Engine for the Cambria Iron and Steel Company.
The uniform success of my rolling-mill engines encouraged the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, of Johnstown, Penn., again on the advice of Mr. Holley, to order from me an engine to drive their rail-train. For this purpose I made the largest engine I had yet made, 40-inch cylinder by 48-inch stroke. It was altogether too large to be built in the Hewes & Phillips Iron Works, so I had the parts, except the valve-gear, constructed in three different establishments in Philadelphia. The bed, which weighed 40,000 pounds, was cast and finished at the I. P. Morris & Company’s works, the cylinder was cast and finished by Mr. James Moore, who also turned the shaft, and the crank-disk was turned and bored by William Sellers & Co. The several parts were not brought together until they met at Johnstown. The Cambria Company made their own fly-wheel. I spent considerable time while the work was in progress in traveling between Newark and Philadelphia, carrying measuring-rods, templets and gauges. I put the engine together myself, and everything came together without a hitch, which confirmed me in the belief that putting engines together and taking them down again in the shop was a great waste of time and space, and the manufacturing system which I was planning in my mind I intended should be wholly a manufacture of pieces to be kept in stock, and orders filled by shipment of the separate parts direct from the storehouse.
The boilers at Johnstown were located over the heating furnaces, utilizing their waste heat, and were scattered all over the works. The largest steam-pipes were 8 inches in diameter. I gave them an order to make a steam-receiver 5 feet in diameter and 15 feet high, to be set close to the cylinder of the engine. They made it 18 feet high, the width of the sheets favoring this greater height. I took the steam by an 8-inch pipe entering at the top of this receiver and extending down 12 feet; from the top of the receiver I took the steam over to the engine by a 12-inch pipe. I drained the water from the bottom of this receiver by the largest Nason trap, from which a one-inch stream of water was delivered continually. I set in the side of this receiver four try-cocks, one above another four feet apart. From the lowest, six feet from the bottom, the steam blew as white as a sheet, from each one successively it blew with less color, and from the upper one it was quite invisible. I set a steam-gauge on this receiver, and it showed that when the greatest resistance was on the engine the pressure did not fall more than three pounds. This assurance of dry steam in the cylinder was vital to the success of the engine.
The engine was started at 80 revolutions per minute. This was the same speed at which their old engine was supposed to run, but practically its speed had always fallen to 60 revolutions whenever two passes were in the rolls together. I should say here that the new engine was set at the opposite end of the train from the old one, and the only change made was disconnecting the old engine and connecting the new one. The advantage was found in the fact that with the new engine four or even five passes could be in the rolls simultaneously and the speed of the engine never fell sensibly below 80 revolutions per minute. The result was that the first week the train turned out 2400 tons of rails instead of 1200 tons, which was the former limit. This latter was a product of which they had been quite proud and which they claimed exceeded that of any other mill. Mr. Daniel N. Jones, their chief engineer, increased the speed of the engine five revolutions per minute each week for four successive weeks by changing the governor pulley for a larger one. This he did every Sunday when the mill was idle, increasing the speed finally to 100 revolutions per minute and the production to 3000 tons per week. He prided himself on doing this without the men at the hooks finding it out, which if they had done might have made trouble. This seems a very small thing to say when for many years the output of a rail-train has been 3000 tons a day without the aid of human hands; but at that time it was considered an immense achievement. It was also a remarkable thing for the company financially, as directly after a greatly increased demand for steel rails appeared and the price rose to $60 per ton, at which it was maintained for some time.
Daniel N. Jones
This thoughtful act of Mr. Jones was an example of his magnificent co-operation with me in all my work.
Mr. Jones had insisted that the cylinder should have a support at the back end, as he felt sure that without it the running of the piston, weighing 3600 pounds, would produce a deflection; so a support was built under the end of the cylinder, which was cast with a corresponding projection underneath. These surfaces were planed parallel with each other, but I took pains to secure a space between them sufficient to admit a sheet of paper, and when the engine was running I was able to draw a sheet of paper through that space without its being seized, showing the support of the cylinder from the bed to be sufficient, as I had claimed it would be. Mr. Jones laughed.
