The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1918-03-10

connective had men working upon 1T,
hundreds of brawny-armed mechanics
rushed to and fro. Some carried rods of
red hot iron, and others pieces of cold
steel of various shapes. They were
working on all parts of the engines,
some on the top and some underneath
and some inside. fitting the parts. Much
of the work was done by pneumatic
machinery, and the noise was that of a
great buzzing rather than the hammer
ing and din of the typical boiler shop.
The immensely of everything was as
founding. The firebox of a big locomo-
tive Is SO large that the ordinary mar
row-gauge engine of the old style could
be put inside it. The low pressure cylin-
ders are so big that a man can sit
upright within them, and the heating
surface of the tubes and flues measure
more than 5000 square feet. The mate
rial has to be made SO it will with
stand the heaviest weights. That on the
driving wheels, for instance, is 475, 900
pounds, and that on the truck wheels is
10000 pounds The largest engines now
have IL wheels on each side, with guild
ing wheels at the front.
So much coal Is used in these big
locomotives that the fuel cannot be
shoveled in by the fireman. 1t is dumped
by machinery automatically into the fire.
the coal is carried in from the tender
and spread evenly over the crate.
IE the center of the erecting shop high
up under the roof, reached by stairs,
were the offices of the shop with a
platform about them. I climbed LID and
looked down upon the mighty stable in
which they were grooming and polish
ing these huge iron horses. In some
! MI he aY0 inc ~ ot
the back, entirely complete and ready for
work. In others they were in parts,
resting on trucks. Here they were lift
ed by overhead cranes and carried high
through the air to the track outside the
shop to make room for other engines
within.
There the men were working on fire
boxes, screwing together the steel walls
of which they were made and riyeting
the ends of the screws by pneumatic
machines. Here they were putting the
scores Of tubes into the boilers, and
farther over they were covering the great
cylinder which holds the hot water with
sheets Of asbestos half as thick as your
! fist.
I was much interested in the boilers
! of the great locomtives. These are
| constructed far differently than I had
| supposed. I knew that the long cyl
| inder known as the boiler was filled
with tubes, but I supposed that the
water flowed through the tubes, and
I, that the fire in some way kept the
| tubes hot. The truth Is that the long
/, boiler Is filled with water and that fire
and gas flow through the tubes from
the fire box, thus heating the water
and making the steam. The fire box
itself is surrounded by walls of water
4 hat CHI ~ cto III
connected with the water in the boiler
itself. The ordinary locomotive takes
10000 or more gallons of water, and
| this must be kept at temperature
] which is $50 degrees above zero. The
ordinary locomotive burns upwards of
/ IL tons of coal a day. and a large
engine moving at it's maximum ca :
pacity burns three tons of coal in an
hour. A single ton of coal will evapor-
ate or turn to steam TOO gallons of
water within that time. When you
look at an engine you see only the
polished shell of the boiler. The great
steel pipe which holds the water is
inside of this, with it's asbestos Jacket
between to keep out the cold, or rather,
keep in the heat.
But the story of the locomotive is
one of infinite detail. Many parts of
the enormous machine are as uellcate
as those in the watch of the engineer
who runs 1t. The whole is an evolu-
ton or building up of many inventions,
starting with the discovery of steam
as a motive power. 1t was Richard
Trevithick who first applied the steam
engine to railway operation. That
was when Thomas Jefferson Was be-
ginning his administration as Presi-
dent of the United States. A little
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