Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1907-07-12
MAGNET LIFTS TONS.

Through the application of famil-
lar. simple boyhood plaything the Penn
sylvania railroad saves hundreds of
thousands of dollars year in time, in
wages, and in wear and tear. 1t is the
ancient horseshoe magnet of the school
days by which clusters of needles, nails
and knife blades were picked up and
suspended indefinitely. But instead of
the needles and nails and knife blades,
now it is heavy steel rails, scrap iron.
wheels, casting, ingots, pig iron, and
everything in which steel or. iron ap-
pears.
For years the loading or unloading of
freight cars filled particularly with iron
or steel was one of the most inconven-
lent, tedious and expensive operations
OF railroad work says the New York
Herald. 1t always took large num-
bers of men, and they were required to
handle each piece separately, with all
the attendant delays.
nervousness means time, and the OBJ
Ject OF the railroad of today is to an
initiate time.
When it came time for the Pennsvl-
vania railroad to rebuild its terminal
freight yards at Greenville, Jersey CITY.
facing on New York harbor, there
cropped up that old problem or how to
handle the iron.
Greenville stands to railroad tern,i-
mails as the mouth of the Mississippi
does to rivers. Every second of the
day and night, S65 days in the year. a
vast volume of freight pours into it.
and this must be distributed for Eu-
rope or North, South, East or West.
They handle cars there by the hundred
thousands, and they handle freight by
the millions of tons. 1t was wearisome
to think that so much of it was to be
handled in the old laborous way. The
men who planned the new Pennsvl-
vania became impatient.
There must be some other way. 4"
they declared. 'It must be found''-
and according to custom they conclud-
ed by saying, Find it," The word
went forth to all the men of the coun-
try who work at that sort of thing.
we must find some new way" so
they began to cudgel their brains and
rumble their hair over the problem.
Out in Cleveland there was A. c..
Eastwood, and he found himself puz-
cling over the order like all the others.
One day, it is not known how. he re-
membered the magnet of his boyhood
days. That solved the problem. He
began to experiment, and the result
OF that experiment is now in active op-
Grafton over in the yard, doing every
day the work of score of men. saw
ing hours and hours at it, cutting
down expenses, and above all cutting
down the time of handling, which is
the main thing.
Mr.. Eastwood's device is the electro
magnet, simple continuance looking
IKE double crown of corrugated iron
and steel, its two poles strongly mark
ed, with its armatures concealed. and
all suspended from the chains of a
heavy crane. Around this chain is
wrapped the current wire, which gives
the thing life or takes it away.
Nowadays big steel car, piled high
with rails. or pig iron, or scrap iron.
or wheels, rolls within reach of the
crane, and the man in charge swings
the magnite over it. 1t descends and
rests upon the load. A button is press
ed and suddenly these rails appear
alive. They fairly leap up to the mag
mite, ten tons of them at time. all in
neat and orderly array.
AS the crane hoists, the pieces of
metal swing clear almost without a
rasp or sound. and then just as noise
lessly they fall into the new place APP
pointed, in the car or out of it into a
waiting barge or on blocks. 1t is all
SO simple and easy. 1t is the same way
with scrap iron.