Some of our most successful engineers, the men who pull our most important trains daily on time, attribute their good fortune in avoiding delays, to training they received in youth, while running or firing worn-out engines that could only be kept going by constant attention and labor. In such cases men must resort to innumerable makeshifts to get over the road; they have frequently to dissect the machinery to remedy defects; they learn in the impressive school of experience how a broken-down engine can best be taken home, and how breaking down can best be prevented. Firemen and young engineers, generally feel aggrieved at being assigned to run on worn-out engines,—the scrap heaps as they are called: but the man who has not passed through this ordeal has missed a Golconda of experience; his potentialities are petrified without reaching action.
CARE AND ENERGY DEFY DEFEAT.
Among a certain class of seafaring men, the captain of a ship who fails from any cause to bring his vessel safely into port, is regarded as disgraced; and, therefore, a true sailor will use superhuman efforts to prevent his ship from becoming derelict, often preferring to follow it to the bottom rather than abandon his trust. In many instances the sentiments and traditions of seamen teach railroad men valuable lessons. The sacrifice of life is not desired or expected of engineers in their care of the vessel they command; but every engineer worthy of the name will spare no personal exertion, will shrink from no hardship, that will be necessary to prevent his charge from becoming derelict. Once I heard a hoary engineer, who had become gray on the footboard, make the proud boast, “My engine never was towed in.” His calm words conveyed an eloquent sermon on care and perseverance. He had been in many hard straits, he had been in collisions, he had been ditched with engines, but had always managed to get them home without assistance.
WATCHING THE EXHAUST.
What the beating pulse is as an aid to the physician in diagnosing diseases, the sound of the exhaust is to the engineer as a means of enabling him to distinguish between perfective and defective working of the locomotive. The ability to detect a slight derangement by the sound of the exhaust, can only be acquired by practice in watching those steam-notes day after day, as they play their tune of labor through the smoke-stack. When the steam-ports are even, and the valves correctly set, with tight piston-packing, and valves free from leaks, the notes of the exhaust will sound forth in regular succession in sharp, ringing, clear tones, every puff seeming to cut the steam clean off at the top of the stack. There is a long array of defects represented in the journey from this case of apparently perfect steam performance, to that where the exhaust steam escapes as an unbroken roar mixed with uncertain, wheezy coughs.
THE ATTENTIVE EAR DETECTS DETERIORATION OF VALVES.
The deterioration of piston-packing, and the rounding of valve-seats, which produce an asthmatic exhaust, may be followed in their downward course if the engineer gets into the habit of listening to the exhaust, and marking its changes. It is very important that he should do so. The man whose ear from long practice has become sensitive to a false tone of the exhaust, needs not to make experiments, by applying steam to the engine while it stands in various positions, in order to find out where a blow comes from,—whether it is in the pistons or in the valves.
LOCATING THE FOUR EXHAUST SOUNDS.
Leaning out of the cab-window, he watches the crank as it revolves, and compares the noise made by the blowing steam with the crank position. When pulling on a heavy grade is an excellent time for noting imperfections in the working of valves and pistons; for the movements are comparatively slow, while the pressure of steam on the working-parts is so heavy that any leak sounds prominently forth. The observing engineer perceives that the four sounds of the exhaust, due to each revolution of the drivers, occur a few inches before the crank reaches, first, the forward center, second, the bottom quarter, third, the back center, fourth, the top quarter. The first and third position exhausts emit the steam from the forward and back strokes of the right-hand piston: the second and fourth exhausts are due to discharges of the steam that has been propelling the left-hand piston. With these facts impressed upon his mind, he will understand, that if an intermittent blow occurs during the periods when the crank is traveling from the forward center to the bottom quarter, or from the back center to the top quarter, the chances will be that the right-hand piston needs to be examined. For the greatest pressure of steam follows the piston just after the beginning of each stroke, and that is the time a blow will assert itself. Should the blow occur while the right-hand crank is moving from the bottom quarter to the back center, or from the top quarter to the forward center, it will indicate that the left-hand piston is at fault. For at these periods the left-hand cylinder is receiving its greatest pressure of steam.