Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-07-12
HEATING CARS BY STEAM.
A Reform That is Progressing Rapidly
in the East.

connection with railway accident is the posi-
bility of being burned alive. Railroad annals
are filed to a Notwithstanding degree with
stories OF men. women and children
who, uninjured by actual collision or
derailment, have persisted misersbly from
flames that had their origin in the
murderous cylinder Of the deadly car stove;
whose lives have gone out in the suffocating
smoke and devouring glare of unnecessary con-
Migration. It was enough that railway col
lisions should be productive of compound
fractures, physical distortions and even death
itself without there being added to these
probabilities the easy chance of sTch roasting
that Identification of the remains would be i'm
possible, and yet for years great railway cor
porations have ignored the thousands of sug-
gestlo ns that have been made to them by prac-
teal engineers and by the blackened corpses of
thousands of victims OF a II .ggardiy policy that
placed dividends before human life. Aiding and
abettlug In this continuous slaughter were the
many so-called experts who. at the bidding of
their employers. insisted that there was no
system of heating known TO man or likely to
be known for some time to come that could
possibly succeed the stove. Then came
that awful White river disaster, three years
ago. when public sentiment made SO much
noise that even the deafest companie, had 70
hear. and yet the trade Journals with few ex-
ceptions, continued to insist that the stove was
the best thing available. The Enqineer,ng Ne1ps
was an exception. 1t affirmed, and it stood
alone in it's affirmation, that it was practicable
to heat cars by steam from the locomotive and
predicted that it was only question of but
little time when that system would be adopted
because 1t was at once safe and economical.
THE PROGRESS OF THE MOVEMENT.
To satisfy itself as to the soundness of its
prophecy the Engineering Ne,cs has collected a
OF al; ,l,I
heating of cars at the present time and the re-
suits of the inquiry have been made public.
Chapters OIL the heating of railway cars may
be warm reading when the thermometer is al
most breaking its safety valve in an endeavor
to get above the roof, but this is the season of
the year when the managers and engineers are
looking over their stock of snow ploughs
and heaters. The estimated number of
passenger cars in service in this
country is $4,000 and of these not
less than 1881 have been equipped with the
apparatus for continuous steam heat; nearly rs
per cent.
New York leads in the reform. There is q
law in that state that compels every company
operating therein to fit with eam-heat-
ing apparatus The result is that out of the
total of 1891 more than halls, SOC cars-are
the property of companies whose roads run in
the empire state. The New England states
come next with combined total of 1.420,
while the other roads east of Chicago have
| improved cars is but IS, while all the west has
but AL Palace car companies make up the
| balance of 4l8.
RAILROADS IN THIS VICINITY.
The Baltimore and Ohio company has taken
! hold of steam heating with a good deal of
vigor and of the $40 cars it runs in its pas
senger service 1O7 are equipped for steam
heat The Pennsylvania system has /, 800 cars
and 120 of them have heaters in place of
hn .nhy 0v,I 1la 4
! cars equipped out of total of 142, while the
Western Maryland has but 5 steam cheated cars
| in a total of 60. The Chesapeake and Ohio
com pany runs 81 cars: 16 of them ready for
| steam heat
Why New York and New England should be
| in advance of the west is only to be understood
| by those familiar with railroading in the sec
| tions named. Horrible disasters in the east
compelled legislation i'll what used to be known
| among politicians as the pivotal state in
Maine. i'll Massachusetts and in Maryland, and
| although many of the companies objected very
strenuously to being compelled to have proper
regard for the lives of their patrons, they all
agree now that the people were right. Only
| one road has made anything like fight in the
courts against the Indicating law, and that
| strangely enough, is the New York, New Haven
aud Hartford Company-one of the richest cor
| p0rations in the country, most OF the wealth Of
which is derived from an enormous passenger
business. Some day that road may have it's
holocaust, and then no one will envy the man.
agement its financial success or anything else.
| The great disaster has yet to come in the west.
When it does the car stove will be retired for
| ever. They don't do things out there until they
have to; then they do them in hurry.
LITTLE DANGER IN STEAM
1t has been insisted upon that steam heating
| would be dangerous if any of the pipe joints
| were to break. The Massachusetts, railroad
commission has demonstrated the contrary in
| series of Investigations and experiments.
| Direct steam-steam from the locomotive
| with pressure of eighty pounds to the inch
| would not burn the hand three feet from an
| inch and-a-half orifice, nor could it make the
| atmosphere of a car uubcarable, provided
| there was at least one window OPEN some-
thing by no means improbable In an accident
| After vile the traveller will no more think of
| iourneying in q stove-heated car than he
would of going down o toboggan slide back
ward.
A Cholera Scare I'm Piftahur~