The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-09-24
aPaNNsy,s. NEW auLLa1NE.
The English Locomotive which is At
! tracing the Attention of Engineers.
E~o,,, ~ oL.yoJoI,b;, r.aa.

tracing the Attention of Engineers.
From the Philadelphia Press.
What the great and only Sam Carpenter
Gale "the John Bullgine" is gathering
crowds around it every day in the Pennsyl-
vania railroad depot in Jersey City. 1t is
an English locomotive Of the Peacock pat
tern, from Manchester, England. 1t is as
ugly as sin, IN the general verdict Of those
who look CT it for the first time. It's plain
ness is its first impressive feature, for it
looks like great casting Of black iron al
in one piece. The smokestack and the
dome and cab are all that one sees on top
of 1t, while at the sides it seems to have one
big driver in the middle, set under a
curved hood, precisely like a paddle-box on
a steamboat. This exposed wheel is one of
the forward drivers. The back pair of
drivers are hidden under the cab. IL it was
not for the cab tie big black mass would
look like all the locomotives one sees in
England, but they have no cabs. as every
one knows. Where our cabs are
put the English engines have a simple
shield of thin iron, with slender wall, per-
haps eighteen inches wide, at the sides. This
Bullgine. or 1920, as she is officially named,
came over without cab, but our climate is
too severe in the winter for engineers and
flremen to stand out in the open air, and,
tESIGAOT6 u uOuhS WIGS DulkJ upOn
her. A cowcatcher or pilot has also been
added, the English locomotive being desti-
tute of that important adjunct
In view of the everlasting conflict between
EnglIshmen and Americans as to which
country possesses the better railway road
beds and rolling stock, il struck a reporter
that it would be interesting to
learn what experience the Pennsylvania
people are having with their English ma
Rot Iok ~ lNo FI,a& .
porter once met in England a great con-
tractor. who was building railroads In the
Argentine Republic at the time. He said
said that he was going to equip his railroads
with American locomotives, because they
are tie only engines that can be used on any
sort of roadbeds, good, bad or Indifferent.
The English engines, he said, will run we'll
only on the most solid roadbeds, heavily
ballasted, heavily rallied and evenly laid.
They are rigid, and if they are run on a
rough road will rack themselves to pieces.
The yankee locomotives, on the other hand,
are elastic and yield to all unevenness,
seeming not to mind what soEt Of use they
get.
Engineer Kerr, one of the best of the
quick train engineers of the road, was in
the Bullgine's cab ready to start her when
he got the bell from the dispatcher. How
is she! She's mighty hard, every way"
agsail. How is she different from the American
engines! Why, in every way: in every
thing. She's what they call a low-pressurs
engine. She has two engines, same as ours,
one for each side, but then under
the stack she has got low-pressure engine
which, they say, makes a great saving of
coal. | don't know whether that's all they
claim for it, but l do know that she's often
very hard to start. When her side engines
start, sometimes. the other crank will be on
the center. and then she don't seem to have
power enough to start herself. | have to
back her and start her two or three times
before she'll go. Our engines will pick up a
train and walk right out on the jump, you
know"
John A. Covert, the road foreman, is
graduate from the ranks Ten years ago he
ran "Long-leeged Number Ten" which
took reporter of the New
York san to Philadelphia quicker than
any one had ever gone there
before. He talked interestingly about the
Bullgine He said that it was understood
that she was of the best type of English en-
CINE when she was bought but it has since
been learned that there ls a still better model
over there. She was shipped here in pieces,
the boiler being in one piece, of course. She
was put together and set up in Altoona, an
has now been running between New York
and Philadelphia for some time She is a
compound engine. She has two 14-inch
high-pressure cylinders to run the rear driv-
ers and 30-inch low-pressure cylinder for
the forward drivers. The steam goes into
the high-pressure cylinders for the rear
drivers, and is then exhausted into big
low-pressure cylinder, which is forward
under the stack. From that the
steam exhausts into the stack. She was
SO stiff and hard it was impossible for the
men to stay on her at first She had slight
spiral springs when she came to this coun-
ry, and when running she would close these
springs down solidly and then fly up from
them so as to fling the engineer off his feet
as he stood on the floor OF the cab. When
she flung her weight down on those springs
the jolt would be something frightful. That
would not do at all, so the spirals were
taken out and new regulation leaf
springs, such as our engines have, were
put on her. Now she rides very easily.
She IS not so fast as the Pennsylvania P
class engines When she is running on their
schedule she will lose few seconds In every
mile. She is not so powerful as our engines.
1t is true that she has pulled eleven cars.
but many of them W ere express cars and
other lighter cars than the regular passen-
ger coaches. She is cranky at starting.
The engineers do not like her or ANYTHING
about her, but two of them-Kerr and
Hartman-have not allowed prejudice TO
stand in the way of fair trial of her. and
they have made her do her best
The Bullgine does save coal. Engineers
get what is called a coal premium on all
the fuel they are able to save, they are al
lowed six pounds of coal per mile for every
car they carry. What they save out of
that is credited to them at the end of each
month. One-half the value of the coal saw
ing goes to the engineer and fireman and
one-half to the company. The constant
calculation occupies the time of a great
force OF clerks. Engineer Hartman earned
S23 extra in this way with the John Bull
CINE last month. He got S23, his fireman
got S23, the company got $40, and the to-
tai saving was S92, considerable sum
when the amount in year Is considered
Ordinarily engineers earn between IS and
$l5 month by this premium.
"But," said Mr. Covert, "you ought to
see the English engine when she is running
at her best. She is the prettiest sight on
the road. She lies down like a race horse
or greyhound, and she leaps ahead so that
you get the full idea Of force and speed
personifiei In the most picturesque manner
She's as pretty as a woman She don't
look pretty when you first see her. No
moro does many a woman whom you after
ward think is beautiful. Stand about thirty
feet off at the side of the road and see her
come along, and she's the finest thing YOU
ever saw at the head of a train. She has
absolutely no rocking or side motion, and
she Just FORCES or darts ahead, holding her
self down TO the track and letting out for
all she is worth. On our engines, you know.
the power is applied at the side, exclusively,