that is falling apart with the action of rust-the mere skeleton of what was once mighty force. The woodwork of the engineers cab has long ago been torn out, the huge driving wheel and the rods and bars, the brass and steel trimmings, the bell and smoke-stack, the truck-wheels and the all that went to make the complete engine have been taken away, even to the sheathing of the boiler it. self, and thus dismantled the remnant of old "192' is left to its fate. It used to bo one of the best in use, and the grizzled en- gineers of the road cast fond glances over at the yard where it lies as they rush past on newer and finer locomotive, recalling how that battered ruin was years ago the champion of the track and envied of all
 Here is engine 179 with a portion of the cab still clnging to the boiler, but that is all that remains to show its former use. It is a recent arrival ln the grave yard of the englnes, yet the sparrows find snug quar- ters in the hooks and crannies of the pipes, and have built thelr nests in the place where only short time ago the roaring fufnace-hre and hissing steam gave life and speed to the huge mass of metal. A half-doZen other ruins, in the process of greater or less decay, he about the place, and the ground is strewn with the odds and ends of many more. It is the Golgotha of the track, a sepulcher where time spre ads the pail of oblivion over mans handiwork and makes it naught.
 The life of locomotive depends very much on the workmanship put into it's con- struction and the class of work it performs. A drst-class passenger engine should be good for twenty-five years, but few now turned out of the shops reach that age, be- cause the necessity for speed in manufact- ure and the demand for engines do not sl- low the time and care to be spent that formerly went to make up the locomotive. As a matter of fact, the locomotives made twenty years ago are still in service on many railroad, where the engine pur. chased dozen years ago is laid up or put into scrap. This is due solely to the sup erior workmanship and the material used Much depends, also, on the class of work required of an engine. The passenger loco motive, which makes run of two hundred miles per day, at an average speed of twenty-five or thirty miles an hour, does not sustain nearly so much wear and tear to its boiler and machinery as the engine that pulls loaded freight train at the com paratively slow rate of fifteen miles an hour. The strain is ten times as much on every part of the freight engine as it is on the passenger engine, and this is what tells on the life of the machine The Illinois Central has an engine in service built for 1t in 1858, and some of the old carcasses in the graveyard can look back over only half that number of years. They were larger and finer to see, and had lots of modern improvements, but the boiler was the vital point, and gave out before the little old 5Ser felt the bangs of age.
 The company sold an engine the other day that had better record even that this Engine No. B was built in 1857, and was used continuously up to few weeks ago, when it went to the grave-yard-not to be buried, however. The company really had 6 sort of sentimental affection for the faith full old worker, and meant to keep it housed as a relic of the early days and have little placard announcing some of the interesting events in its career but speculative junk man happened along and saw how he could turn an honest penny with No. 23. He made an offer for it, which was accepted, and so one day the brave engine pulled out from the yard where she had sojourned for thir. ty-one years and went away down the fa- miliar road for the last time, and the old en- gineers and the helpers and the workmen all raised their hats and cheered her as she went along. What the junkman did with her is not known, but it is moro than likely No. 23 is again hard at work at some coal or iron mine pulling away with creaking and weary joints at heavy load. The englne is on the books of the English Railroad Commission as a remarkable instance of longevity in lo- comotives. Some years ago information was asked from American railroads as to the life of the American engine, the pur- pose being for comparison with English made engines, and it is on record that little 23 beat lem all.
 In the early days of the road it was cus- tomary to name the locomotives instead of numbering them, and such names as & John Rogers and Betsy" were the cogno- mems of famous engines. Recollections of Betsy" are still the basis of many yarn among the old engineers. Betsy hauled the coach in which Abraham Lincoln first paid a visit to Chicago after his nomlna- tion as President, and both ''John Rogers" and Betsy" afterward did service for the government of Lincoln by bringing up from the South many rebel to Camp Doug las. Neither of the engines is dead yet. The wheels and rods and pistons may be gone, but the boilers are still at work pumping up water at some of the way sta tions on the road.