Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1890-09-04

ahead.
Putting in the coal is all right, but
when the coal is put in every two or
three minutes it soon becomes monoton-
Gus and shortly fatiguing, especially on
a twelve or ffteen-hour trip The prac-
teal 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 scien-
tifcally. 1t would be impossible for a
green fireman TO keep up the proper
amount of steam for passenger engine
or to keep her hot" The fre-box of
locomotive is a treacherous 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
| conduits for the draught At the front
end of the firebox are the hues. 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
! f1ues, 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 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 CRATES. Nor must
the fire be heavy. Too much coal is
almost as bad as none at all The fir
ing 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
scoopsful we'll thrown and evenly dis
tributed, and little high at the ends
and sides.
The speed Of the engine depends upon
! the ability of the fireman to ''steam
her." and thus the fireman is the i'm
portant factor in running train. Some
engines steam" more readily than 9TH
ers. but all of them require skill in fir
ing and great deal of work. An ordi-
nary switch engine will burn about
three tons of coal in twenty-four 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 fireman'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 re-
quires constant effort to keep them up
to the working notch. The working
notch or when she pops" is, on an av-
erage, about 1856 pounds of steam. Some
engines are set at 140 pounds pressure
before the escape valve viii raise and
the extra steam escape. On an engine
where the gauge reaches 1876 pounds
the fireman aims to keep a pressure OF
between 40 and 1856 pounds. Some
times, of course, the steam will run
down to 10 or 100, when the work is
| heavy, but 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
Western States little attention has been
paid TO the matter. In consequence.
some engineers who are possessed of
more ambition than Judgment will rate
their engines as high as $50 pounds in
order to make running record, and it
is dangerous 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
! ! J. &c
at 10 pounds. The engineer was proud
of his reputation as runner" and was
foolishly risking his own life and the
lives intrusted to his care for the sake
of little notoriety. In such cases the
freman's lot is slavish one, and the
labor required to keep up his engine is
simply tremendous.
In addition to firing, the fireman is
required to keep his machine, inside the
! cab, clean, and bright works" must be
kept spotless- Such trifing duties as
ringing the bell, keeping sharp look
out ahead, and watching for signals are
thrown in Just to keep him in practice
during the few minutes he may chance
to spend on his seat box.
After he has served in this capacity
from three 10 seven years ana ne -
successful in passing the examination
in which reading and writing are the
easiest branches-the fireman is placed
! on the extra list, and after six months
trial he becomes an engineer. Often,
however, the fireman lacks certain re-
quirements or has bad luck at the start,
and has an accident or smashup. and he
is condemned TO another long term Of
shoveling coal which may be made per-