Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1890-11-07
FIRING" A LOCOMOTIVE.
The sIavlsh Lot of tho Operative who
Does That Work.

Star. Like the newspaper reporter,
his identity is sunk in the greatness 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
i'm 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 tireman's box on the left OF
the cab to the engineers box, and 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 cannot
( realize that there is any severe labor
attached to the trip. They see the
neatly uniformed conductor, who leis-
urely treads the aisles, the iudoent
brakeman lounging from one end of
the train to the other, and the white
! iacketed colored porter, evidently not
suffering from overwork. These Wis
ions do not give the traveller any very
vivid impression of hard work. But
while they are appearing and reap
pearing there is one man who is
learning his bread by the sweat of his
brow" and that is the fireman. Dirty,
begrimed and greasy from head to
foot, the fireman is performing duties
that no two of the passengers in the
train behind him would care to under
take were they capable of so doing.
There is very little poetry and a vast
| of itxy in nnh
cially the cab of passenger engine.
The train is running at high speed;
the engine is the motive power; steam
is it's 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
authors of such remarks put in coal"
1t would be interesting to watch them
clambering from the box to the gang
way and the gangwav to the box few
times while performing the double
duty 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 monot-
onous, and shortly fatigung espe-
cially on twelve or fifteen hour trip.
The practical fireman becomes used TO
his work. however, and is able to keep
up during the trip. He not only puts
in fire" every two or three minutes,
but he is obliged to put it in rightly
and scientifically. 1t would be impos-
sible for green fireman to keep up
the proper amount of steam for pas
senger engine, or to keep her hot"
The fire-b0x Of locomotive is 3
treacherous thing TO one not under
standing 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 nova
BILE 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 fire.
box are the tiues. A fireman who
knows his business understands tho
construction OF the box thoroughly.
He is careful not to fire" too much in
front and thus shut up the flues, and
he feeds" to the ends and sides,
thereby closing up the crevices and
shutting out the cold air which would
speedily cool the tlues and destroy
their steaming power. Not so much
attention is paid to the center, although
the coal must be evenly distributed
and in no case allowed to cheap"
which would result in big cinders to
clog the CRATES. Nor must the fire be
heavy. Too much coal is almost rs
bad az none at all. The firing 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 fire" is four or five
scoop-fuls well thrown and evenly dis
tributed, and little high at the ends
and sides.
The speed of the engine depends up
on the ability of TIL, firer' IN to steam
her." and thus The fireman is the inn
portant factor in run: 'ng train.
Some engines steam" more readily
skill in firing and great deal of work
An ordinary switch engine will burn
about three tons of coal in twenty-f0ur
hours. while road engines will burn
from six to fifteen tons. The heavier
the load. or the greater the speed, the
more steam and coal is required.
But the iireplan'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 rapdit.. and it re-
quires constant effort TO keep them up
to the working notch. The working
notch. or "whcn che pops" is, on IN
average about 135 pounds of steam.
Some engines are set ut 40 pounds
pressure before the escape valve will
raise and the extra steam escape. On
an engine where the gauge reaches
! 1875 pounds the fireman aims to keep II
pressure of between 10 and 1873
pounds. Sometimes. of course. the
steam will run down to 10 or 100.
when the work is heavy. hut good
fireman will never let her run 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 western states little attention has
been paid TO zee matter. In conse-
qlunce some engineers who are pos