The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1890-09-30

mis- machine and the prominence of his
superiors. He is seldom heard from IN
less he neglects to jump at the critical
moment and his anne 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 the engine
mans box on the right, and then he is a
fireman no longer.
Few of the travellers gliding across the
country in comfortable passenger coaches
give a thought to the motive power that
enables them to visit two or three States
in 3 day. They can not realize that there
IS any severe labor attached to the trip.
They see the nealy-uniformed conductor
who leisurely treads the aisles, the indolent
brakeman lounging from n end of the
train to the other, and the white jacketed
coloredporter, evidently not suffering from
overwork. These visions do not give the
traveller any very vivid impression of
hard work. But while they are appearing
and reappearing there is one man who is
" earning his bread by the sweat of his
brow" and that is the fireman. Dirty,
begr mined and greasy from head to foot,
the fireman is performing duties that no
two of the passe, gers 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 a pass
enger engine. The train is running at
high speed; the engine is the motive
power; steam is its life, and in 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"
CAN he has to do is to put in coall"
1t would be great sport to see the au-
thors of such remarks " put in the coal"
1t would be interesting to watch them
climbering from the box to the gangway,
and the gangway to the box a few times
while performing the double duties 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 monot0nous and
shortly fatiguing, especially on a twelve
or ffteen-hour trip. The prac zeal fire.
man 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 scientif ;ally. 1t would
be impossible for a green fireman to keep
up the proper amount of steam for a
passenger engine or TO keep her hot"
The 6re-box of a locomotive is a treacher-
Gus thing to one not understanding it.
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 con luits
for the draught. At the front end of the
firebox are the fues. A fireman who
knows his business understands the con-
struction of the box thoroughly. He is
careful not to "fre" too much in front
and thus shut up the fues, and he feeds"
to the ends and sides, thereby closing up
the ~crevices and shutting out the cold air
which would speedily cool the fues and
destroy their steaming power. Not s.
much attention is paid to the center, al
though the coal must be evenly distributed
and, in 10 case, allowed to heap" which
would result in big cinders to clog the
CRATES. Nor must the fire be heavy. Too
much coal is almost as bad as none at all.
The ireirg must be light and frequent to
steam quickly. A heavy fire would burn
slowly and the steam would rise slowly,
and this would never do.
An ordinary "fre" is four or FIVE
scoopsful we'll thrown and evenly distribu-
ted, and a little high at the ends and
sides.
The speed Of the engene depends upon
the ability of the fireman to I" steam her."
and thus the fireman is the important
Fo0+Op IN r17yorI0~ N Aro1, O1-o ~-s-o
" steam " more readily than others, but
all of them require skill N freing and a
great deal of work. An ordinary switch
engine will burn about three tons of coal
in twenty-four hours, while road engines
will burn from ten to fifteen IONS. The
heavier the load or the greater the speed,
the more steam and coal is required.
But the freman's hardest lot is when
his run is heavy and his engine "gets to
leaking" Engines poorly packed" or
loose in their joints will leak steam with
astonishing rapidity and it requires a con
slant effort to keep them up to the work
ing notch. The working notch or "when
she pops" is, on an average, about 1875
pounds of steam. Some engines are set
at lao pounds pressure before the escape
valve will raise and the extra steam escape.
Ga an engine where the gauge reaches
1876 pounds the fireman aims to keep a
pressure of between 125 and 135 pounds.
Sometimes, of course, the steam will run
down to 10 or 100, when the work is
heavy, but a good fireman will never let
her down below that.
In some Eastern States the number of
pounds of steam which an engine may
carry is regulated by law, but in the West
ern States little attention has been paid
to the matter. In consequence, some en-
gineers who are possessed of more am
bltion than judgment will rate their en-
gines as high as $50 pounds in order to
make a running record, and it is a danger
Gus custom which is liable at any time to
result in disaster. Not long ago the
writer's attention was called to an engine
on a Missouri road which did not pop
or blow off steam at 10 pounds. The
an cyJpoaw waS NrO,rI oe bic rop,toA1Oo nc q