Railway engine

“ The experiment was no sooner made than the power of the engine was at once more than doubled; combustion was stimulated by the blast; consequently the capability of the boiler to generate steam was greatly increased, and the effective power of the engine augmented in precisely the same proportion, without in any way adding to its weight. This simple but beautiful expedient was really fraught with the most important consequences to railway communication; and it is not too much to say that the success of the locomotive has in a great measure been the result of its adoption. ”

“ The working of the passenger engine and train is assumed to be under favourable circumstances, with fine weather, fairly straight line, first-class permanent way, modern rolling-stock with oil axle-boxes and perfect lubrication, and all the conditions most suitable to ensure the least resistance to the moving load. For the goods engine and train a greater resistance per ton of load is assumed, as the goods trucks are never so perfect or easy in the running as the passenger carriages. ”

“ Commencing then with passenger engines for fast traffic, and taking first in order the Great Western Railway, we find that it holds a unique position, as its fast broad gauge trains are worked by the same type of engine as that designed by Sir Daniel Grooch in 1848, although, of course, the bulk of the stock has been rebuilt, almost on the same lines, and rendered substantially new engines. ”

“ An engine built at a railway company’s works is immediately sent out on a trial run of some 20 to 25 miles without a train. During the trial the working of the motion, springs, brakes, injectors and sandgear is noted carefully. The big end and axlebox bearings must run perfectly cool, and there must be no leakages at any of the joints, to which the fittings and mountings on the boiler are attached. Everything that is not satisfactory is noted for rectification when the engine returns. ”

“ And if such be the irresistible power of the locomotive engine when feebly walking in its new-born p. 95state, unattended or unassisted even by its tender, is it not appalling to reflect what must be its momentum when, in the full vigour of its life, it is flying down a steep gradient at the rate of 50 miles an hour, backed up by, say, 30 passenger carriages, each weighing on an average 51⁄2 tons? If ordinary houses could suddenly be placed in its path, it would, passengers and all, run through them as a musket-ball goes through a keg of butter ”

“ The force of traction on a good turnpike road is at least 20 times its amount on a level railroad. It therefore follows, that the performance of a horse on a railroad will be 20 times the amount of its (p. 202) performance on a common road under similar circumstances. We may, therefore, take the performance of a horse working at 10 miles an hour, on a level railroad, at 80 tons conveyed 1 mile daily.
The best locomotive engines used on the Liverpool railway are capable of transporting 150 tons on a level railroad at the same rate ”

“ A stationary engine was erected at the top of the incline, and the waggons were drawn up by a rope wound round a large drum. This mode of traction was afterwards extended, in many instances, along the whole railway, so as to supersede the use of horse power. The employment of stationary engines in this manner was continued, even after the invention of locomotive steam engines, to draw the trains up inclines that were too steep for the power of the small locomotives at first used to surmount ”

“ You may, perhaps, have noticed the round houses near the railway—say at York Road, Battersea—those are the engine-"stables." Every engine is placed in its "stall," so that its chimney is just under an opening, or flue. It is also over a "pit," so that the fire can be raked out, or the working examined from underneath before the engine goes into the station next day to take the train away to the seaside, or to carry you to school, or home for the holidays. The engine-driver or the fireman examines the rods, cranks, and all the different joints, nuts, and screws ”

“ The railway is up-to-date in every respect. The carriages are of the corridor type, and the pilgrim who has suffered the rigours of the wearisome overland journey can appreciate the luxury, ease and comfort of the Pullman car. The locomotives are also powerful creations of the engine-builder’s craft. Owing to the difficulties attending the supply of water and fuel along the line, the engines are equipped with abnormal facilities in this direction, the largest and most powerful types carrying 4000 gallons of water. ”

“ Those rails are so much liked in this neighbourhood, that I think in a short time they will do away the cast iron railways. They make a fine line for our engines, as there are so few joints compared with the other. I have lately started a new locomotive engine, with some improvements on the others which you saw. It has far surpassed my expectations. I am confident a railway on which my engines can work is far superior to a canal. On a long and favourable railway I would stent my engines to travel 60 miles per day with from 40 to 60 tons of goods. ”

“ In 1893 this old engine was readjusted and ran from New York to Chicago, 912 miles, under its own steam, hauling two cars of the type of 1836.
In 1898 there were about 19,500 locomotives in Great Britain and 36,500 in the United States. As a comparison between the little engines of early days and the huge and swift engines of to-day, it may be stated that modern passenger locomotives are now constructed with as many as six driving wheels, and ten wheels in all. Some of those in use on the Great Northern Railway, Great Britain, have driving wheels of 97 inches in diameter. ”

“ The narrow-gauge experiments were made on the Great North of England Railway, a special engine being built for the purpose by R. Stephenson and Co., and called “A.” The “A” was a six-wheel long boiler engine, with outside cylinders and 6ft. 6in. driving wheels. Hot water for supplying the boiler was used on the narrow-gauge in place of cold on the broad-gauge. ”

“ Naturally when the conditions are such that a large number of similar engines can be constructed together with the help of special tools and “jigs,” the cost per locomotive is very considerably reduced. An isolated engine of a new design is necessarily expensive, but it generally pays a railway company to build such an engine, so that it can be tested thoroughly, and the necessary modifications and alterations made before placing a large order. ”

“ As soon as the Engine is in a vertical position and rails inserted under the wheels, a temporary railway may be laid down in continuation, and the Engine again drawn on the main line. It will much facilitate the raising of the Engine if the water is drawn away out of the boiler as soon as it is sufficiently cool. ”

“ Two engines were employed in the trials, the first that which had been used on the High-Peak Railway experiments, and the second an engine built specially for the service of the Mont Cenis Railway. This latter was the engine principally employed, No. 1 being chiefly used to supply the place of No. 2, when any trifling derangement in its machinery required attention. It is intended that No. 2 shall be used on the completion of the line over the pass, and it is [340] the engine by which the trial trip was accomplished on the memorable 26th of August, 1867. ”

“ HABITS OF ENGINES AND TRAIN MEN.
A locomotive has two habits. It drinks and it smokes. It seems to take comfort in drinking at a liberal river, rather than where the draught is trickled out to it through a stingy pipe on a dry prairie. Climbing heavy grades involves hard drinking. On the Mount Washington Railway, where you travel a mile and rise nineteen hundred feet in an hour and half, the thirsty engine disposes of eighteen hundred gallons of water—all dissipated in breath.
During the late war they often watered engines from pails, as they would ponies. ”

“ To start in half the time, double the force must be exerted. For this reason, trains which start and stop often require engines with a great deal of weight on the driving-wheels. In accordance with these conditions a class of engines has been designed which carry all, or nearly all, the weight of the boiler and machinery, and sometimes the [125] water and fuel, on the driving-wheels. For suburban traffic, the speed between stops must often be quite rapid, and consequently the engine must have a long wheel-base for steadiness, as well as considerable weight on the wheels for adhesion. ”

“ It will, we are convinced, prove alike beneficial to shareholders, and to the material interests of the country.
The Board of Trade did not obtain returns of rolling stock from the companies until the year 1860. On the 31st December of that year they possessed 5,801 locomotive engines. By the 31st December, 1865, they had gradually increased to 7,414. The proportions have invariably been a little more than one engine for each two miles of railway open. On the London and North-Western, as already stated, the proportion [46] is a little more than one engine a mile. ”

“ Fig. 476 shows an average sample of the ordinary six-wheel-coupled goods engine in use on so many of our home railways. Where the curves are easy and the permanent way strong, the drawback of the long rigid wheel-base may not be so apparent; but for a line abounding in sharp curves, perhaps no more destructive machine could possibly be devised than the ordinary six-wheel-coupled goods engine. ”

“ A fire is lit underneath the boiler, by which the engine is speedily set in motion, and in a short time the whole are brought to their journey’s end. The traveller who, from a distance, first sees this strange spectacle of a train of loaded carriages traversing the country by the simple force of steam, can with difficulty believe his eyes.”
The locomotive thus described by Cuvier was the first engine of the kind regularly employed in the working of railway traffic. ”

“ In the case under consideration, the locomotive steam engine will be the medium used, where the power is carried with the train, and forms part of the load to be moved, consequently, the cost of power on a plane ascending 80 feet per mile is greater than upon one of a more moderate inclination of equal height, by the difference between the gravity of the engines required to carry the same load on both planes. ”

“ Another engine of the same description was supplied to the Manchester and Birmingham Railway, and on October 3rd, 1836, “No. 30” hauled a train of 101 wagons, weighing 597 tons, from Longsight to Crewe, a distance of 29 miles, at the average speed of 13.7 miles an hour.
The mention of a powerful engine and a record train on one railway naturally suggests a better one on another line, so we have the “Essex” going “one better” than “No. 30.”
This time we have a load of 149 loaded wagons (probably equal to 890 tons) , and forming a train nearly half a mile long. ”

“ Horses, stationary engines, and steam locomotives were all proposed for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, and in 1829 the directors offered a premium of $2500 for the best locomotive. Each engine was to consume its smoke, weigh about 6 tons, cost not more than $2750, and be capable of hauling a train of 20 tons at 10 miles per hour. ”

“ It is 2,230 yards long, 17 feet high, and 25 feet wide, and cost one hundred and fifty thousand pounds; the carriages are drawn up by means of a stationary engine at Edge-hill; the steam to supply this engine is furnished by boilers situated at a considerable distance, viz. at the area from whence the locomotive engines formerly started. This communication and its machinery are well worthy of the traveller's notice, if he has time to examine them. (See Liverpool and Manchester Railway Companion.) ”

“ The heating surface is made up as follows: Tubes, 995 sq. ft.; fire-box, 100 sq. ft.; grate area, 161⁄2 sq. ft.; working pressure, 150lb.; water capacity of tanks, 970 gallons; fuel space, 80 cubic ft.; weight, in working order, 51 tons. [Pg 264]
All of these engines are fitted with steam condensing apparatus to allow of working over the Metropolitan Railway between Snow Hill and King’s Cross and Snow Hill and Moorgate Street.
Fig. 107.—STANDARD EXPRESS PASSENGER ENGINE, CAMBRIAN RAILWAYS
Class T comprises the goods or shunting tanks. ”

“ As regards locomotive makers—thirty-six years ago the trade did not exist in Great Britain. The following list comprises the names of about thirty firms and establishments, all actively engaged in the production of railway engines. Some can construct as many as 110 a year (Messrs. Sharp, Brothers, and Messrs. R. Stephenson & Co.) , and there is none that cannot produce from twenty-five to thirty; their total capacity is about 1,500 engines per annum. Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Co., and Beyer, Peacock & Co., of Manchester ”

“ The heating surface was 1,102 sq. ft. Weight of engine in working order, 35 tons 11 cwt. For some years this class of engine was the favourite express engine on the L. and S.W.R. [Pg 232]
Fig. 90.—“PYTHON,” A 7ft. 1in. COUPLED EXPRESS ENGINE, LONDON AND SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY
Locomotive engineers have always one great difficulty to provide for—viz., the extra power required to start locomotives, especially on steep inclines, and as such grades are particularly en évidence on the mineral lines, it is not surprising to find Mr. ”