Читать книгу Locomotive Engine Running and Management онлайн

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John Barton is considered a first-class fireman by some men. He works hard to keep up steam, and is never satisfied unless the safety valves are screaming. He carries a heavy fire all the time; and, when the pop-valves rise, he pulls the door open till they subside, gets in a few shovelfuls more coal, closes the door till the steam blows off again, and repeats the operation of throwing open the door. This man has learned only the half of his business. He has got through his head how to keep up steam, but he has not acquired the more delicate operation of keeping it down wisely and well. Training with an intelligent engineer anxious to make a good fuel-record, will, in a few months, improve Barton wonderfully. Barton is the medium fireman.

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Behind him comes Tom Jackson, the man of indiscriminately heavy firing. Tom’s sole aim is to get over the road with the least possible expenditure of personal exertion. He tumbles in a fire as if he were loading a wagon, the size of the door being his sole gauge for the lumps. When the fire-box is filled to the neighborhood of the door, he climbs up on the seat, and reclines there till the steam begins to go back through drawing air: then he gets down again, and repeats the filling-up process, intent only on getting upon the seat-box with as little delay as possible. His firing is regulated by the appearance of the smoke issuing from the stack. So long as it continues of murky blackness, he reclines in happiness: when the first streaks of transparency appear in the smoke, he becomes unhappy, but gets up, and suppresses smoke-consumption by smothering the flames with green coal. If by any chance the engine steams so freely that the safety-valves blow, the door is jerked wide open, and kept there till she cools down. So the round goes. A hot, scorching fire, which heats the sheets and flues to their highest temperature, is continually being interrupted by the sudden cooling from a heavy load of damp coal, or a chilling current of cold air. No wonder, that, with such treatment, leaky flues, weeping stay-bolts, and pouring mud-rings, make their own protests, often reiterated on the pages of round-house work-books.