Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1897-09-26
THREE MONSTER ENGINES.
Locomotives Bigger Than Any Ever
Before Constructed.
They Are Now Being Built for the
Southern Railway System - In
Power They Will Easily Surpass
Anything Of the Kind Known.
Designed to Cope With the Heayy
Grades Of the South.

Within a few weeks three new Ioco-
motives such as the world has never
seen will be rolled out on the railroad
tracks of this country. In power and
size these engines will completely sur
pass anything that las ever been built.
They are passenger locomotives and
through their agency the travelling
public will be carried over up grades
at a speed never before known.
The new engines, which are now
nearing completion, are being built for
the Southern railway, one of the most
prominent systems in the South. There
are many heavy grades on the various
lines of the Southern, which have In
the past made it practically impossible
for trains to make the desired low time
over distances embracing these grades.
Principally TO eradicate this difficulty
the engines are being built. The
Southern railway extends into every
Southern State excepting three, Ar
kansas, Louisiana and Texas. Conse-
quently, it is Of great importance, and
any improvement in its service is of
vast moment. 1t is confidently assert
ed that with the new engines the rail-
way trains of the Southern will be able
TO accomplish the remarkable feat OF
maintaining as high rate OF speed on
a stiff UP grade as they keep up on q
dead level. This is more the object of
the new machines than the increasing
of speed on level track. The maximum
grades, of which there are several from
two to four miles long, vary from sew
enty to eighty-two feet to the mile.
(roughly speaking. from Ia to liz pei
cent?, and the curves on these from |
to degrees.
Some idea of the strength of these
monster locomotives may be gathered
from the fact that each is fully twice
as strong as the celebrated No. 1899"
which belongs to the New York Gem
trail railway and hauls the Empire
State express; nearly three times as
strong as the engine which hauls the
Flying Scotchman from London TO Ed
inburgh, and more than three times
as strong as the engine which brings
the mails from London to Holyhead
To put the matter in another way, one
of these engines could haul as much
as ten ordinary elevated railway en-
gines, or four of the average passenger
locomotives used in this country.
Besides having such tremendous
strength, the locomotives have q re-
markable capacity for high speed. Each
one of them could pull at the rate of a
mile minute on straight, level track
.hirty-three Pullman cars, weighing
forty IONS each. A train of that many
cars would be almost half a mile in
length.
The six coupled driving wheels of
these engines are each six feet in diam
eter, and the working steam pressure
is 200 pounds to the square inch. The
cylinders are of the ordinary simple
type, each twenty-uae inches in diam
eter, with piston stroke OF twenty
eight inches. This gives a traetive
force. or draw bar pull, of 27 400
pounds, sufficient to haul train load
Of 4,279 tons, equal to about eighty
five of the largest loaded freight cars.
at slow speed on a level track. No
locomotives now ru1nning have 80
large combined cylinder area and steam
pressure as these new Goliaths.
You may make the Iaoving parts OF n
locomotive as powerful as you please.
but unless there Is a fire box and a boiler
big enough to match the running gear
your engine will soon be short of steam
with probable showdown betty stat
tions. This catastrophe Is not likely I'D
happen to one of these engine s-as Iongj
as the coal holds out-for the lire box ls'
ten feet long and three and one-half feet
wide, with total heating surface OF 1914
square feet, while the boiler is five feet
two inches in diameter, with tubes which
give II a heating surface of no less than
229S square feet. Soft coal, of which
about eight tons will be put on the tender
at the start, will be the fuel
An engine may also have great power
and yet may be unable to utilize il. owing
to insufficient weight on the driving
wheels. The total weight Of one of these
engines will be seventy-hve tons or
which hfty-eight tons will rest on the six
driving wheels, the remaining seventeen
tons being carried by the four-wheelo-a
truck in front. Reckoning the bite or grin
on the rail at one-fourth the weight on
the drivers we get an adhesion Of four
teen and ono-half tons, or 29,0oo ponndS
which Is LAO pounds more than the trac2
i've force of the engine. thus leaving d
good margin for wet weather and gIipnarv
rails. The weight on nineteen and one
third tons on each pair Of drivers Is also
unparalleled In the history Of railroads.
To carry this weight with safety and
without heating the Journals of each axle
are eight and one-half inches In diameter
by eleven Inches in length-chicsgo
Chronicle.