vey to the reader better than words the awfulness of the catastrophe.

What Are We Doing to Improve Our Boilers?

With locomotives, the salient feature of the past year has been the attention directed to the boiler, principally because of the difficulties developed in service by those provided on the large, modern engines. The adoption of the wide firebox solved the matter of providing a desirable extent of grate area and this resulted in an immediate and general increase of boiler capacity. The advantages which were expected (and in fact derived) from this increase in capacity, however, have been considerably nullified by the persistency which these modern boilers have displayed in leaking and other troublesome manifestations. This tendency has

the main directed at providing a better circulation than has hitherto been considered sufficient. Some lines are seeking a solution of the trouble by devoting considerable attention to water purification.

A few of the more thoughtful men, however, reason that the cause of the majority of the troubles arises from the present practice of so arranging the different portions of the boiler that the larger portion of its duty is perforce performed in a minor portion of its extent, in other words, that, as the modern boiler is constructed, the most of its work is conducted in the firebox and in its very immediate vicinity, which comprises but a very small percentage of the total surface which is provided for the performance of this work. In consequence, the rate of evaporation at the firebox portion of the boiler is so high that no practical rate of water circulation is sufficient to

keep the sheets or ends of the tubes from becoming overheated, particularly where these sheets and tubes are arranged as is at present the custom.

Because of these views there is some consideration of a radical rearrangement of boiler proportions, seeking to so arrange the various portions that there will be a more uniform distribution of the heat throughout the boiler and consequently a more uniform rate of evaporation at one particular point of the total extent of heating surface provided. To speak in figures this means that instead of retaining the present form of boiler where the rate of evaporation is forced to 50 pounds of water per square foot per hour in the vicinity of its 180 square feet of firebox heating surface in order to keep up the average fifteen pounds per square foot per hour, which would otherwise be lowered because of the evaporative rate per square foot dropping to as low as 2 pounds at the forward end of the tube surface such rearrangement of the elements of the boiler is needed as will tend to raise the evaporative rate at the front end and lower it at the firebox end. On the London and Southern Railway, in England, this plan has been followed by Mr. D. Drummond, over 100 of his engines being now in service with over 30 per cent. of the total heating surface being in what is practically the firebox. this country Mr. G. R. Henderson and others are advocating the distribution of water tubes in the firebox, while still others are considering the readoption of the combustion-chamber. In all these plans the end in view is the same, however, viz.: a seeking to increase the amount of firebox heating surface in proportion to the total extent of heating surface, and the experience of the most radical design, that of Mr. Drummond, has been so satisfactory as to prove the correctness of the theory. Contemplation of the lack of inertia in the matter in this country up to the very recent present suggests the opinion that an adaptation of his design to the wide firebox in this country holds both opportunity and promise of satisfaction."-Railway and Engineering Review.

Value of Knowing Common Things.

In

Many people nowadays turn up their noses on hearing the homely saying, "Where there's a will there's a way," because so many of them are waiting

to be coddled into the way, without displaying the least trace of a will for well doing, or for self-help.

So much has been preached of what a college education will do for people, that crowds of youths drag through a college course and then expect that their fortune is made; whereas they are at the real commencement, as the graduating proceedings are rightly called. The man or woman who has the energy to make a way will always leave behind all others devoid of active ambition, no matter how well-favored their start has been by circumstances.

The ordinary graduate depends too much upon the knowledge acquired in a college course, whose real value is in training the mind how to acquire and digest useful knowledge. There is too much generalizing and too little digesting of details. It is not easy descending from the genteel speculative to the prosaic working out of details. Observation of common things is good training to help in collecting professional knowledge. City life and training have a tendency to develop a certain species of sharpness, but for most people it blunts the observing faculties.

The writer was riding through the parks of a great city with a town-bred lawyer, who acknowledged that he did not know one tree from another. That man knows something of books, horses and law, but he is an ignorant creature, nevertheless. But his ignorance is only equal to that of many others whose daily labors are made less profitable for want of knowledge of common things. How many of our engineering graduates know how a steel tire is made and how it is held on a wheel center? How many of them can tell the proper cutting speed of machine tools for various metals? How many of them can tell when a machinist at the vise is doing a fair day's work? Very few, which is a weakness begotten of beginning business at the wrong end.

Civil engineers succeed in life by util izing and controlling natural forces, and by making the best possible use of material that can be obtained convenient to their operations; yet many men who try the business are constantly handicapped through ignorance of common things. How many of them know what procurable timber will stand the heaviest strains or why white oak is proper for one purpose and not for another, and what timber will last best under water

and what out of the water? How many know sandstone from limestone, or trap from granite?

How many know that a horse gets up before and a cow gets up behind and the cow eats grass from her and the horse eats to him? How many know that a surveyor's mark upon a tree never gets any higher from the ground, or what tree bears fruit without bloom? There is power of comfort in knowledge, but a boy is not going to get it unless he wants it, and wants it bad, and that is the trouble with most college boys,

were on the point of electrifying their line between Liverpool and Southport, and a start was made on the work early last year.

"The scheme, as originally brought forward, has been much extended, in order that residents on the north side of Southport, as far as Crossens, may be able, at certain times of the day, to go to, and return from, Liverpool and district without extra charge. This will be effected by continuing the electrification along the old West Lancashire line as far as Crossens; and in all the amount of track to be

electrified will amount to about twentythree miles of double line, nearly all of which has now been completed. All the cables for the high-tension alternating current have been laid, the power-house and all the sub-station buildings are completed, and good progress is being made with the erection of machinery. The rolling-stock and its electrical equipment is also in an advanced state, and every effort is being made to have the machinery ready for operation early this year. An important sign, which points to the completion of the work, is, that an experimental run of one of the new fourcar trains has already been made between

Formby and Southport, the high-tension alternating current being obtained from the power-house at Formby, and transformed into direct current at Birkdale sub-station to supply current for the train.

"A general description of the electrification is, briefly, as follows: The trains generally are composed of two first and two third-class cars, the latter being equipped with four motors of 150 horsepower each, or a total of 1,200 horsepower per train. The current which operates these motors is taken from a live rail alongside the running tracks, and this rail is fed with direct current at about 600 volts from four sub-stations, one of which is situated at Birkdale, one at Seaforth, one at Sandhills, and the fourth in the main power-house building at Formby. The high-tension current, of 7,500 volts, is generated in the latter building, and is transformed in the substations into direct current at about 600 volts. The power-station at Formby adjoins the railway, and is a building 200 feet long by 130 feet wide. It is an independent steel structure, the steel stanchions of which, in addition to carrying the roof, support the traveling-crane girders in the usual way, and the spaces between the stanchions are filled in with brickwork. The building has two spans, one of which covers sixteen Lancashire boilers, as well as the usual superheaters, feed-pumps, etc.; each boiler is 32 feet long and 8 feet 6 inches in diameter, working at a pressure of 160 pounds per square inch. In the other portion of the building are contained four horizontal cross-compound condensing engines of 1,500 kilowatts capacity, as well as one subsidiary vertical compound engine of 750 kilowatts capacity, which is capable of taking a large overload at short intervals. The boilers are each 32 feet long and 8 feet 6 inches diameter, and work at a pressure of 160 pounds per square inch.

"Three-phase type generators are used, with a periodicity of 25 and a voltage of 7,500. The engine-room also contains steam-driven exciters and substation plant, as well as the main switchboard.

"The cables which convey the hightension current are of the three-core paper-insulated metallic sheathed type, and are laid on the 'solid system' alongside the permanent way.

"The substation equipment consists of static transformers, which transform the three-phase alternating current of 7,500 volts to low-tension alternating current

from which it is converted, in rotary converters, to direct current at 600 volts. The rotary converters are nominally of 600 kilowatts capacity, and four are provided in each substation. In each substation there are also three static transformers, which are cooled by means of an airblast. The insulated copper cables, connecting the substations to the third rail, are run underground in troughing.

"The equipment for the permanent way consists generally of a live rail of Vignoles section, which is supported at intervals of 10 feet on insulators, the center of the rail being exactly 3 feet 111⁄2 inches from the center line of the track, and the top of the rail 3 inches above the surface of the track-rails - dimensions agreed upon between all companies. The live rail is of steel, and weighs 78 pounds per yard, and is therefore of ample size. Its joints are bonded with copper bonds, and it is carried by special insulators, placed generally in the 6-foot way, but occasionally brought to the outside of the track. Where level-crossings occur, gaps in the rails are provided, of such a length as to prevent all risk to the public, and these gaps are bonded with cable underground. Timber guarding is also provided at all busy places on the line. In order to secure a good return circuit, a similar rail to the live rail has been placed in the 4-foot way, and bonded to each running-rail.

"Coming now to the cars which are to run on this system, a description of these will be of interest. A made-up train of these carriages (two first-class and two third-class) is shown in Figs. 1 and 2. They are 60 feet long and 10 feet wide, being the widest carriages in this country. The company were able to adopt this width because they found, before any operations were begun, that it was possible on this line to have wider stock, a few slight alterations only being necessary to the permanent way and platforms. A very good idea of these carriages, when seen from the outside, is given by Fig. 3, which is from a photograph of a complete train.

"The motor vehicles are at each end of the train, and are fitted, as before stated, with two 150 horse-power motors on each bogie. Near the compartment for the motorman is a small compartment for luggage. Most of the seats are arranged to accommodate three passengers on one side and two on the other, and the seats are reversible. In the third-class cars the seats are covered with rattan, and the

ELECTRIC TRAIN FOR THE LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY, ENGLAND