There are several others, distinguished with titles of an expressive kind, working on the drop-stamps. Of these one answers to the nickname of “Bovril,” one is “Kekky Flapper,” one is “Aeroplane Joe,” one “Blubber,” and another is known about the shed as “Wormy.” How they came to possess such inglorious appellatives cannot with certainty be told; a very little will suffice to brand you with an epithet in the work-shed. In addition to these, in the vicinity of the drop-stamps in the corner are an ex-groom, a grocer, a musical freak, a comedian, a photographer, a boy scout, a territorial, a jockey, a cowman, a pianoforte maker, and a local preacher.
Situated over the coal furnace that feeds the big drop-stamps is a boiler of the “loco” pattern, one of those responsible for the tremendous din that is raised every day at meal-times when the steam is not required for the engines and hammers. These boilers have all served their time on the line — in passenger or goods traffic — and, after their removal from the engine frames, they have become distributed over the company’s system and throughout the factories. The distance a boiler is required to travel under steam on the railway is about thirty thousand miles; after completing this it is superseded and removed from the active list on the permanent way. By the time the boiler and engine have travelled together so many miles they will be half worn out. The wheels, by reason of the frequent application of the brakes and “skidding” on the rails, will be grooved and cut about, and the machinery will require new fittings and bearings. After the boilers have been removed from the frames they are overhauled and tested and then sold out to the different sheds and stations, wherever they may happen to be wanted.
The method of transacting business between the different sheds and departments at the works is exactly like that employed by outside firms and tradesmen. Bills and accounts are rendered, and the whole formula of hire and purchase is entered into by the different parties; everything; in fact, except the actual payment of money, is duly carried out. The sheds are required to show a balance on the right side at the end of each year; percentages are charged for working expenses, and all the rest is profit. Thus, some sheds will show profits of many thousands of pounds annually, though upon paper only; the surpluses do not exist in reality.
Although the new boiler costs £1,000 it is sold to the shed second-hand for £200, so that the cost of ten for the workshop was only £2,000. The charge for setting, and fitting, and also for repairs and cleaning, however, is very great; a big sum is needed to keep them in a fit condition for work. After they have been erected above the furnaces they are covered with a thick jacket of a compound of magnesia and fibre, to enable them to retain the heat, and they are afterwards painted black, so as to harmonise with the general environment. The steam pressure of the repaired boiler is usually fixed at about a hundred and twenty-five pounds per square inch. The capacity of each boiler is very great, and the composite power of the whole set formidable; if one of them should happen to explode the result would indeed be disastrous. A small staff of men superintends them by day and night, and greater care is taken of them than was the case formerly. I can remember when the shed was several times within a hair’s breadth of being blown up and forty or fifty men hurled to perdition.
A few years ago, instead of trustworthy men being appointed to superintend the boilers, they were consigned to the charge of several youths, who were very careless and negligent in their work, and who seemed to have no idea whatever of the tremendous responsibility resting upon them for the safety and welfare of the life in the shed. Provided with mouth-organs and bones, or Jew’s harps, they would play and skylark about for a long time and leave their boilers unattended at considerable risk. I have often known them to be away from their posts for an hour at a stretch, and to allow the water in the boilers to become almost entirely evaporated before they returned to fill them up again, which, as everyone knows, is an exceedingly dangerous practice. By the common regulation attaching to boilers, the water should never be permitted to fall below that point when it is visible in the gauge-glass. If it is allowed to do so the position becomes dangerous immediately, and, to obviate accident, the bars of the furnace fire should be withdrawn and no cold water admitted.
Once a youth — a wild, reckless fellow — was absent from the boiler an unusually long time in the middle of the morning before dinner. The stampers watched the water in the gauge-glass drop little by little and finally vanish, and still no one came to attend to it. Being a little anxious about it I sent several men and boys to try and find the boilerman, but without avail. His mates were nowhere to be found either, and the foreman was away from the shed at the time. From being anxious I soon felt alarmed. The matter was becoming serious, and we were not allowed, under any circumstances, to meddle with the injectors ourselves.
As I was warning all men in the locality of the danger the boilerman arrived, a little frightened, but in a desperate mood. I advised him to take the usual course in such a case, to have the fire withdrawn from the furnace and allow the boiler to burn, but as this would have meant certain dismissal for him he decided to risk everything and fill up the boiler or explode it. As he was determined in his foolhardy resolution we collected our mates and left the shed, retiring to a safe distance. By good fortune, however — by pure luck, and nothing else — the boiler received the water safely, though with a great deal of shuddering, and the danger was past. To make the best — or the worst — of it, there were three men on the back of the boiler at the time, laying on the coat of magnesia, for it had not been erected many days. Although we gave them warning of the danger they took not the slightest notice, but kept working away, in a hurry to get the job done, for it was piecework. If the boiler had exploded, packed as it was with terrific pressure and priming furiously, they would have been blown to atoms.
The bold and daring of the shed indulge in many jeers and uncomplimentary remarks, if some others, in the face of real danger, should adopt precautionary measures and take heed of their safety, but experience has taught me that it is better to be apprehensive and cautious and to take pains to safeguard oneself than to score a cheap victory by bravado and carelessness. When danger threatens in the factory, the best course is to stand quite clear at all costs; it is then no shame to put into practice the words of the old proverb, slightly amended: “He that works and runs away will live to work another day.” By far the greater proportion of the accidents that happen daily at the works are the direct result of inattention, of not taking notice of warnings uttered by others, and the failure to exercise the instinct of self-preservation natural to each individual. It is not that the men are absolutely careless of themselves; it is rather that the care they do take is not considerable or sufficient.