While running from the round-house to the train, is a good time to carefully watch the working of the various parts of the engine. Should any defects exist, they are better to be detected now than after the engine is out with a train. The brakes can be tested conveniently at this time, and the working of the water-pumps tried. All these matters are regularly attended to by the successful engineer: they are habitually neglected by the unlucky man, and misfortune never loses sight of him.
CHAPTER V.
RUNNING A FAST FREIGHT TRAIN.
RUNNING FREIGHT TRAINS.
By far the greater proportion of American locomotive engineers are employed on freight service. On most roads, the freight engines constitute from seventy-five to ninety per cent of the whole locomotive equipment. On this kind of service, locomotive engineers learn their business by years of hard practice in getting trains over the road as nearly as possible on time. On the best of roads, there is much hardship to be undergone, working ahead through every discouragement of bad weather or hard-steaming engines. The man who brings the most energy, good sense, and perseverance to his aid, will come out most successfully above these difficulties.
Every department of locomotive engine running has difficulties peculiar to itself. Every kind of train needs to be handled understandingly, to show the best results; but, I think, getting a heavy fast freight train on time, over a hilly road, having a single track, requires the highest degree of locomotive engineering skill. Therefore, I have selected that form of train as the first subject of description.
THE ENGINE.
The engine that takes the train over the road weighs 35 tons, and has 1,100 square feet of heating-surface for generating steam for cylinders 17 by 24 inches, which, through the pistons, transmit power to wheels 60 inches diameter. The engine is an ordinary eight-wheeled bituminous coal-burning American type of locomotive, built by one of our best makers, and well adapted for pulling any kind of train over a Western railroad.