1 LOCOMOTIVE ON THE EL PASO-NORTHEASTERN RAILROAD Showing effects of the water on iron. Note the water marks on engine and tender, and the leaky rivet in tank locomotive enginemen, either of an amusing or instructive nature, and such matters as will make this department profitable and entertaining. The El Paso-Northeastern Railroad. In describing this division, will say that it is termed a mountain division, as we leave Tucumcari with forty-five empty cars, go thirty four miles, then reduce to eighteen cars, go twelve miles and pick up seventeen cars, which makes thirty-five cars to haul into Dawson, the end of our division. On leaving Dawson we have thirty-five loads, go thirty miles and reduce to seventeen loads, go twenty-three miles and pick up eighteen loads, haul them within hardly be carried in a jug unless tightly corked, and then when it gets hot it will try to push the cork out, so great is its ambition to rise. The illustration herewith shows some of the marks made by the water on tank and engine, the leaky rivet in the tank showing plainly the effect of the water on iron. On nearing the top of a hill the second "gun" has to be put in service, so the crown sheet will not be left dry when the throttle is closed. The coaling stations are two in number, and it is with the aid of your partner on the right side and the head brakeman that you go from one coaling station to the other without going on the back of the tank to get coal. So far we have not had any snow to block the road. One year ago the road was blocked for several days. There are now five road engines and one switch engine on this division, and they are kept very busy. The road crosses the Santa Fe at French. This company uses the Baldwin engines, both simple and compound, but we have no compounds on this division. The class of engines are 1038 E. Some have electric lights, some have gas, and a few have the common "grease" lights. The time card allows us twelve hours to make the run over the division. United States mail service began this morning (March 7, 1904) on this division, the mail to be carried on trains 23 and 24. D. O. INGLE. The Brown System of Discipline. After reading the article, "Derating Seniority as Punishment of Railroad Employes," which was published in the March number of the Magazine, I wish to say something in regard to the Brown system. on one of our passenger engineers, and, by the way, he is still in service and has the same habits. In those days everything was brass-big flagstaffs, and knobs on all hand rails. In fact, it would take the fireman almost a full day to clean her up, and this was to be done every trip. This engineer had the habit of opening the front end of his engine every trip, invariably. There was a reward offered if he ever made a round trip without opening the front end and changing her plates. The party would be granted a ten days' leave of absence on full pay, and I believe it is still in effect. However, John Bull, as we will call him for the present, met his match in Tommy Dunn. Tommy had just finished wiping her off as she stood in the roundhouse, with her front end wide open. As the superintendent came along, gazing at her, Tommy came down from his perch. After shaking hands with him, the superintendent asked him how she was doing, and the conversation drifted to this: "Well, Mr. Player, I had a very bad dream last night." "And pray what was it, Tommy?" "Well, sir, when I got down there I In my opinion it is a little schoolboy's farce, pure and simple. the way it is used in some cases. According to it no one shall be suspended before an investigation is had, but I know of cases where they were. Take an official who is hotheaded and one-sided, and the best allround railroad man could not possibly get along without receiving a black mark. I once was given a black mark on account of my train parting while running along. This same official got after me for delaying a fast train for two minutes. I had an old, worn-out engine that could not back her tonnage in the passing track. She was running hot, and I was using water on main pins and driving boxes. After explaining in full he told me he did not believe that water spattering off of any part of an engine would help cause her to slip-a polite way of calling an engineer a liar. I sent him a letter through the mail and offered to More Troubles of the Oregon Fireprove my assertion in a test. Then he wanted to discharge me wanted it all his own way. See! The Brown system is abused in many cases, and by abusing it the employe gets the worst of it. MEMBER. A Santa Fe Special. Replying to the invitation of our Editor in the March Magazine to write some "Echoes from the Firing Line," will say I have in mind a story that our old superintendent of machinery used to tell man. In the last issue of the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine I noticed an article stating some of the troubles of an Oregon fireman, but our friend did not state any of the troubles of the firemen working out of Roseburg. At present there are thirteen firemen on the extra list here, and their griev ances (?) are many, for when business is dull they'll congregate at the roundhouse and try to figure out when it will be their turn out, and should the M. M. show up he's given fifteen minutes of a good time answering questions as to why the list is not "cut," and whether or not business is going to get better, or else they will have to go and secure work on a farm. Then, when business is good a man on the extra list has troubles of his own, and some that belong to the other fellow, for, after being on the road probably eighteen hours (and during that time handling fifteen cords of wood), you arrive at home, take a hurry-up wash, register on the towel and go to the "hay." Then about the time you get well interested in dreamland-Rip! Biff! Bang! "Wake up! You're called to help No. 222 for 12:10 a. m. You get engine 2194," which, by the way, is a full sister in every respect to our Ashland friend's 2193. But before you have time to realize the situation he's off in a "cloud of dust" after more crews. Then comes a five minutes' recess for rubbing eyes and fumbling for the electric light. At last the light is found, and then there is a roar of anger as Mr. "Tallow Pot" finds he has only fifty minutes in which to go to the Mulligan counter and get on the outside of a few "medium-boiled" and a cup or two of coffee, go to the roundhouse, look at the "board," and find out to his displeasure that he's to go with "Longstroke." He then asks the hostler where the 2194 is, and he is told that she's on the south end of the wood track, near the brewery. When at last you have your lamps lighted and the lubricators filled, you find your train is due out of town, and that the eleven-foot firebox is 'most empty. No. 221 is annulled, Junction City to Roseburg. Order No. 2 gives a meet with Extra 1607 west at Wilbur. Toot, toot, and we're off. Then the fireman is too busy trying to keep the eleven-foot firebox full of the block system (?) to look at any more of the orders before reaching Wilbur. At Wilbur he finishes them up and finds that No. 15 runs 35 minutes late, Cottage Grove to Drain. On leaving Wilbur, "Longstroke" says he thinks we'll be able to make Comstock if the "block system" (?) holds out. After many ups and downs we arrive at Comstock and take the siding for No. 15, which after a few minutes comes tearing along. Then comes four miles more of hard knocking for us. At last we reach the top of the hill, turn our engine, run light to Drain, and wait there for No. 225. At last 225 gets there, we couple on and go, arriving at Roseburg some time after night and creep home, wondering why we ever got the idea to "go railroading" and make money easy. AN OREGON FIREMAN. A Moonlight Hostler on the Santa Fe. I feel, of course, embarrassed at first addressing you, but I'm a member in good standing of Lodge 522. I noticed in the Magazine an invitation to all the "Tallow Pots" to write a letter for publication, and will say that my first experience in firing was on the K. C. S., but I resigned "Say," says the "hog-head," "are they my position in January last and came to ready for us over there?" "Yes." I'll "Well, we'll go out and couple up. go to the depot and see if there is any orders for me. You try the air and pull down, and if you have time drop some oil on the monkey tail." After fifteen minutes the air is tried to the satisfaction of the inspectors. Then we pull down by the depot and pick up "Longstroke," who hands the fireman a bunch of papers equal in size to a Sunday Oregonian. After looking at the clearance card you find the orders are all there, and that the first order states that New Mexico, where I like it much better. Now, I'm a moonlight hostler on the grand old Santa Fe, where the master mechanic and all his foremen are as nice as they can be. We have very small engines here-only two hundred and twenty-eight tons-and unless we have our favorite "hog-head" we have but little fun. The compounds are all slow to stop and start, and when we get out on the table the stops are not far apart. Our foreman is a mountain engineer, his hair is getting gray, and when we get the rush trains lined up he says: "Boys, go get in the hay." A FIREMAN. Odds and Ends Modern Wiring Diagrams and Descriptions for Electrical Workers.-This is the title of a new book by Henry C. Horstmann and Victor H. Tousley, which "not only tells you how to do it, but it shows you how." It tells how to wire for call and alarm bells; for burglar and fire alarm; how to run bells from dynamo current; how to install and manage batteries; how to test batteries; how to test circuits; how to wire for annunciators; for telegraph and gas lighting; it tells how to locate "trouble" and "ring out" circuits; it tells about meters and transformers; contains thirty diagrams of electric lighting circuits alone; explains dynamos, and motors; alternating and direct current; gives ten diagrams of ground detectors alone; gives "compensator" and storage battery installation; gives simple and explicit explanation of the "Wheatstone bridge" and its uses, as well as volt-meter and other testing; gives new and simple wiring table covering all voltages and losses or distances, etc. The book contains 160 pages, over 200 illustrations, is nicely bound in full leather, with round corners, red edges, pocket size, 4 by 6 inches, and will be sent postpaid to any address in the United States or Canada upon receipt of price, $1.50, by the publishers, Frederick J. Drake & Co., 211-213 East Madison street, Chicago, Ill. Grant of Carnegie Institution for Locomotive Research. President Stone, of Purdue University, announced at a recent convocation, that a grant of $5,000 had been made by the trustees of the Carnegie Institution to Professor W. F. M. Goss to promote research in locomotive testing. In making the announcement, President Stone called attention to the research work which has already been accomplished at Purdue, and expressed his appreciation of this added evidence of confidence in the institution. The Carnegie Institution was established and endowed by Andrew Carnegie for the purpose of extending aid to scientists wherever found in advancing important lines of scientific research. At the second annual meeting of the trustees, which was held at Washington, December 9th, more than a thousand applications were considered, sixty-six of which received favorable ac tion. Among these latter was the Purdue grant. Hitherto, aid has been chiefly given workers in pure science and generally in comparatively small amounts. The grant to Purdue is probably the most significant gift yet made for work in an applied science. The specific purpose of the grant is to aid in carrying out an elaborate study of the value of high steam pressures in locomotive service. As is well known, a few years ago locomotive boilers were designed for a pressure of 150 pounds, while at the present time 180 to 210 pounds pressure is the rule, and designers are asking the question whether it will prove economical to still further extend the line. In anticipation of such a study, the boiler of the present experimental locomotive of Purdue University was designed for 250 pounds, and it is in connection with this locomotive that experiments will be made.—Railway and Engineering Review, How Slang Worked a Cure. A very busy and hard-worked official of a great transportation company found, during the past year, that his duties were impairing his health, and he consulted his physician who recommended a period of absolute rest. Following the doctor's advice he went back to the city where he had spent a large part of his early life, and while there he was told that his old family doctor had diagnosed his case as "lint on the lungs," and upon inquiring how the doctor knew it, and what it was, the patient was informed that it came from "chewing the rag." This somewhat coarse joke naturally provoked a laugh, but it caused a multitude of very salutary reflections in the mind of the most interested person. He had time to think, and the more he considered the matter the more absolutely correct he found the old doctor's opinion to be. The result has been that the particular process by which the dangerous disease from which he formerly suffered had been developed, was stopped, and with the removal of the source the trouble had disappeared. Without attempting to define the expressive, if inelegant, slang phrase that has worked such a change in one man's habit, we may say that not a few others might profitably modify their practice in talk and especially if the frame of mind that precedes it should be habitually avoided. The new year would have more pleasant days than any preceding one has ever had, and the wear and tear of life would be reduced to the minimum. Wise men know that it is the worry and not the work of life that wears men out.Railroad Men. the same way. "Chewing the rag" us should absolutely stop cantankerous means, we suppose, a snarling, cantankerous, quarrelsome attitude towards annoying questions that arise, and especially towards the persons who bring them up. There is always some bitterness in tone, some sarcasm in look or voice, some irritating way of grappling perplexities if people are "chewing the rag." The housewife and the cook may "chew the rag" in the kitchen, the master and his coachman in the carriage house or stable, or even in the family trap. The superintendent and his subordinates may easily mix too much acid with their Battleships Not a Success.-Many trunk-line managers express the opinion that the monster freight locomotives are failures, WRECK IN THE SAND HILLS, NEBRASKA AND WYOMING DIVISION, C. & N. W. RY. speech, and the conductor can easily find both occasions and places for a well-nigh endless performance of "rag chewing" with engineer, baggageman or trainman. Any railroad man who meets the public, at an office or station, or on the trains, can easily find somebody willing to risk the dangerous disease for the sake of "chewing the rag." and have not realized what was expected of them. W. E. McCully, chairman of the Board of Railway Commissioners of Georgia, says: "Of course, this does not mean they will abandon attempts to get service out of the large machines, because they are constantly working with them and trying to remedy the defects. The objections so far have been that the big engines don't make the time required, which is only from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour. They consume an enormous quantity of coal compared with the results and they are hard to make steam. You will rarely find an engineer praising one of them. In mountainous sections it requires two firemen to shovel coal, and where one man only is used over a level What a change would come if all of country the work of firing is exceedingly But what a wearing process it is! Men grow prematurely old who do it. Business is retarded instead of being expedited, and there is friction everywhere. Things seem out of joint and the machinery creaks and groans or, to change the figure, everybody is like an old horse with the heaves. "Lint on the lungs" is fatal to good respiration! |