ALL ABOUT RAILWAY ENGINES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVI, Issue 2210, 19 May 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

ALL ABOUT RAILWAY ENGINES.

There is to many persons something very attractive about the powerful loco-, motives which do such splendid service on our great railways, and a work which gives in plain language some account of their history, construction, and development can hardly fail to be popular. Hitherto most books treating of locomotives have either been altogether technical or . else entirely non-professional.. Mr Cooke, who is an out-door assistant in the London and North-Western Locomotive Department, and knows hia subject thoroughly, tries to.strika a mean between these extremes, and while supplying many facts which will interest the engineer, takes care that his narrative shall also be attractive to tho general reader. It seems rather remarkable that tho date of the construction of the first self-moving locomotive of which there is any authenticated record goes no further back than 1769. It was termed a ‘Maud carriage,* was the work of a Frenchman, and is a very primitive-looking affair. No particulars of it halve, however, been preserved. Another, made by the same engineer a few years later, had the misfortune to bo overturned during trial in tho streets of Paris, and this disaster brought its career to a sudden termination. Watt was the first engineer in Great Britain to take out a patent for a steam carriage,

This was in 1784, and lie writes to Boulton that the boiler must ho of “ wood or thin metal, to be secured by hoops or otherwise, to prefect its bursting from the pressure of steam 1" It is doubtful whether the construction of this wonderful engine was ever carried out. The really first locomotive of which liny practical use was made seems to have been the work of one Trevithick. It was made in 1803, and ran on a cast-iron tramroad at Merthyr Tydvil. Stephenson was at work on one in 1814, and from that data onwards the construction of locomotives shows a gradual but steady improvement. The famous Rainhill contest took place in 1829, and the following extract from the Quarterly Jieview about that time reads strangely to-day: “As to those persons who speculate on making railways general throughout the kingdom and superseding all the canals, all the waggons, mails, stage coaches, post chaises, and, in short, every other mode of conveyance by land and by water, wo deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice. The gross exaggerations of the locomotive steamengine (or, to speak in plain English—the steam carriage) may delude for a time, but must end in the mortification of those concerned. We should as soon expect the people to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve’s ricochet rockets as trust themselves at the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate."

The modern engines which bound along the great lailway systems now are as unlike the locomotives of the early part of the century as they can well be. It would astonish the old Quarterly Reviewer to learn that one of the Loudon and NorthWestern engines during the race to Scotland in 1888 covered the distance from Preston to Carlisle, 90 miles, in exactly 90 minutes, having a gradient of no less than 1 ifi 75 to climb between Tebay and Shap summit. One of the famous engines of this corap my is known as the “ Charles Dickens," and runs daily from Manchester to Loudon and buck, a distance of 3601 miles.

Except when stopped for repairs, the “ Charles Dickons " has, since February, 1882, made this journey every day, working up the 8.30 a.m. from Manchester, and returning with the 4.0 p.tn. from Euston. On September 12, 1891, it completed the 20515 t trip, having accomplished the extraordinary feat of running 1.000,000 miles in nine years 219 days. No other engine in the world has run so many miles in a like period of time. Between these dates, in addition to the Manchester and London trips, 92 other journeys were made, and altogether 12,516 tons of coal were consumed. At the end of February, 1893, the total mileage run by the “ Charles Dickens " was 1,138,557. So far the use of liquid fuel for locomotives seems to be confined to the Great Eastern Railway. It is carried on the tender in a tank, and the experiments made with it have been most successful. Among other interesting facts noted by Mr Cooke is the important relation which exists between the speed and weight of a train. The necessity of “balancing" locomotives is also pointed out. If an engine is not balanced, or balanced improperly, a very irregular motion takes place when it is run at a high speed ; “and it has boon shown by actual experiments that it is impossible to run an unbalanced engine at the same speed as one that is balanced, and that there is a great saving nf fuel effected by the proper distribution of weight in the rotating parts."