The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-04-21
THE FASTEST LOCOMOTIVE.
A New Boston and Albany Engine of
1875 Tons a Clipper

LFrom the Springfield Republican,
A new claimant for the title of the
fastest thing on earth is in daily train
ing between Boston and Springfield
along the cleaning rails of the Boston
and Albany railroad. 1t is a mighty
locomotive, numbered POI, beside whose
proportions the famous 999 of the EN-
pire State Express sinks into compare
tive inSignificance-
Its like never before has been created.
Whether it will be duplicated in the fu
ture depends on how well it fulflls the
builders prediction of a sustained speed
of ninety miles an hour with a heavy
train over ordinary rOadbedS, grades
and curves. Thus far it has done"
seventy miles an hour with such ri
diculouS ease that it is expected to ex-
coed the estimate of a mile every forty
seconds rather than to fall short thereof.
The best type of speedy locomotive
that stands on the rails today is prob
ably the machine that draws the record
holding Empire State Express of the
New York Central and Hudson River
railroad, old '-999." The '-999'' tips the
scales at Sixty-tWo tons, but the Boston
and Albany monster weighs eighty-fve
tons without its tender, and 126 tons
with that appendage. The train with
which ''999' makes its average of 1888
miles an hour weighs 243 tons. The new
steam Hercules has reeled off seventy
miles an hour. and is expected to do
much better, with a train aggregating
80 tons. The 1899" had d maximum
safety boiler pressure of 100 pounds of
steam to the square inch, but this BOs-
ton and Albany engine carries 220
pounds. The cylinders of 1893" are
19x24 inches, but those of it's new rival
are compound 22X34X36 inches.
The diameter of the driving wheels
of the $780, feet 212 inches, exceeds
those of the new machine, 8 feet 2 in
ches, but the former engine has but
three, thus more than compensating in
power for what is lost in speed by re-
ducing the diameters. The storage ca
pacity of the big tender was calculated
7E
without restocking, and when she pulls
out of Boston each afternoon, except
Sunday. at 4 o'clock, for her run to
Springfield and back she carries 4,5OO
gallons of water and eight tons of coal.
Allowing forty pounds of coal to the
mile, which is really cOnSiderabl more
than is required, that permits of 400
mile run without a stop,and the peculiar
construction of steam chests and cylin-
ders affords the greatest economy in the
use of water.
Viewed from a little distance this new
record breaker is very deceptive while
in motion The eye and ear, as a rule,
estimate the speed of a train by the
rapidity of the putting exhausts of the
locomotive, and as this machine ''ex-
hausts" only half as often as an old
style locomotive, the first impression is
that it isn't moving so very speedily
after all. The ordinary engine ''ex-
hausts" four times to each revolution
of the drivers. but this, owing to the
compound cylinder connections, Eek
haustS" only twice.
Not the least interesting fact in con-
nection with this monster of the rails
is that its engineer is a physician in ac-
tive practice as well as an expert in
mechanics. The door of his residence
on pretty hillside in Brighton bears
the name in gilt letters of DIR. H F.
Bracket" and it is here, with his wife,
that the man Of science and of ma
chinery lives. When the driver has
washed away the CRIME accumulated
in his mile-a-minute run with the New
York special he becomes at once the
physician and goes forth among his
patients.