PREVENTING ACCUMULATION OF MUD IN BOILERS.
Mud-drums, with blow-off cocks attached, serve to check the growth of this evil when the engineer is careful to make frequent use of these appliances; and a strong pressure of washing-out water, poured frequently through the boiler, has an excellent cleansing effect: but some kinds of scale defy mud-drums and the best methods of washing out, leaving the only resort to be the removal of flues for cleansing. The filling up of a boiler with scale and mud, so as to prevent the engine from steaming freely, is necessarily a gradual process; and an observant engineer has time to note the change, and recommend the proper remedy.
TEMPORARY CURES FOR LEAKY FLUES.
Leaky flues or stay-bolts may sometimes be dried up temporarily by putting bran, or any other substance containing starch, in the feed-water. Care must be taken not to use this remedy too liberally, or it will cause foaming. It is, however, a sort of granger resort, and is seldom tried except to help an engine to the nearest point where calking can be done.
GOOD MANAGEMENT MAKES ENGINES STEAM.
No engine steams so freely but that it will get short under mismanagement. The locomotive is designed to generate steam from water kept at a nearly uniform temperature. 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.
INTERMITTENT BOILER-FEEDING.
The case of Fred Bemis, who still murders locomotives on a road in Indiana, is instructive in this respect. Fred was originally a butcher; and, had he stuck to the cleaver, he might have passed through life as a fairly intelligent man. But he was seized with the ambition to go railroading, and struck a job as fireman. He never displayed any aptitude for the business, and was a poor fireman all his time through sheer indifference. But he had no specially bad habits; and, in the course of years, he was “set up.” He had the aptitude for seeing a thing done a thousand times without learning how to do it. All his movements with an engine were spasmodic. Starting from a station with a roaring fire and full boiler, the next stopping-point loomed ahead; and to get there as soon as possible was his only thought. He would keep the reverse-lever in the neighborhood of the “corner,” and pound the engine along. The pump would be shut off to keep the steam from going back too fast, till the water became low: then the feed would be opened wide, and the steam drowned down. In vain a heavy fire would be torn to pieces by vigorous shaking of the grates. The steam would not rally, and he would crawl into the next station at a wagon pace. A laboring blower and shaker-bar would resuscitate the energies of the engine in a few minutes if the flues and fire-box were not leaking too badly, and the injector would provide the water for starting on; but no experience of delay and trouble seemed capable of teaching Bemis the lesson how to work the engine properly. He soon became the terror of train men, and the boiler-makers worked incessantly on his fire-box. But he is still there, although he will not make an engineer if he runs for a century.
TOO MUCH PISTON CLEARANCE.
On one of our leading railroads a locomotive was rebuilt, and fitted with the extension smoke-box, which was an experiment for that road, and consequently was looked upon with some degree of distrust. When the engine was put on the road, it was found that it did not steam satisfactorily. Of course, it was at once concluded that the draught arrangements were to blame; and experiments were made, with the view of adjusting the flow of gases through the tubes to produce better results. The traveling engineer of the road had charge of the job, and he proceeded industriously to work at locating the trouble. He tried every thing in the way of adjusting the smoke-box attachments that could be thought of, but nothing that was done improved the steaming qualities of the engine. He then proceeded to search for trouble in some other direction. The result of his examination was the discovery that the engine was working with three-fourth inch clearance at each end of the cylinders. This, he naturally concluded, entailed a serious waste of steam; so he had the clearance reduced to one-fourth inch. When the engine got out after this change, it steamed very satisfactorily; and the extension smoke-box is no longer in disrepute on that road.