The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1895-05-16
Highest of all in Leavening Power-Laest U. Govt Rept
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ABSOLUTELY PURE
LOCOMOTIVES AND ENGINEERS.
Fast Runs and Slow Runs, and Peculiari-
ties of Various Locomotives.


1t takes about an hour to get steam
enough on an ordinary locomotive en-
gine to start it, from cold water 1t is
familiar fact that the water in the
boilers of steam fire engines in cities is
kept hot while the engine is standing in
the house by pipe connection with a
boiler in the cellar underneath; when
the engine starts its own fire is lighted.
Locomotive engines that are running
regularly stand in the roundhouse in
the intervals between runs with their
fires banked. The fires are kept
cleaned, but they may not be hauled
for weeks. The practice varies some
what in this respect. On some roads
fires are hauled once a week. on other
roads they are kept up in engines for
three or four weeks or more continu-
ously.
A locomotive engineer on one of the
fastest runs out of New York says that
he has never seen an engine that would
run as fast as he would like to ride No
apprehension apparently is felt by the
engineer of fast engine. Calmness is
one OF his most noticeable traits; and if
he worries at all it is because he has got
hot box, or something has happened
so that he may not be able to make the
time, and not because he is going
through the air at fifty. sixty. seventy
miles an hour. But it should be under
stood that none but a man of perfect
nerve is likely to reach the footboard of
a fast engine.
There is not a vast difference between
running at night and at day. Signal
lights at night are palmer and can be
seen at a much greater distance than
day signals. The engineer must, of
course, keep constantly in mind where
he IS, but he comes to know the country
just as pilot knows his landmarks in
the dark; and he has this advantage of
the pilot that he can't very well get out
OF the channel. Most en- gineers prefer
day runs, because it seems more natu-
raj to work in the daytime and it is
pleasanter.
Almost all locomotive engineers pre-
fer fast run TO a slow one. The fast
trains are the blue ribbons of the road.
Aside from the honor of running a fast
train, there is very substantial advan-
tage in the hours. If an engineer SIM
ply stepped into his cab in the station
and stepped out again on his return,
almost any run might. do well enough,
but he doesn't do that; he goes to the
rOundhOuse before train time and looks
over :he engine, and sees that it is -
condition and properly supplied for the
run, and in every way ready, and he
runs the engine to the station. All
this takes time. On his return he runs
the engine back to the roundhouse; this
takes time, too, though not SO much as
the time spent before the run; but to-
gether these periods add materially to
the length of the engineers hours
Taking these duties into account, the
great advantages of fast run are man.
ifest; the shorter the time spent on the
road, the shorter the total time
There is a common impression that
no two locomotive engines work Just
alike, even though made from the same
patterns. a locomotive engineer of
long experience says that the impress
sion Is correct. He says, by way of
illustration, that two high-grade watches
OF the same pattern, and supposed to
be just alike, may not work the same
way. One may not vary half minute
in six months and 50 be- practically, a
perfect timekeeper while the other
may vary minute in a month 1t is
so with engines; they do not work just
alike. One may steam and run better
than the other The slightest variation
in finish or adjustment might be sutfi-
cient to cause this. When the new en-
CINE has been run a year or so it goes
to the shop to be overhauled. With ii
goes a report of the engineer who has
run it on the engines characteristics
and performance. If the engine has
developed any defects they can usually
be remedied at this overhauIing, and il
may be that the engine comes ont on
the road again as smart as any of them.
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