Part 7

It is easy to account for explosions of boilers on the hypothesis of too great pressure; but it is hardly ever very easy--frequently utterly impossible--to account for the causes which induce that overpressure. There are, to be sure, a number of reasons which may be advanced. The engineer may have screwed the scales down too much, and thus, the safety-valve not operating to let off the surplus steam, a force may be generated within the boiler of such tremendous power that the strong iron will be rent and torn like tissue-paper. This I say may occur, but in my experience I never knew of such a case. Then again, the water may get so low in the boiler that, on starting the engine and injecting cold water upon the hot plates, steam will be generated so suddenly as not to find vent, and in such enormous quantities and of so high a temperature as to explode the strongest boiler. Again, the water may be allowed to get low in the boiler, and the plates getting extremely hot, the motion of the train would generate steam enough by splashing water against them to cause an explosion. A proper care and due attention to the gauges would obviate this, and render explosion from these causes impossible. A piece of weak or defective iron, too, may have been put into the boiler at the time of its manufacture, and go on apparently safe for a long time, until at last it gives way under precisely the same pressure of steam that it has all along held with safety, or it may be with even less than it has often carried. How the engineer is to obviate this most fruitful cause of explosions, for the life of me I cannot see; still if his engine does blow up, everybody and their wives will believe that it happened entirely through his neglect. A person who has never seen an explosion, can form no idea of the enormous power with which the iron is rent. I saw one engine that had exploded, at a time too when, according to the oaths of three men, it had a sufficiency of water and only 95 lbs. of steam to the square inch, and was moving at only an ordinary speed, yet it was blown 65 feet from the track, and the whole of one side, from the "check joint" back to the "cab," was torn wide open--the lower portion hanging down to the ground, folded over like a table-leaf, and the other portion lay clear over to the other side, while from the rent, the jagged ends of more than half of the flues projected, twisted into innumerable shapes. The frame on that side was broken, and the ends stuck out from the side at right angles with their former position. I saw another, where the whole boiler front was blown out and the engine tipped clear over backwards on to the tender and freight car, where the engineer and fireman were found, crushed into shapeless masses, lying in the midst of the wreck. The engine Manchester exploded while standing at a station on the H. R. R. R., and killed two out of five men, who were standing together beside the tender. Two of those who were left, deposed, on oath, that not three minutes before the accident occurred, the engineer tried the water and found fully three gauges, while there was a pressure of only ninety-five pounds to the square inch, and it was blowing off.

How to account for it no one could tell, so every one who knew any thing whatever in regard to such things, called it "another of the mysterious visitations of God." But the newspapers called it an evidence of gross carelessness on the part of the engineer.

Several explosions have been known where the upper tubes were found unhurt, while the lower ones were, some of them, found badly burnt. The conclusion in these cases was that the tubes were too close together, and the water was driven away from them; consequently the starting of the engine, or the pumping of cold water into the boiler, was sufficient to cause an explosion.

HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED.

There is among the remembrances of my life as a railroad man, one of such sadness, that I never think of it without a sigh. Every man, unless he be so morose that he cannot keep a dog, has his particular friends; those in whom he confides, and to whom he is always cheerful; whose society he delights in, and the possibility of whose death, he will never allow himself to admit.

Such a friend had I in George H----. We were inseparable--both of us unmarried; we would always manage to board together, and on all possible occasions to be together. Did George's engine lay up for the Sunday at one end of the road, and mine at the other, one of us was sure to go over the road "extra," in order that we might be together.

George and I differed in many respects, but more especially in this, that whereas I was one of the "fast" school of runners, who are never so contented with running as when mounted on a fast engine, with an express train, and it behind time. George preferred a slow train, where, as he said, his occupation was "killing time," not "making" it. So while I had the "Baltic," a fast engine, with drivers six feet and a half in diameter, and usually ran express trains, George had the "Essex," a freight engine, with four feet drivers.

One Saturday night I took the last run north, and was to "lay over" with my engine for the Sunday at the northern terminus of the road, until two o'clock Monday P. M. George had to run the "Night Freight" down that night, and as we wished particularly to be together the next day, I concluded to go "down the line" with him. Starting time came, and off we started. I rode for awhile in the "caboose," as the passenger car attached to a freight train is called, but as the night was warm and balmy, the moon shining brightly, tinging with silvery white the great fleecy clouds that swept through the heaven, like monstrous floating islands of snow drifting over the fathomless waters of the sea, I went out and rode with George on the engine. The night was indeed most beautiful, the moonlight shimmering across the river, which the wind disturbed and broke into many ripples, made it to glow and shine like a sea of molten silver. The trees beside the track waved and beckoned their leafy tops, looking sombre and weird in the half-darkness of the night. The vessels we saw upon the river, gliding before the freshening breeze, with their signal lights glimmering dimly, and the occasional steamers with light streaming from every window, and the red light of their fires casting an unearthly glare upon the waters; these all combined to make the scene spread before us, as we rushed shrieking and howling over the road, one of unexcelled beauty. We both gazed at it, and said that if all scenes in the life of a railroad man were as beautiful as this we would wish no other life.

But something ailed George's engine. Her pumps would not work. After tinkering with them awhile, he asked the fireman if there was plenty of water in the tank; the fireman said there was, but to make assurance doubly sure I went and looked, and lo! there was not a drop! Before passing through the station George had asked the fireman if there was plenty of water. He replied that there was; so George had run through the station, it not being a regular stopping place for the train, and here we were in a fix. George thought he could run from where we had stopped to the next water station; so he cut loose from the train and started. We had stopped on the outside of a long curve, to the other end of which we could see; it was fully a half mile, but the view was straight across the water--a bay of the river sweeping in there, around which the track went.

In about twenty minutes after George had left we saw him coming around the farthest point of the curve; the brakeman at once took his station with his light at the end of the cars, to show George precisely where the train stood. The engine came swiftly towards us, and I soon saw he was getting so near that he could not stop without a collision, unless he reversed his engine at once; so I snatched the lamp from out the brakeman's hands, and swung it wildly across the track, but it was of no avail. On came the engine, not slackening her speed the least. We saw somebody jump from the fireman's side, and in the instant of time allowed us, we looked to see George jump, but no! he stuck to his post, and there came a shock as of a mountain falling. The heavy freight engine running, as it was, at as high a rate of speed as it could make, crashed into the train; thirteen cars were piled into a mass of ruins, the like of which is seldom seen. The tender was turned bottom side up, with the engine lying atop of it, on its side. The escaping steam shrieked and howled; the water, pouring in on to the fire, crackled and hissed; the stock (sheep and cattle) that were in the cars bellowed and bleated in their agony, and it seemed as if all the legions of hell were there striving to make a pandemonium of that quiet place by the river-side. As soon as we recovered from the shock and got used to the din which at first struck terror to our hearts--and I think no sound can be more terrible than the bellowing of a lot of cattle that are crushed in a railroad smash-up--we went to work to see if George was alive, and to get him out, dead or alive. We found him under the tender, but one side of the tank lay across his body, so that he could not move. We got rails and lifted and pried, until we raised the tender and got him out. We took one of the doors from the wrecked cars, laid it beside the track, and made a bed on it with our coats and the cushions from the caboose; for poor George said he wanted to pass the few moments left him of earth beneath the open sky, and with the cool breeze to fan his cheek. Of course we dispatched a man to the nearest station for aid, and to telegraph from there for an engine; but it was late at night, everybody was asleep, and it was more than three hours before any one arrived, and all that time George lingered, occasionally whispering a word to me as I bent over him and moistened his lips.

He told me while lying there the reason why he did not stop sooner. Something had got loose on the inside throttle gearing, and he could not shut off steam, nor, owing to some unaccountable complicity of evil, could he reverse his engine. So on he had to come, pell-mell, and both of them were killed; for the fireman had jumped on some rocks, and must have died instantly, as he was most horribly mangled.

The night wind moaned through the wreck, the dripping water yet hissed upon the still hot iron of the engine, the waves of the river gurgled and rippled among the rocks of the shore, and an occasional bellow of agony was heard from amidst the cattle cars, where all the rest of the hands were at work releasing the poor creatures; but I sat there, in sad and solemn silence, waiting for him to die that had been as a brother to me. At last, just as we heard the whistle of the approaching engine, and just as the rising sun had begun to gild and bespangle the purpling east, George opened his eyes, gave my hand a faint grasp, and was no more. I stood alone with the dead man I had loved so in life, but from whom death had now separated me.

AN UNROMANTIC HERO.

Those who have traveled much on the Little Miami Railroad, must have noticed a little old fellow, with grizzled locks and an unpoetical stoop of the shoulders, who whisks about his engine with all the activity of a cat, and whom the railroad men all call "Uncle Jimmy." That is old Jimmy Wiggins, an engineer of long standing and well known. I believe Uncle Jimmy learned the machinists' trade with Eastwick & Harrison, in Philadelphia; at all events he has been railroading for a long time, and has been always noted for his carefulness and vigilance. Let me attempt to describe him. He is about five feet four inches in height, stoop-shouldered and short-legged. His hair is iron-gray, and his face would be called any thing but beautiful. He has, though, a clear blue eye that looks straight and firmly into yours with an honest and never-flinching expression, that at once convinces you that he is a "game" man. Not very careful about his dress is old Jimmy; grease spots abound on all his clothing, and his hands are usually begrimed with the marks of his trade. In short, Uncle Jimmy is any thing but a romantic-looking fellow, and a novelist would hesitate long before taking him as the hero of a romance; but the old man is a hero, and under that rough, yet placid exterior, there beats a heart that never cools, and a will that never flinches. We go back into the history of the past ages to find our heroes, and them we almost worship, but I question whether the whole history of the world furnishes a better example of self-sacrificing heroism, than this same rough and unromantic looking Jimmy Wiggins. It is not the casket that gives value to the jewel; it is the jewel gives value to all. So with Uncle Jimmy; rough he looks, but the heart he has makes him an honor to the race, and deserving of our praise. I'll tell you now why I think so.

Uncle Jimmy was running a train that laid by on the switch at Spring Valley for the Up Express to pass. He got there on time, and the express being a little behind time, the old man took advantage of the time to oil around. The whistle of the up train was heard, but he paid no heed thereto, for it was to pass without stopping. The fellow who attended to the switch stood there at his post. Uncle Jimmy was coolly at work, when a shriek from the conductor called his attention, and looking up, he saw what would frighten and unnerve almost any one. The stupid fool at the switch had thrown it wide open, and the express was already on the branch, coming too at the rate of thirty miles an hour--thirty feet in the beat of your pulse--and his train loaded with passengers stood there stock-still. That was a time to try the stuff a man was made of; ordinary men would have shrunk from the task, and run from the scene. Your lily-handed, romantic gentry would have failed then, but homely old Jimmy Wiggins rose superior to the position, and, unromantic though he looks, proved a hero. No flinch in him. What though two hundred tons of matter was being hurled at him, fifty feet in the second?--what though the chances for death for him were a thousand to one for safety? No tremor in that brave old heart, no nerveless action in that strong arm. He leaped on to the engine, and with his charge met the shock; but his own engine was reversed, and under motion backwards when the other train struck it. It all took but an instant of time, but in that moment old Jimmy Wiggins concentrated more of true courage than many a man gets into in a lifetime of seventy years. The collision was frightful; iron and wood were twisted and jammed together as if they were rotten straw. Charley Hunt, the engineer of the other train, was instantly killed; passengers were wounded; terror, fright and pain held sway. Death was there, and all stood back appalled at what had occurred; yet all shuddered more to think of what would have been the result had Old Jimmy's engine stood still, and all felt a trembling anxiety for his fate, for surely, thought they, "in that wreck his life must have been the sacrifice to his bravery;" but out of the mass, as cool, as calm as when running on a straight track, crawled Uncle Jimmy, unhurt. He still runs on the same road, and long may his days be, and happy.

THE DUTIES OF AN ENGINEER.

Those unacquainted with the duties of an engineer, are apt to think that they are extremely light, and require him simply to sit upon his seat and, shutting off or letting on the steam, regulate the speed of his engine. Although this is a part of the duty, still it is but a small portion, and for the benefit of those of my readers who are not posted on the matter, I will briefly state a few of the things he has to think of.

Say we take the engine lying in the shop cold, and an order comes for him to go out on the road. There is no water in the boiler; he must see that it is filled up to the proper level, and that the fire is started. He must know beforehand that no piece of the machinery is broken or loosened, so as to endanger the engine. To know this, he must make a personal inspection of every part of the engine--trucks, wheels, drivers, cranks, rods, valves, gearing, coupling, flues, scales, journals, driving-boxes, throttle gear, oil cups; in short, every thing about the engine must be seen to by him personally. He must know that every journal, every joint on the whole machine is in proper order to receive the oil necessary to lubricate it, for they will each and all receive a pretty severe strain in his coming ride, and, unless well oiled, will be pretty apt to get warm. He must know whether the flues are tight, or whether there are any leaks in the boiler to cause him trouble, or render it necessary for him to carry a light pressure of steam. He must see that there is water in the tank, and wood upon the tender; that he has upon the engine the tools usually necessary in case of a breakdown, such as hammers, chisels, wrenches, tongs, bolts, nuts, coupling-pins, plugs for the flues in case one should burst, chains, extra links, jack-screws, crow, and pinch-bars, an axe or hatchet; waste or rags, oil, tallow for the cylinders, and material for packing any joint that may give out. All this he must see to and know before he starts. And then, when steam is up, he can go. Now he must closely watch his time-card, and run so as to make the various stations on time. He must know that his watch is correct and in good order. He must see closely to his pumps that they work right, and that the water keeps at the proper level in the boiler. He must watch the scales that the pressure of the steam does not get too great, also the working of his engine. To the exhausts of the steam his ear must be as sensitive as a musical composer would be to a discord, for by it he can tell much of the condition of his engine, the set and play of the valves, and the condition of the many joints in the working machinery. At the same time he must keep the strictest watch of the track ahead of him, ready-nerved for any emergency that can possibly arise; it may be a broken rail, cattle on the track, some stubborn, hasty fool striving to cross the track ahead of him, a broken bridge, washed out culvert, a train broken down; or it may be some stranger frantically swinging his hands, and, in every manner possible, endeavoring to attract his attention. Something may happen to his train or his engine, and he must keep the strictest watch of both; his hands must be ready to blow the whistle, shut off steam or reverse his engine, on the instant intimation of danger, for his engine gets over the ground at a rapid rate, and nothing but a cool nerve and stout arm can stop it, perhaps not these. And if any thing does happen rendering it necessary for him to stop, he cannot say to anybody, "Here, do this;" he must go at it himself; and oftentimes, though it be but a trivial thing, it will tax his ingenuity to the utmost to repair it. Thus he goes on every day, be it clear or cloudy, whether summer breeze fill the air with balm, or the chill winds of winter make the road-bed solid as the rock, and the iron of the rails and wheels as brittle as glass; whether the rain, pelting down, makes of every tiny brook a torrent or the drifted snow blockades the track, and his engine has to plunge into the chilly mass; through it all his eye must never cease its vigil, nor his arm lose its cunning. In cold weather he must watch the pumps that they do not freeze while standing at the stations, or the wheels get fractured by the frost; and, in cold or warm weather, he must keep watch of every place where there is the slightest friction, and keep it well oiled. At every station where time is allowed, he must give the whole engine a close inspection, lest some little part be out of order, and endangering some larger and more important piece of the machinery. At last, after this his journey for the day is ended, his work is by no means done. He must again inspect his engine, and if there is any thing out of order, so much that he cannot without assistance repair it, he must apply at head-quarters for the necessary aid. But there are a hundred little matters that he can attend to himself; these he must see to and do. The friction and enormous strain necessarily wears the brasses of the journals, and creates what he calls "lost motion," that is, the journal moves in its box loosely without causing the required motion in the part of the machinery with which it is connected; this he must remedy by various expedients. The spring-packing of the piston may have worn loose, and require to be set out; some one of the numerous steam joints may be leaking, and these he must repack. Some of the flues may also be leaking; if so, he must tighten them; or there may be a crack in the boiler that leaks which can be remedied by caulking; this he must do. The grate-bars may be broken or disarranged; he must enter the fire-box and arrange them. The packing in the pumps may have worn so as to render their operation imperfect, or the valves may be out of order, or the strainer between the tank and the pump may be clogged; if either or all be the case, he must take down the pump and rectify the matter. The smokestack also may be clogged with cinders, or the netting over it may be choked so as to impede the draught; if so, he must remedy it, or see that it is done. Some of the orifices through which oil is let on to the machinery may be clogged or too open; these he must see to. One or more of the journal-boxes of the wheels may need repacking, and he must do it. An eccentric may have slipped a little, or a valve-rod been stripped, or a wheel be defective, or a tire on the driving-wheel may be loose, and have to be bolted on or reset. A gauge-cock may be clogged, a leaf of a spring broke, or the boiler may be very dirty and want washing out. Any of these things or a hundred others may have happened, and require his attention, which must on all occasions be given to it; for each part, however simple, goes to make up a whole, that, if out of repair, will render imminent a fearful loss of life and limb.

Thus the engineer rides every day, having the same care, and facing the same dangers, with the same responsibility resting on him. Who then shall say that, though he be grimy and greasy, rough and uncouth, given to tobacco-chewing, and sometimes to hard swearing, he is of no consequence to the world? Who shall blame him too severely if sometimes he makes an error?

+-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+