The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-11-10

the way they would jump about on the
track was caution, and If you didn't
hold on to something you would be
thrown around the cab like a chip.
Their side rods would make such a
clatter that you could hear camel
coming for several miles. Big as the
'camels' looked, they only weighed thir-
ty-six tons, but they could take train
over the hills that an engine of differ
ent pattern of the same weight would
not be able to move, and they were
probably the best engines for their
weight ever built. The only drawback
to the camel was the fact that 1t was
top-heaVy. 1t was very apt to turn
turtle upon rounding a curve at full
speed, although full speed with them
didn't mean more than thirty-five miles
an hour. but this was plenty fast
enough for safety. as none of the en-
gineers would care to ride on one of
them going faster than that. 1 re-
member one case when one of these en-
gines turned over when going around
a sharp curve on one of the mountain
grades and rolled down a steep slope
for 400 feet. There were four men in
the cab at the time, and of course all
of them were killed. These cabs were
closed in on all Sides and were SO
roomy and comfortable that the front
brakeman and the conductor, especially
during the winter, would often ride
there, but that accident settled any,
BODY but the fireman and engineer rid
ing on the engine for long while.
No Reverse bar.
I'm those days the reverse bar had
not been invented. In order to start
the engine in the opposite direction IL
was necessary for the engineer to
reach down from his place in the cab
with long iron rod, on the end of
which was a hook catch an eve in
the rocker arm, and thus throw the
valves in the direction in which it
was desired to do. If the engine was
running under pretty good Roadway it
would toss about so much that one
would sometimes have a great deal of
trouble in catching the rocker There
were no air brakes at that time that
you could throw on and stop your train
when you pleased, and there were not
even brakes on the engine, so we re-
lied a great deal upon reversing and
giving her steam when we wished to
stop-that is. in "skinning her." as
the old engineers used to say 1 re-
member one night we were going down
the road with heavy load of freight
at pretty good rate of speed, when
all of a sudden, upon rounding a curve,
/ saw the red tall lights on the ca
boose of a freight only few hundred
yards ahead on our track. 1 whistled
for brakes. and then tried to hook, so
that l could reverse. But nary a
hook Try as / would. l could not
get the internal thing to catch, and
into the freight we sailed. By good
luck, the brakemen, for once, had put
down enough brakes to slow me down
some, or l would not be here talking
to you now.
Shortly after this Ross Winan OF
DOLE -
He was also the designer of the cam
ell, which was the pioneer heavy
freight engine. The reverse bars first
introduced were very different from the
perfected affairs of to-day that are so
nicely balanced that you can pull them
back with your little finger. These
bars were about six feet long. Their
great length was In order to give plen-
ty of leverage, and you can bet you
needed plenty of it. The dome of the
engine filled all the further end of the
cab toward the stack, and was about
five feet in diameter. UP at the very
top of the dome was the throttle, when
it was wide open the handles being
against the roof of the cab. The throt-
tie was also much different from the
one of the present day. 1t was
square-framed affair, about foot long
on each side. with the valve connec-
ton on the upper end, and on the
bottom end there were two handles,
one on each side. so that it could be
used from either side of the cab. The
engineer had to stand up between the
throttle and the reverse bar, which
were so far apart that a small man
was not able to have hold of both at
the same time, and when you wanted
to reverse you would have to put your
feet up against the dome and tug
away for all your were worth. These
reverse bars worked so hard that some
of the men were not strong enough to
handle them One of the strongest
points of the camel was its being
able to stand a heavy strain, but after
1t got the cars in motion it could not
so very fast"