Angus Sinclair

“ The glowing, incandescent mass of fire, which shines with a blinding light that rivals the sun’s rays, dazzles the eyes of the novice, who sees in the fire-box only a chaotic gleam; but the experienced fireman looks into the resplendent glare, and reads its needs or its perfections. The fire is maintained nearly level; but the coal is supplied so that the sides and corners are well filled, for there the liability to drawing air is most imminent. With this system closely followed, there is no difficulty experienced in keeping up a steady head of steam. ”

“ Never feel ashamed to ask for information where it is needed, and do not imagine that a man has reached the limit of mechanical knowledge when he knows how to open and shut the throttle-valve. The more a man progresses in studying out the philosophy of the locomotive and its economical operation, the more he gets convinced of his own limited knowledge. A young engineer who seeks for knowledge by questioning his elders must not feel discouraged at a rebuff. ”

“ A great many idle young fellows, ignorant of railroad affairs, imagine that a fireman’s principal work consists in ringing the bell, and showing himself off conspicuously in coming into stations. They look upon the business as being of the heroic kind, and strive to get taken on as firemen. If a youth of this kind happens to succeed, and starts out on a run of one hundred and fifty miles with every car a heavy engine will pull stuck on behind, his visions of having reached something easy are quickly dispelled. ”

“ A person unaccustomed to the business, who rides on a locomotive tearing through the darkness on a stormy night, sees nothing around but a black chaos made fitfully awful by the glare from the fire-box door. But even in the wildest tempest, when elemental strife drowns the noise of the engine, the experienced engineer attends to his duties calmly and collectedly. ”

“ A youth entirely unacquainted with all the operations which a fireman is called upon to perform, finds the first trip a terribly arduous ordeal, even with some previous experience of railroad work. When his first trip introduces him to the locomotive and to railroad life at the same time, the day is certain to be a record of personal tribulation. To ride for ten or twelve hours on an engine for the first time, standing on one’s feet, and subject to the shaking motion, is intensely tiresome, even if a man has no work to do. ”

“ While following the occupation of a locomotive engineer, I often observed peculiarities about the working of my engine, while running, that I did not entirely understand. As I was perfectly aware, even before making my first trip on a locomotive engine, that there is no effect without a cause, I never felt satisfied to accept any thing as incomprehensible without investigation, and fell into the habit of noting down facts about the working of the engine, with the view of studying out, at leisure, any thing which was not quite clear. ”

“ When a man trains himself to do this, it is surprising how natural it comes to make running inspections. As he oils the eccentric-straps, he sees every bolt and nut within sight; as he drops some oil on the rods, he identifies the condition of the keys, set screws, or bolts; while oiling the driving-boxes, the springs can be conveniently examined; and, when he reaches the engine-trucks with the oil-can, he is sure to be casting his searching eyes over the portions of the running-gear within sight. ”

“ To hear some firemen of three months’ standing talk, a stranger might conclude that they knew more about engine running than the oldest engineer in the district. These are not the good firemen. Good firemen learn their own business with the humility born of earnestness, and they do not undertake to instruct others in matters beyond their own knowledge. It is the man who goes into the heart of a subject, who understands how much there is to learn, and is therefore modest in parading his own acquirements, that succeeds. ”

“ By closely watching the action of the blast on the fire of an engine that calls for heavy firing, the engineer learns where the fault lies. When the engine is laboring on a hard pull, he should open the door; and if he finds, that, in a particular section of the fire-box, the smaller pieces of coal are dancing and glowing with an incandescence more brilliant than the other parts, and if he finds that this is repeatedly the case, he may conclude that the nozzles are too small, or the petticoat-pipe is working the mischief with his coal-account. ”

“ The engineer who never looks at a book or a paper in search of information about his engine, knows very little about any thing not visible to the eye. Yet many men of this stamp, by looking wise, and by exercising a judicious use of silence, pass among their fellows as remarkably profound. But let a fireman, in quest of locomotive knowledge, put a question to such a man, and he is immediately silenced with a “You ought to know better” answer. ”

“ On such a night, a man strange to the business can not work a locomotive, and exercise proper control over its movements. He may place the reverse lever-latch in a certain notch, and keep the steam on; he can regulate the pump after a fashion, and watch that the water shall not get too low in the boiler; he can shut off in good season while approaching stations, and blunder into each depot by repeatedly applying steam; but he exerts no control over the train, knows nothing of what the engine is doing, and is constantly liable to break the train in two. ”

“ The valve and its movements are surrounded with so many complicated influences, that an intelligent man may work for years about a locomotive doing valve setting occasionally, and other gang boss work, yet, unless he studies the valve-motion by the aid of the drawing-board,222 or by models, which admit of changing sizes and dimensions, he may know less about the cause of certain movements than the bright lad who has been a couple of years in the drawing-office. The man who thinks he can study the valve-motion, and understand its philosophy, by merely running the engine, deceives himself. ”

“ Sometimes the origin of a pound is hard to discover: very often it is beyond the power of the engineer to stop it. Some makes of locomotives always pound when working in full gear. With such an engine, a nervous engineer will fuss, pushing up wedges until they stick fast, and cause no end of grief to get them down again. He will key up the main-rod connections till they run hot, and he will prophesy that the engine is going to pieces. But the engine hangs together all the same, and is only suffering from want of lead, or want of compression. ”

“ Some of our most successful engineers, the men who pull our most important trains daily on time, attribute their good fortune in avoiding delays, to training they received in youth, while running or firing worn-out engines that could only be kept going by constant attention and labor. In such cases men must resort to innumerable makeshifts to get over the road; they have frequently to dissect the machinery to remedy defects; they learn in the impressive school of experience how a broken-down engine can best be taken home, and how breaking down can best be prevented. ”

“ The consciousness that every thing is right, the knowledge that a thorough inspection at the beginning of the journey proved the locomotive to be in perfect condition, give a wonderful degree of comfort and confidence to the engineer as he urges his train along at the best speed of the engine. ”

“ It is like the useless labor a man has to do turning a grindstone with one crank, while a boy is holding back on the other side. The weight of obstruction done by the boy must be subtracted from the power exerted by the man to find the net useful energy exerted in turning the grindstone. In the same way, every pound of back pressure on a piston takes away a pound of useful work done by the steam on the other side. ”

“ But when he has to ride during that period, and in addition has to shovel six or eight tons of coal, most of which has to be handled twice, the job proves no sinecure. Then, the posture of his body while doing work is new; he is expected and required to pitch coal upon certain exact spots, through a small door, while the engine is swinging about so that he can scarcely keep his feet; his hands get blistered with the shovel, and his eyes grow dazzled from the resplendent light of the fire. ”

“ But when thick darkness covers the earth, when the fitful gleam of the headlight shines on a mass of rain so dense that it seems like a water-wall rising from the pilot, or when blinding clouds of snow obliterate every bush and bank, it is important that the engineer should know every object of the wayside. ”

“ The man who despises book-knowledge relating to any calling or profession, rejects the wisdom begotten of former recorded labor.
A careful perusal of Forney’s Catechism of the Locomotive will teach the young engineer valuable lessons about his engine which can be daily substantiated by practice. In nearly every instance, reading such a work acts as a stimulant to the perceptive faculties of an engineer. An explanation of a point helps to throw new light on something that was hazy, but now appears perfectly clear. ”

“ In the fire-boxes of American engines, where double dampers are the rule, far more loss of heat is occasioned by excess of air than there is waste of fuel through the gases not receiving their natural supply of oxygen. The blast from the nozzles creates an impetuous draught through the grates; and when to this is added the rapid currents of air impelled into the open ash-pan by the violent motion of the train, the fire-box is found to be the center of a furious wind-storm. ”

“ One man may have charge of an engine for only a few months, and yet exhibit thorough knowledge of his business, displaying sagacity resembling instinct concerning the treatment necessary to secure the best performance from his engine: another man, who appears equally intelligent in matters not pertaining to the locomotive, never develops a thorough understanding of the machine. ”

“ The pioneer engines, which demonstrated the successful working of locomotive power, were run by some of the most accomplished mechanical engineers in the country. As an engine adapted to the work it has to perform, the American locomotive is recognized to have always kept ahead of its compeers in other parts of the world. No inconsiderable part of this superiority is due to the fact, that nearly all the master mechanics who control the designing of our locomotives have had experience in running them, and thereby understand exactly the qualities most needed for the work to be done. ”

“ If an engine is pulling a train which requires the evaporation of 1,500 gallons of water each hour, there will be 25 gallons pumped into the boiler every minute. When this goes on regularly, all goes well; but if the runner shuts the feed for five minutes, and then opens it to allow 50 gallons a minute to pass through the pump, the best engine going will show signs of distress. Where this fluctuating style of feeding is indulged in,—and many careless runners are habitually guilty of such practices,—no locomotive can retain the reputation of doing its work economically. ”

“ Any accident to the throttle-valve or its attachments, which deprives the engineer of power to shut off steam, is very dangerous, and calls for prompt action. Lose no time in reducing the head of steam to fifty or sixty pounds, or to the pressure where the engine can easily be managed with the reverse-lever.
With the aid of a power-brake, an engineer can get along fairly with a light train, after an accident has happened which prevents the closing of the steam from the cylinders; but constant vigilance and thoughtful labor are needed. ”

“ When practical railroad men hear the size of cylinders, the diameter of driving-wheels, and the boiler dimensions of a locomotive, mentioned, they understand what kind of service the engine is adapted for, and about the weight of train it can haul. As it has been found necessary for designing and other purposes, to estimate, with some degree of accuracy, the work a locomotive is capable of doing, it has become usual to reckon the power of a locomotive by the tractive force it can exert upon the rails. ”

“ This is where a machinist’s skill does not apply to locomotive-running until it is supplemented by an intimate knowledge of speed, of facility at handling a train, and keeping the couplings intact, and of insight into the best methods of economizing steam.
These are essentials which every man should possess before he is put in charge of a locomotive on the road. The great fund of practical knowledge which stamps the first-class engineer, is amassed by general labor during years of vigilant observation on the footboard, amidst many changes of fair and foul weather. ”

“ Engineers anxious to make a good record, try to run with nozzles as wide as possible. Contracted nozzles destroy power by back pressure: they tear the fire to pieces with the violent blast, and they hurry the heat through the flues so fast that its temperature is but slightly diminished when it passes into the atmosphere. The engineer, who, by intelligent care, reduces his smoke-box temperature 100 degrees, is worthy to rank as a master in his calling. ”