Railway Engine Becoming Relic of Past— In America

Grey River Argus, 3 May 1949, Page 8

Railway Engine Becoming Relic of Past— In America

(By Louis Hunter, Reuter’s Correspondent in New York). America’s “iron horse”—the railway steam engine—is rapidly becoming a relic of a romantic past in the country’s transport history. Steam engines are being scrapped at a record rate as the railways step up their “dieselisation” programme. Producers of steam engines, according to the Wall Street Journal report that they have either converted production entirely to diesel types or curtailed steam facilities to an infinitestimal level. A steam engine’s usefulness does not end completely with its last regular run. It provides top-grade No. 1 heavy melting scrap for hungry steel mill furnaces, as well as cast iron and non-ferrous scrap. This valuable metal goes into steel plates, rods, castings used in making diesel and electric engines, ships, jet engines, tools, machinery and other heavy goods. Steam engines range in weight from 120,000 to over 500,000 lb. (without tender) from an engine, weighing 250,000 lb. an average of 225 000 lbs. of scrap is recovered for salp tel steel mills. One large scrap yard actually has a recovery ratio of 95 per cent. The bulk of recovered metal is premium scrap—the open hearth and foundry grades. Last year, Luria Brothers and Coy. one of the country’s biggest scrap dealers, bought and scrapped 250 old engines and tenders at its 100 acre “graveyard” at Modena, Pennsylvania. This was 100 more than in 1947 and nearly three times the number scrapped there in 1940. Tn Conway, near the Pennsylvania steel centre of Pittsburgh, the Pennsylvania railroad has its own graveyard for steam engines. Last year, the yard knocked down and turned into scrap for steel mills, 400 old engines of the 565 retired by -the railway in 1948. The remaining 165 engines were sold outright to scrap yards. Onlv 244 went to the graveyard in 1947. In 1946, “practically none.” One big steel company converted 254 steam engines to scrap for its own |Use last year. Thirty-two have been scrapped in its yard so far this year—nearly as many as in the whole of 1940. It takes more than 80,000 man hours to turn out a steam engine from blueprint to finished product, but only eight hours to break one up at the Luria Yard. The Pennsylvania railroad yard is geared to scrap up to three engines a day. The breaking up process is highly systematised. Engine superstructures are cut away with acetylene torches. These spew oxygen and acetylene gas at 6,300 degrees fahrenheit. the highest temperature known in acetylene operations .Boilers are stripped of “lagging” (sheet iron and asbestos) and removed from th enframe with the torches, then fed into the jaws of 105-ton alligator shears which cut the heavy steel like ordinary scissors cut tissue paper. A largp amount of asbestos is salvaged. After the boiler is removed .the underframe is cut loose and reduced to smaller sizes for steel mills. To salvage as much scran as possible, the wheels are “pushed” off the axles by a hydraulic ram of 200-to 240-ton' pressure. A gantry crane with giant overhead attachments for lifting heavy objects runs the full length of a yard, moving large pieces from one operation to another. After a steam engine is turned to scrap, huge cranes with dangling magnets nick up and stack the fragments for shipment to steel mills. Tenders are subjected to the same procedure. Wooden parts of the engine-driver’s cab are burned. Not all retired engines find their way to the graveyards immediately. Some are kept by the railways for emergency use pending deliveries of modern replacements. The 2.273 engines retired in 1948 and their tenders. it is estimated, would provide about 50,000 tons of scrap, most of it of great value for open hearth and foundry operations. Steam engines are purchased outrieht by scrap yards nt competitive bidding, usually from nearby sources. If they had to travel long distances, freight costs would sharply reduce the margin of profit to scran dealers. Freight charges at going rates are paid by- the buvers even' though some of the engines hobble into the yards on their own wheels. Many are towed in. For the same transport reason, graveyards are situated near maior steelmaking centres. Surrounding the Modena Yard, are half a dozen independent steel producers. Scran dealers pay the average market price per ton weight of scran for each engme. At present this figure around 33 dollars (about £8 5s a ton). After the engine is knocked down this scrap at cureht market nrices brings from 38 dollars (about £9 10s) for the on n n hearth type to 43 dollars (about £lO 15s) for the foundry type. Before steam engines are sold for scran, the railways strip them of . trimmings, bells, gauges, valves, lubricators, signals, anything which might have future use in repairing survirinp engines of similar makes. Railways operating their own graveyards do on even more thorough iqh of work. The Pennslvvania. for instance, also retrieves rods, brake parts and