Читать книгу Locomotive Engine Running and Management онлайн

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Two leading pioneers of railway progress in Europe took diametrically opposite views of the intellectual qualities best calculated to make a good engineer. George Stephenson preferred intelligent men, well educated and read up in mechanical and physical science; Brunel recommended illiterate men for taking charge of engines, on the novel hypothesis, that, having nothing else in their heads, there would be abundant room for the acquirement of knowledge respecting their work. In every test of skill, the intelligent men proved victors.

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No demand for illiterate or ignorant engineers has ever arisen in America. Many men who have spent an important portion of their lives on the footboard, have risen to grace the highest ranks of the mechanical and social world. The pioneer engines, which demonstrated the successful working of locomotive power, were run by some of the most accomplished mechanical engineers in the country. As an engine adapted to the work it has to perform, the American locomotive is recognized to have always kept ahead of its compeers in other parts of the world. No inconsiderable part of this superiority is due to the fact, that nearly all the master mechanics who control the designing of our locomotives have had experience in running them, and thereby understand exactly the qualities most needed for the work to be done.