Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1906-11-03
sTRoUsE sToKER LIKELY TO
Z MEAN MUCH IN FIRING OF
LOCOMOTIVES
NORTHWESTERN BU1ER
OFFICES Of the Company Are in ottum-
wa-Have no Factory but Large
Plant viii be Erected Somewhere
Within Reasonable Length Of Time.
MAY be Here.

From Fridays Daily.
How many Ottumwans are there
that know that a company organized
with $10,000,000 capital, to manufac-
! ture machines, the first order of which
was sold last week for gross price
OF $360,000 has its offices in Ottumwn
and also is headed and directed by
Ottumwa men?
On Saturday, October 81. the Chica.
go and Northwestern railroad purchas-
ed from the Locomotive Stoker Co. Of
Chicago, 700 locomotive stokers, pay.
ing for these $350,000 The Locomo
tive stoker Co. of Chicago, is owned
and controlled by the Strouse Manuf
Of Arizona, with capital stock Ct
! $40 100000 and with it's head offices in
Ottumwa.
This company is the holding com.
pany which controls the Locomotive
Stoker Co. Of Chicago, the sales com.
pany, the w. H. Strouse Co. of Oska-
loosa, the concern owning the patent
and the invention and will control the
yet to be organized Iowa Equipment
] Co, which will be the manufacturing
! company.
: Think of it, the first order of ma
chimes ever sold by Q. new company,
which has not yet even the slightest
! vestige Of a. factory hnilt. amounts TO
! $3.50, But are JIere In Ottumwa
l five residents outside Of those interest
ed in the concern who know what the
machine Is?
i An Automatic Locomotive Stroker.
! From time to time there have ap.
i peared in the various dailies Of the
j country small news items, to the effect
that different railroads were testing
j automatic stokers for engines. There
are, 1t is said, four of these machines
now on the market. One of these Is
the invention Of former locomotive
Iengineer, man, who has spent the
i last decade In the railroad service, a
man who first felt the need Of such
a machine through actual experience
in the cab OF a loco MOTIVE. That man
lis w. H. Strouse of Oskaloosa. Mr.
Strouse has constructed what Is said
J, to be the only practical automatic
stoker for locomotive engines. 1t has
been tried and found to be practical
and effective. The other machines
have been tested but as yet are said tc
have failed to prove their worth
: Among the first roads to test the
: stuker was the Chicago and North
western. The first road to place ar
order with the new company was the
Chicago and Southwestern. The IN:
mediate advantages of the machine
are manifold. They consist in sayins
in the amount of fuel consumed, Il
being estimated that fully one ton o.
; coal will be saved for every hundred
t miles travelled: saving in the weal
) and tear on the boilers of the engine
} lengthening their lease Of life mater
r ia.ly and any railroad man knows
: what that means; and saving the labol
: OF the fireman, making his life on one
: o. the big engines such as are nov
used, endurab,e instead Of life-sapping
Will Effect Future Of Commerce.
But the great, the real economic
!. worth of the invention, the feature
which will make itself felt in ths
commerce of the world, is the fac
4 that with the stoker, the railroad com
! panies will be able to build engine
. of twice the present size, the one grea
! obstacle up to this time presented t,
! increasing the size of the engine, tn,
4 inability of human being to fire
lit. having been removed. 1t is thi
feature which makes the stoker al
absolute necessity to the railroads
which make it far more than labor
: saving device, which make 1t an In
vention destined to revolutionize tn
r railroad industry and commerce of tn
d world.
In order that what the stoker vii
e be able to accomplish may be bette
j understood, a description of the inver
l. tion is necessary.
Is Compact Machine.
The device is a compact affair, whe1
S the amount of labor 1t accomplishes |
considered Weighing about 40
! pounds, 1t is thirty-siX inches long an
: eighteen inches wide. The machine 4
! self is the very essence of simplicity
n A plunger, shaped much the same as
: two plowshares, one concaved to tn
right and the other to the left, ha
been placed together, works on
steam cylsnder. A "trip" causes tn
n motion OF the plunger to reverse afte
each stroke, which when working d
the maximum distance is but
q inches. A hopper is placed on the to
4 of the machine The regular door q
el the front of the fire box is remove