PETONE WORKSHOPS

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 6, 1 April 1909, Page 197

PETONE WORKSHOPS

the machine puts one through in one act as you look. Another notable machine is the automatic grinder of Ransome of London. The tool is set, the work inserted, and the machine is left to itself to grind away until the work is done. These machines make the machine shop most interesting to watch. One wants to know the timbers used. They are Kauri and Rimu with a little Puriri for the upper work, Jarrah and Blue Gum for the under timbers, and Oregon is used sparingly. For ornamentation there are no importations. "Selected Rimu is the handsomest wood in the world," says the Loco. Superintendent, and Progress admires his good taste as well as his patriotism. Never was a truer word; nowhere are there better corroborations than in the fine panels of selected Rimu that are so remarkable a feature of the railway cars of the Dominion.

Bogie Shop. Hard by is the building in which the bogies are put together, before being taken into the erecting shop for the rolling stock to be mounted on them. Under the old system it took the men here a day to put one bogie together, so complicated was the process of squaring and building. To-day the daily capacity is five. The difference is due to the adoption of a frame on which the bogies are built. It is known in the world of work asa" Jig. ' ' There are four corner posts duly set, and the frame between them. The axle boxes are set up on the posts and the rest of the bogie is built up in the ordinary course, and when the parts are together they are riveted. There are two Jigs; so that while the riveting is being done at one, the other is the scene of a building operation. The Jig is the device of Mr. Pearson, the loco. engineer at these works of Petone.

Wheel and Axle. Further on is the shed where the axles are pressed into the wheels by hydraulic power. An air crane lifts the wheel and lowers it into position, the axle is also in its place; the hydraulic press exerts pressure on it, up to 10 tons for every inch of diameter; the axle gets fitted, the pressure is registered upon it. and is useful record for all the contingencies of the future, and the operation is over.

Tarpaulins. Still further on among the buildings is the tarpaulin room where the making and mending of tarpaulins goes on apace — one looks in upon men in all the attitudes of sail-making as one remembers them in the old sailing liners and men-of-war, and one passes on impressed by the sight of industry but not of any novelties.

Vertical Hydraulic. We run against another hydraulic giant, a "multum in parvo" giant, working with great apparent slowness and much fascinating deliberation. Observation of the results, however, proves that the slowness is an assumed defect. The pace of the work is simply tremendous when you compare it with the results of previous methods. The machine straightens channelbars, angle-irons, and all things of iron that require to be made true and fit for their duties, in the running of locomotives, passenger-cars, goods wagons, cranes, and the rest Likewise does it do all the work of punching holes. Take the straightening of angle-irons cut by a wonderful machine in the machine shop into short lengths. Of old the custom was for men to take the pieces up with tongs, place them on anvils, and move them while other men hammered them with great

hammers. It was a process needing time as well as hard labour, to say nothing of a straight eye. To-day the piece is placed in the hydraulic persuader — Vertical Hydraulic Press is its official title — a handle is touched, the weight comes down with gentle but tremendous force, the iron wilts into shape in one breath, and emerges with absolute truth in every dimension. The machine does dozens for every one under the old system and does it under the control of two boys. One begins to understand the problems of labour-saving solved by the machineries of our time. In punching the holes through tlrs solid iron there is the same contrast between the old and the new. Sixty-eight holes punched by the steady and apparently slow machine in thirteen minutes — it is a performance which leaves unaided man out of sight. One understands a little too in this way how machinery makes for the use of ma-

chinery. The secret is well understood here at Petone, where many machines have been designed for the saving of cost and the expediting of work. In the brass finishing room, for instance, we saw a machine for stamping out the ventilator grids for operating the ventilators of the railway carriages. This machine stamps them out at the rate of 100 an hour. The old system under which they were cast turned out ten in the day.

Blacksmith's Shop. This is the most interesting in the whole place, deriving its interest from big machinery and big men. Twenty-two forges are ranged half of them on each side with fires bright and roaring, while men are handling hot metal in masses on the anvils, hammering, turning, moving back and forth, the brilliant metal taking shape like putty, or cutting like butter, or opening

into holes faster than timber under the biggest of augers, as the case may be. Down the centre of the shop stand three steam hammers and one at one side. They are not of the phenomenal varieties that work up to large numbers of tons, the centre one is the most powerful and does not go much over one ton. But the wonder of the performances of these giants, for giants they are nevertheless, is a source of perennial astonishment. They can give slow steady blows as befits their ponderosity, or they can go with a "rat tat" worthy of lightest hammer ever used for the striking of hot iron. The hammerer just works at them with a turn of the wrist and they do all the work from the one big slog to the multitudinous rat tatting. Springs, draw-bars, brakes, every detail of the same that is forged, bolts, fittings of all sorts, iron gears of all conditions, all things forgeable are piled up here making a big output from the big furnaces under the control of the big men. For moving the heavier stuff about there is a crane. To complete the fittings there is a spring furnace for making and tempering. It is noteworthy that all the work from here goes straight to the car shed, being finished in every way.

Patterns. Back among the buildings we are in the pattern shop. A small corner it is of the carpenters' shop hard by the carriage department. A small place it looks, for the work of the magnitude done here. But go into the pattern store hard by and you will see the output of that small place. The store is full to overflowing and the shelves positively groan with abundance and variety. Here are "patterns for big cranes, steam hammers, wheels of every kind great and small, locomotive smoke-box fronts, locomotive cylinders, and all things big in the casting way. On the other hand there are all the small things down to hat racks and the little blocks that act as catches for the windows of the railway carriages. These last are made thirty in the time where it was once the custom to fashion one with much labour and infinite patience. In this store things are of the needle to anchor order. They make you realise the industry of the pattern makers working so methodically at their machines. They also help you to understand the expense of iron work and the skill of the workers as well as the cunning of the machines. Hard by is the drying furnace for the cores. We are invited to go in to sample the atmosphere, but the behaviour of the first straw hat to get inside the door is a warning and we are satisfied to take the heat for granted without going further in. The heat convinces without the spontaneous combustion of a not too cheap Panama.

Moulders, Polishers, and Brass Finishers In the iron foundry is a new vibrating table moulding machine, operated by compressed air; this machine is used principally for brake blocks and other repetition work. The pneumatic sand shakers are a great saving in labour for sifting and preparing the sand used in moulding. There is also in this foundry a small machine for making cylindrical cores up to 2%in. diameter and a circular saw for cutting off gates of brass castings. The moulders turn out some fifty tons of castings a month. Here one sees all the iron castings, ventilators, firebars, cylinders,

axle boxes, brake blocks, everything that is cast in requirement of railway work. Of the brake blocks, it appears presently that forty a day is the output here. An economic fact is worth noting. The ventilators of the carriages used to be cast in several pieces and put together after the moulding. Now they are, thanks to a mechanical invention of one of the staff, cast in one piece. The saving is five shillings per ventilator, and as there are sixteen to the car, the saving per car is four pounds sterling. The furnace stands near, notable for the coloured glass peep holes for the men to see unhurt the progress of the melting, and a few paces off is the Fettling shop where the fettling machines clean the castings, and further on is the burnishing shop where the last touches are put on the brass and other fittings, which are then ready for their appointed places in the cars.

Last Scene of All. The car finds its way polished, painted, ready for the road to the shed, where the Westinghouse brake and the gas plants are waiting to be fitted. The cylinders, blocks, and pipes of the Westinghouse system are lying about, and the cylinders of the Pintcsh gas with the lamps and the piping. We note the couplings of the former and have a talk with the inventor about the merits of the "Pearson coupling" which supplements the Westinghouse brake and a sample of the coupling is produced to illustrate the descriptions. As the subject is dealt with fully elsewhere in the present issue nothing more need be said here, except to wish the inventor the success which his ingenious invention deserves.In this shed there are many stacks of timber drying, and fittings of various sorts are kept against the time of need.

The System of Work. It is the rule here at Petone that all the parts of cars or wagons or locomotives to be built must be finished by the various shops and delivered before the erecting shop can begin to put them together. Thus is the pace set for the whole establishment. In addition there is close supervision. The lowest grade of supervisor is the leading hand, over him comes the shop foreman, and over him there is the workshops manager ; and lastly there is the locomotive engineer. The lower grades are always with the men and the others come at odd moments without beat of drum or regular understanding of the hour of their visit. The results, especially when you have the right quality of men, ought to be good. The quality is beyond doubt as every one can testify cheerfully Avho has been through these shops. There need therefore be no fear as to the results.

Some interesting links with the middle century, when the South of England was a prosperous iron-smelting district, may be found to-day in Sussex. Although iron ore is found abundantly in this area, there is an entire absence of fuel for smelting purposes, and it was the close proximity of the two minerals to one another in the North of England that brought about the removal of the indsutry to that more convenient area; so that the Sussex iron trade fell into desuetude. Throughout the country now may be found scattered large expanses of water called "hammerponds," from the simple fact that in the ironsmelting days, the water constituted the motive power for driving the ponderous hammers by means of which the ore was pounded or the iron smelted. They are still known under their original name.