Birmingham age-herald., 1895-09-29
SfCED ON RAILROADS.
The PennsyIyania's New Locomotive With Its
 Single Drive Wheel.

Chicago Tribune.
 Both the Philadelphia and Reading and
 Pennsylvania railroads are making
 strenuous efforts to wrest from the New
 York Central the laurel wreath of fame
 it won by it's feat in sending train
 from New York to Buffalo, 436h miles,
 in 414 minutes. The Philadelphia and
 Reading has lately completed locomo- tive, constructed on novel principles, now making regular trips, which it is claimed has gone mile in forty-one
 seconds The unique feature of this To- comotve is that, whereas the usual eX- | press locomotive has two driving wheels
 on each side, this has only one, mon ster feet and A of inch in diameter.
 In a single revolution it carries train 1 22 feet along the rails. At top speed this great driving wheel goes around SIX times | in a secon9.
 This monster was built in the Baldwin works at Philadelphia. Already it is | claimed it has hauled a train twice as | heavy as the record breakers on the Brit | ish railways mile in forty-one seconds, and in a continuous run has covered 1 sixteen miles in twelve minutes, or at l the constant rate of a mile in forty-fiVe seconds. The inventor of this locomotive | is l.. B. Paxton, superintendent of motive l power of the Reading road. He has long had an idea that a single" driver engine
  with express trains than engines Of the | ordinary type. Some time ago he took | the side rods off an engine having two l drivers on each side and put weights near the pins on the idle drivers to offset the cOunterbalance weights which are on all driving wheels. This engine was not | in first class condition, but it did nearly as well as a coupled engine, and remain | ed on a scheduled run for six months, | demonstrating that single locomotive l specially designed would be sure to do the work satisfactorily.
 There are some features about this novel engine that makes it resemble the | hump back locomotive seen on some roads. The steam dome is over the fire l box and behind the cab. which is built | over the boiler.
 | The steam pressure is 200 pounds to the square inch-considerabl higher than in most locomotives. Though No. 3S5 is single. as regards it's driving wheel it is double-or compound-in its use of steam This Is recent innovation in locomotive engineering.
 The engineer in charge of this monster locomotive says no attempt has been
 made to force it to the utmost speed. The day after it left the shops it hauled special train from Philadelphia to Bound Brook and return, 120 miles, making
 many miles in less than forty-five sec onds each.
 The conditions for speeding over long distances is not as good over the Phila- delphia and Reading as on the New York Central, but the officials think their new locomotive can easily break the rec ord when called upon. It Is understood that an attempt will shortly be made by the Philadelphia and Reading railroad officials to give their new engine trial against the New York Central record, but the date Is being kept secret The officials of the Pennsylvania rail road are preparing to have a trial against time with one of their new express en- zines built at the Juniata shops. These engines have two driving wheels on each side and only a single cylinder. The drivers are AZ inches less in diameter than that of the Philadelphia and Read ing.
 New York Central officials are much gratified over the success of the record breaking achievement of their special Wednesday in 407 minutes. The limit of their capabilities, they claim, has not yet been reached and can do much better when they are pushed. They claim to have demonstrated that such high speed can be maintained in regular train ser vice. The British train which made the run from London to Aberdeen, distance of $40 miles, in 612 minutes could in no way compare with the New York Gen. tral. The latter had regular train weighing in all 280 tons. The British train, on the other hand, was less than one-half this weight The Central's train covered the distance after making twen- ty-eight slow downs and two stops in 412 minutes, and at no time was an unusual rate of speed attained.