SHORTNESS OF WATER A SERIOUS PREDICAMENT.
Deficiency of steam with a locomotive that is expected to get a train along on time, is a very trying condition for an engineer to endure. But a more trying and more dangerous ordeal, is want of water. Where steam is employed as a means of applying power, water must be kept constantly over the heating-surfaces while the fire is incandescent, or their destruction is inevitable. With a boiler which evaporates water rapidly, and in such large quantities as that of the locomotive, the most perfect feeding apparatus is necessary. Nearly all locomotives are well supplied in this respect. Good pumps or efficient injectors provide the engineer with excellent appliances for feeding the boiler under ordinary circumstances. But conditions sometimes occur where the best of pumps, or the most reliable of injectors, fail to force water into the boiler.