Part 2 (1/2)

The first engine of the new plan was finished early in December, 1842, being one of fourteen engines constructed in that year, and was sent to the Georgia Railroad, on the order of Mr. J. Edgar Thomson, then Chief Engineer and Superintendent of that line. It weighed twelve tons, and drew, besides its own weight, two hundred and fifty tons up a grade of thirty-six feet to the mile.

Other orders soon followed. The new machine was received generally with great favor. The loads hauled by it exceeded anything so far known in American railroad practice, and sagacious managers hailed it as a means of largely reducing operating expenses. On the Central Railroad of Georgia, one of these twelve-ton engines drew nineteen eight-wheeled cars, with seven hundred and fifty bales of cotton, each bale weighing four hundred and fifty pounds, over maximum grades of thirty feet per mile, and the manager of the road declared that it could readily take one thousand bales. On the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad a similar engine of eighteen tons weight drew one hundred and fifty loaded cars (total weight of cars and lading, one thousand one hundred and thirty tons) from Schuylkill Haven to Philadelphia, at a speed of seven miles per hour. The regular load was one hundred loaded cars, which were hauled at a speed of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour on a level.

The following extract from a letter, dated August 10, 1844, of Mr. G.

A. Nicolls, then Superintendent of that line, and still connected with its management, gives the particulars of the performance of these machines, and shows the estimation in which they were held:

”We have had two of these engines in operation for about four weeks. Each engine weighs about forty thousand pounds with water and fuel, equally distributed on six wheels, all of which are coupled, thus gaining the whole adhesion of the engine's weight.

Their cylinders are fifteen by eighteen inches.”

”The daily allotted load of each of these engines is one hundred coal cars, each loaded with three and six-tenths tons of coal, and weighing two and fifteen one-hundredths tons each, empty; making a net weight of three hundred and sixty tons of coal carried, and a gross weight of train of five hundred and seventy-five tons, all of two thousand two hundred and forty pounds.”

”This train is hauled over the ninety-four miles of the road, half of which is level, at the rate of twelve miles per hour; and with it the engine is able to make fourteen to fifteen miles per hour on a level.”

”Were all the cars on the road of sufficient strength, and making the trip by daylight, nearly one-half being now performed at night, I have no doubt of these engines being quite equal to a load of eight hundred tons gross, as their average daily performance on any of the levels of our road, some of which are eight miles long.”

”In strength of make, quality of workmans.h.i.+p, finish, and proportion of parts, I consider them equal to any, and superior to most, freight engines I have seen. They are remarkably easy on the rail, either in their vertical or horizontal action, from the equalization of their weight, and the improved truck under the forward part of the engine. This latter adapts itself to all the curves of the road, including some of seven hundred and sixteen feet radius in the main track, and moves with great ease around our turning Y curves at Richmond, of about three hundred feet radius.

”I consider these engines as near perfection, in the arrangement of their parts, and their general efficiency, as the present improvements in machinery and the locomotive engine will admit of. They are saving us thirty per cent, in every trip, on the former cost of motive or engine power.”

But the flexible-beam truck also enabled Mr. Baldwin to meet the demand for an engine with four drivers connected. Other builders were making engines with four drivers and a four-wheeled truck, of the present American standard type. To compete with this design, Mr.

Baldwin modified his six-wheels-connected engine by connecting only two out of the three pairs of wheels as drivers, making the forward wheels of smaller diameter as leading wheels, but combining them with the front drivers in a flexible-beam truck. The first engine on this plan was sent to the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad, in October, 1843, and gave great satisfaction. The Superintendent of the road was enthusiastic in its praise, and wrote to Mr. Baldwin that he doubted ”if anything could be got up which would answer the business of the road so well.” One was also sent to the Utica and Schenectady Railroad a few weeks later, of which the Superintendent remarked that ”it worked beautifully, and there were not wagons enough to give it a full load.” In this plan the leading wheels were usually made thirty-six and the drivers fifty-four inches in diameter.

This machine of course came in compet.i.tion with the eight-wheeled engine having four drivers, and Mr. Baldwin claimed for his plan a decided superiority. In each case about two-thirds of the total weight was carried on the four drivers, and Mr. Baldwin maintained that his engine, having only six instead of eight wheels, was simpler and more effective.

At about this period Mr. Baldwin's attention was called by Mr. Levi Bissell to an ”Air Spring” which the latter had devised, and which it was imagined was destined to be a cheap, effective, and perpetual spring. The device consisted of a small cylinder placed above the frame over the axle-box, and having a piston fitted air-tight into it.

The piston-rod was to bear on the axle-box, and the proper quant.i.ty of air was to be pumped into the cylinder above the piston, and the cylinder then hermetically closed. The piston had a leather packing which was to be kept moist by some fluid (mola.s.ses was proposed) previously introduced into the cylinder. Mr. Baldwin at first proposed to equalize the weight between two pairs of drivers by connecting two air-springs on each side by a pipe, the use of an equalizing beam being covered by Messrs. Eastwick & Harrison's patent. The air-springs were found, however, not to work practically, and were never applied.

It may be added that a model of an equalizing air-spring was exhibited by Mr. Joseph Harrison, Jr., at the Franklin Inst.i.tute, in 1838 or 1839.

With the introduction of the new machine, business began at once to revive, and the tide of prosperity turned once more in Mr. Baldwin's favor. Twelve engines were constructed in 1843, all but four of them of the new pattern; twenty-two engines in 1844, all of the new pattern; and twenty-seven in 1845. Three of this number were of the old type, with one pair of drivers, but from that time forward the old pattern with the single pair of drivers disappeared from the practice of the establishment, save occasionally for exceptional purposes.

In 1842, the partners.h.i.+p with Mr. Vail was dissolved, and Mr. Asa Whitney, who had been Superintendent of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, became a partner with Mr. Baldwin, and the firm continued as Baldwin & Whitney until 1846, when the latter withdrew to engage in the manufacture of car-wheels, in which business he is still concerned as senior member of the firm of A. Whitney & Sons, Philadelphia.

Mr. Whitney brought to the firm a railroad experience and thorough business talent. He introduced a system in many details of the management of the business, which Mr. Baldwin, whose mind was devoted more exclusively to mechanical subjects, had failed to establish or wholly ignored. The method at present in use in the establishment, of giving to each cla.s.s of locomotives a distinctive designation, composed of a number and a letter, originated very shortly after Mr.

Whitney's connection with the business. For the purpose of representing the different designs, sheets with engravings of locomotives were employed. The sheet showing the engine with one pair of drivers was marked B; that with two pairs, C; that with three, D; and that with four, E. Taking its rise from this circ.u.mstance, it became customary to designate as B engines those with one pair of drivers; as C engines, those with two pairs; as D engines, those with three pairs; and as E engines, those with four pairs. Shortly afterwards, a number, indicating the weight in gross tons, was added.

Thus, the 12 D engine was one with three pairs of drivers, and weighing twelve tons; the 12 C, an engine of same weight, but with only four wheels connected. Substantially this system of designating the several sizes and plans has been retained to the present time. The figures, however, are no longer used to express the weight, but merely to designate the cla.s.s.

It will be observed that the cla.s.sification as thus established began with the B engines. The letter A was reserved for an engine intended to run at very high speeds, and so designed that the driving-wheels should make two revolutions for each reciprocation of the pistons.

This was to be accomplished by means of gearing. The general plan of the engine was determined in Mr. Baldwin's mind, but was never carried into execution.

The adoption of the plan of six-wheels-connected engines opened the way at once to increasing their size. The weight being almost evenly distributed on six points, heavier machines were admissible, the weight on any one pair of drivers being little, if any, greater than had been the practice with the old plan of engine having a single pair of drivers; Hence engines of eighteen and twenty tons weight were shortly introduced, and in 1844 three of twenty tons weight, with cylinders sixteen and one-half inches diameter by eighteen inches stroke, were constructed for the Western Railroad of Ma.s.sachusetts, and six, of eighteen tons weight, with cylinders fifteen by eighteen, and drivers forty-six inches in diameter, were built for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. It should be noted that three of these latter engines had iron flues. This was the first instance in which Mr. Baldwin had employed tubes of this material. The advantage found to result from the use of iron tubes, apart from their less cost, was that the tubes and boiler-sh.e.l.l, being of the same material, expanded and contracted alike, while in the case of copper tubes the expansion of the metal by heat varied from that of the boiler-sh.e.l.l, and as a consequence there was greater liability to leakage at the joints with the tube-sheets. The opinion prevailed largely at that time that some advantage resulted in the evaporation of water, owing to the superiority of copper as a conductor of heat. To determine this question, an experiment was tried with two of the six engines referred to above, one of which, the ”Ontario,” had copper flues, and another, the ”New England,” iron flues. In other respects they were precisely alike. The two engines were run from Richmond to Mount Carbon, August 27, 1844, each drawing a train of one hundred and one empty cars, and, returning, from Mount Carbon to Richmond, on the following day, each with one hundred loaded cars. The quant.i.ty of water evaporated and wood consumed was noted, with the result shown in the following table:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

UP TRIP,

DOWN TRIP,

AUG. 27, 1844.

AUG. 28, 1844.

----------------------------+---------------------+----------+----------

”Ontario.”

”New

”Ontario.”

”New

England.”

England.”

(Copper

(Iron

(Copper

(Iron

Flues.)

Flues.)

Flues.)

Flues.)

----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------

Time, running

9h. 7m.

7h. 41m.

10h. 44m.

8h. 19m.

” standing at stations.

4h. 2m.

3h. 7m.