Handbook of Railroad Construction; For the use of American engineers. / Containing the necessary rules, tables, and formulæ for the location, construction, equipment, and management of railroads, as built in the United States.

by George L. Vose

“The eastern slope is 12,500 feet long, and rises 610 feet; the average grade being 2574
10 feet, and the maximum 29568
100 feet per mile. The least radius of curvature 234 feet; upon which curve the grade is 2376
10 feet per mile. The western slope is 10,650 feet long, and falls 450 feet; the average grade being 223⅒, and the range 27984
100 feet per mile.

“The engines, which have taken loads ranging from twenty-five to fifty tons up one slope at seven and one half miles per hour, and down the opposite one at six miles per hour, making four trips of eight miles per day for three years, were designed and built by M. W. Baldwin & Co., Philadelphia, and have three pair of forty-two inch wheels all coupled, the flange base being 9′ 4″, cylinders 16½ × 20 inches, weigh, with wood and water, 55,000 lbs., or twenty-seven and one half tons. They run without a tender, the engine carrying its own feed; thus gaining the double advantage of increasing the adhesion of the engine, and avoiding the resistance of a tender.”

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.

306. The locomotive is a non-condensing, high pressure engine, working at a greater or less degree of expansion, according to the labor to be performed, and placed upon wheels which are so connected with the piston, that any motion of the latter is communicated to the former, by which the whole is moved.

The power exerted in the cylinder and referred to the circumference of the driving wheel, is called traction; its amount depends upon the cylinder diameter and steam pressure, upon the diameter of wheel and stroke, this latter being the distance between the wheel centre and point of application of power.

The means by which the “traction” is rendered available for moving the engine and its load, is the resistance which the wheel offers to slipping on the rail, or its bite, and is called adhesion; it is directly as the weight applied to the wheels, but depends also upon the state of the rails. It varies from nothing, when there is ice on the rail, to one fifth of the weight upon the driving wheels when the rail is clean and dry, and in some cases has reached as high as nearly one third. It should be enough to resist the maximum force of traction, that is, the wheel should not slip when the engine is doing its greatest work.

Steam producing, Traction, and Adhesion, are the three elements which determine the ability of an engine to perform work. The proportions and dimensions of the machine depend upon the duty required of it; sufficient adhesion for a required effect should be obtained rather by a proper distribution, than by increase of weight.

Fig. 150 shows the relative position of parts in the locomotive engine as at present constructed in America.

1 2,	Grate upon which the fuel is placed.
1 2 3 4,	Interior fire-box.
5 6,	Exterior fire-box.
7 7 8 8,	Shell of the boiler.
9 9,	Boiler flues.
10 11 12 13,	Exhaust chamber, or smoke box.
14,	Steam dome, entrance to steam pipe.
15,	Steam pipe.
16,	Piston.
18,	Piston rod.
19,	Connecting rod.
20,	Crank.
21,	Driving wheel.
22,	Blast pipe.
23,	Chimney.
27 28,	Leading wheels, supporting the front end of the engine, turning on a swivel, 29.
30,	“Blow off” safety-valve.