The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-08-06
GOSSIP OF RAILROADS
LOCAL AGENTS WILL HAVE ' MEETING TODAY.
Soothing About the New Miller Train Signal-A Handsome Train-News Notes About
 Railroad People.

This afternoon in the office of Local Agent Tyler of the Western Railroad ! there will be special called meetins | of the Local Agents Association. The meeting {, as stated in The Advertise l Sunday morning. is called for the pur. pose of meeting MT. Armstead, the Ala pama representative of the Weighers Association.
 The modus operandi of the weighing | business will be fully explained. anc | by the next few days 1t will be in gooc | working order. Today's meeting is { | very important one, and there will be { | full attendance On September 18th one of the hand somes. trains that las been run in ( | long time will leave New Orleans ovel | the Southern Pacific. It is the "Churcf | Special carrying the delegates to tht Episcopal National Convention in Sar | Fi ancisco. The train will be composed etc.. most of the cars being from the luxurious Sunset Limited.
 Master of Trains J. B. Murphy of the
 Mobile and Ohio Railroad spent the | day in the city yesterday, returning
 to his headquarters in Tuscaloosa this
 morning.
 A big excursion came in over the
 Mobile and Ohio at o'clock yesterday
 returning to Tuscaloosa at Il o'clock
 last night
 The absence of electric lights at the
 depot last night made things pretty in | convenient, the baggage room and
 ticket office people having to work by
 candle light.
 If the test being made on ten miles of track on the Galena division proves satisfactory, the roadbed of the North
 western system from Chicago to St Paul and Omaha will be sprinkled witf oil. Crude petroleum Is used, the cost being about $75 per mile Of single track
 Many roads which have tried sprink. | ling their tracks with oil say that il practically prevents dust flying. pre-
 serves the ties. and keeps weeds from thriving.
 The first experiment of burning gas coke in a locomotive furnace out oi Cincinnati was made by the Cincinna-
 ti Hamilton and Dayton Railroad, and although an official report has not as | yet DoGH D1dQG, u IS uIucIStoOu tHd | the result of the experiment was highly
 satisfactory to the officials of the road
 Gas coke has for years been recog-
 nized as a superior fuel for producing | steam, but railroads have been pre- | vented from its use by the fact that
 the supply is limited and prices ruled
 rather high. A firm at Hamilton. O.. however, assured the railroad company
 that supply of the fuel would be pro-
 vided at a price that when the steam
 making qualities of coal and coke were
 taken into consideration. would prove
 saving to the company.
 The experiment which was made ne
 cessitated but slight change in the
 furnace of the locomotive. and the trir
 to Dayton was entirely free from the
 smoke and dust produced by the use oi
 soft coal.
 | The results of the experiment as re- | gards the steam providing quality oi | the coke and the quantity used in travelling per mile will be figured out
 and submitted to the officers of the
 road.
 The Chicago and Eastern Illinois is eQuipping its double track between Chicago and Momence. Ill. a distan"e
 of thirty-three miles. with new safe
 ty signal system. This will be the first
 test ever made of this device on full
 division of road, and it will be care | fully watched by railroad men from all
 parts of the country.
 The Miller signal is an electrical de-
 vice invented by H. V. Miller, Super
 intendent of Telegraph of the Alton
 Railroad. and does away with sema-
 phores, the complicated machinery and | expensive maintenance.
 Tie Miller signal is placed in the en- | zine cab. when the track is clear a | white light burns constantly. The track | is civided into insulated blocks the l length varying according to the condi-
 tions If the road is crooked tho blocks | are not to exceed half mile long. If | the track is straight they may be | longer. Any obstruction in any block. whether 1t be a train .an open switch,
 or a car blown off the siding, ts at
 once detected by the engineer. The sig nal Is operated by d small storage bat | teIy under the cab seat in the engine
 and by batteries placed in boxes below the frost line along the track. It is claimed that neither frost, fog, | snow, rain, nor any of the things which
 so seriously interfere with the working
 of other signals can have any effect
 on the Miller signal. The engineer has
 the lights in front of him, and as long
 as his white light is burning he knows
 that the track ahead of hlrn is clear | for at least two blocks. It is also claim e6 that by the use of this device trains | can be run on closer schedule with less danger than by any other method now | in use. The block systems now In use | cost about $1 ,000 a mile, while the Mill | Ter signal costs about half that sum. l The cost of main tenance of the Miller | signal Is quite small.
 The Eastern Illinois installed about | sixteen miles of track with the new | signal some time ago. It worked so | satisfactorily there that the new order | has just been given and the plant will | be completed before snow flies.
 By the expenditure of over $1. .000 900
 the Union Pacific has solved the prob
 lem of pure water supply for its en- zines while running over the Rocky
 Mountains and through the Red Desert and the alkali lands The engineering force of the company is now at work upon a series of five immense reser- voirs, which. when completed, will save the compal ny several hundred thousand dollars yearly in decreased wear and tear upon the machinery of the Ioco- motives used on the Wyoming division For a streach of over 300 miles nearly all the water available for steam pur- poses has been water that Is strongly saturated with alkali. Its use shortens the life of a fire box materially. The reservoirs will be filled from mountain streams at high water time, and the tnw hn nj to hn ort1, ,Ira