Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-05
FLY WITH THE WIND
Editor Sinclair Describes His Trip in
q Box on q Locomotive.
A TREMENDOUS BURST OF SPEED
Makes the Telegraph Poles Fly Past Like a
Paling Fence. but
Mr.. SINCLAIR SAYS HE WASN'T DAzED

ESPECIAL TRIEaRAM 70 THE pIsPAToH.1
New York, May &.-As the Empire
State express of the New York Central
road, the fastest train In the world, stood in
the Grand Central station at 8 O'Clock yes
terday morning waiting for the signal to
start, some Of the passengers who walked
forward on the platform to look at ponder
Gus engine $40, which pulls the train to
Albany, noticed small box Just in front of
the cylinder on the right side of the loco
motive. This box, open at the top and
rear, was of riveted iron, and was bolted to
the engine It was about three feet high,
and just big enough to hold man who
was willing to compress himself into the
smallest possible space.
Just before the train started short,
middle-aged man stepped on the front of the
locomotive, adjusted delicate gauge on the
cylinder, and then doubled himself up and
disappeared within the iron. The man
was Angus Sinclair, the editor of Locomotive
Engineering His purpose was to make
tests by means of the gauge he had
fastened to the cylinder, of the locomotive s
power and steam distributor, and to deter
mine how great speed it could make.
Flying Faster Than the Wind
The train ran a little slower than its
schedule time until Staatsburg, just this
side of Hudson, was reached. Then it put
on tremendous burst of speed. AS the
trees and fences rushed by in a continuous
blur the passengers who knew about the
man in the little iron box wondered how he
was standing it. When Albany was reached
the passengers and the people in the station
crowded around the locomotive, where
Engineers Buchanan and McQuade and
Chief Draughtsman Philip Londrigan, WHO
had ridden in the cab, were helping Mr..
Sinclair out of the box.
"How do yo feel?" asked half dozen at
once.
"An right" replied Mr.. Sinclair, sex
1t was fast going part of the time. There
were four miles when we travelled at the
rate of rs miles an hour"
Mr.. Sinclair returned to this city last
night A reporter saw him to-day at his
office in Temple Court
True Devotion to the Cause.
"How do feel after my ride9" said he.
"Well, I feel pretty lame. Two hours and
three-quarters on ones knees is what might
be called true devotion to the cause, and it's
tiring. No, was not nervous during the
ride, but probably should have been If L
had not been used to riding on every part of
locomotive for years, though not at such
rate Seventy.eight miles an hour is, I be-
lieve, the fastest recorded time made on a
level by locomotive drawing q train and
We ran four miles at that rate. How did I
know this? Because I counted the revolu-
tions of the driving wheels At the fastest
the drivers made $40 revolutions minute.
The counting was done by ear and by
feeling.
''To anyone but trained ear the sound
from the smokestack of a locomotive travel
ing faster than 60 miles an hour is like a
continuous blast, but an old engineer can
detect distinct pulsations 1t Is an ac-
quired faculty, and comes only with long
experience. There are four puffs to each
revolution of the drivers, and one of these
is a little louder than the others. This
seems to divide them into fours. A trained
engineer can count these puffs, and by
grouping them into twenties, which he
checks off on his fingers, arrive at a con-
clusion regarding the number of revolutions
in minute. Then, the circumference of
the drivers being known, it is simple mat
ter to reckon the rate of speed. Besides
this, there is a sort of shock throughout the
locomotive on the down-stroke OF the driv-
Merely NJ MechanicaI Act
''This counting has become, through prac-
tice. mechanical act with me, and in my
ride yesterday was counting, looking after
the machinery of the gauge and supplying
the gauge with paper on which the diagrams
were to be marked, at the same time. So,
you see, had no time to think OF being
"Were there no unpleasant or peculiar
sensations connected with such rapid move
nent?"
"Well, the trees and telegraph poles got
10 going by pretty fast. would sight an
object some distance up the track, and be-
fore could think what it was it would be
behind me. Then, two or three times I
stuck my head out too far, and the wind hit
ne in the back of the neck like club. The
notion did not trouble me much, except
hat it made my knees sore"
The diagrams made from the gauge showed
he locomotive to be almost perfect as re-
cards distribution of power. 1t developed
|, 800 horse power and consumed 2L pounds
If coal per horse power per hour. Mr.. Sim
,lair is confident that with one car it could
.un 100 miles an hour. The locomotive.
so, is the record breaker which, on the |
amous run to Buffalo, September H. 1891,
E39H miles in 425A minutes, made the 143 |
niles to Albany in 140 minutes. With its
ender 1t weighs 100 tons Its drivers are |