Mower County transcript., 1890-07-30
FEEDING A FIRE.
Some Idea of the Work of a Loco
motive Fireman.
>Incessant Action and Intelligent Direction
Necessary-Passen Train Engines
the Hardest to sFlre"-Why tho
Gauge Should Have Attention.

Little has been written of the locomo-
tive fireman. Liko the newspaper re-
porter, his identity is sunk in the great
ness of his machine and the prominence
of his superiors- He is seldom heard
from unless he neglects to jump at the
critical moment and his name appears
in the lists of the dead or wounded. A
passing notice is all he receives until he
serves the full period of the slavery of a
locomotive gangway and moves from'the
freman's box on the left of the cab to
then he is fireman no longer.
Few of the travellers gliding across
the country in comfortable passenger
coaches give thought to the motive
power that enables them to visit two or
three States in day. They can not
realize that there is any severe labor
attached to the trip. They see the
neatly-uniformedc conductor who leisure
ly treads the aisles, the indolent brake
man lounging from one end Of the train
to the other, and the white-jacketed
'colored porter, evidently not suffering
from overwork. These visions do not
give the traveller any very vivid i'm
preston of hard work. But while they
are appearing and reappearing there is
one man who is learning his bread by
the sweat of his brow" and that is the
fireman. Dirty, begrimmed and greasy
from head to foot, the fireman is per-
forming duties that no two of the pas
sengers in the train behind him would
care to undertake, were they capable of
so doing. There is very little poetry
and a vast deal Of reality in an engine
cab, especially the cab of passenger
engine. The train is running at high
speed; the engine is the motive power;
steam is its life. and it devolves upon
the fireman to supply the steam. Many
people would say: 'Why, that's easy
enough! All he does is to put in coal {"
''All he has to do is to put in coal!"
1t would be great sport to see the au-
thors of such remarks put in the coal. I"
would be interesting to watch them
clambering from the box to the gang
way, and the gangway to the box few
times while performing the double du-
tres of firing" and watching the track
ahead.
Putting in the coal is all right, but
when the coal is put in every two or
three minutes it soon becomes nlonoton-
Gus and shortly fatiguing, especially on
a twelve or fifteen-hour trip. The prac-
tical fireman becomes used to his work,
however, and is able to keep up during
the trip. He not only ''puts in a fire"
every two or three minutes, but he is
obliged to put it in rightly and scien-
tifcllly. 1t would be impossible for q
green fireman to keep up the proper
amount OF steam for a passenger engine
or to keep her hot" The fre-box of
locomotive is treacherous thing to
one not understanding 1t. The box is
from six to eight feet-in some
cases ten feet-in length, and
four or five feet in width. The bottom
is composed of two movable CRATES
which are so placed as to leave crevices
at the ends and sides which are virtually
conduits for the draught. At the front
end of the frebox are the fues. A fire.
man who knows his business under
stands the construction of the box
thoroughly. He is careful not to fire"
too much in front and thus shut up the
ifues, and he 'feeds" to the ends and
: sides, thereby closing up the crevlces
and shutting out the cola air which
would speedily cool the fues and de-
stroy their steaming power. Not SO
much attention is paid to the center,
although the coal must be evenly dis
tributed and, in no case, allowed to
''heap" which would result in big
cinders to clog the g1atea Nor must