German Railways. ica more severe and the alignment, and WHILE Prince Henry, brother of the general solidity of the permanent way German Emperor, is viewing American railways we will return the compliment by publishing a host of pictures of German railways. These illustrations are from photographs sent by a friend in Germany, and they demonstrate that when it comes to stations the "Fatherland" has better and more beautiful buildings than most of the American "depots." Everything is military with German railways; most of the employes have served three years in the army, and they find nearly as much militarism in railway service as in the army. Each grade of employe is decorated with a "strap" or badge which shows just how much superior, or inferior, he is to his fellow employes. The following description of the characteristics of German railways was writ ten for the LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN'S MAGAZINE by that well known mechanical writer, Mr. Robert Grimshaw, and was previously published, but is interesting enough to reproduce: The Locomotives. "In the first place, beginning with the locomotive (the 'machine,' as it is universally known among French and German speaking people), there is to be noted the plate-frame instead of the burframe which we employ, and a generally stiffer construction. This stiff construction is intentional with the German locomotive, as the slightly pliable construction afforded by the bar is also intentional with us. The reason is this: The curves and gradients are with us in Amer usually inferior to that found in Germany, if I may except some stretches in the northwest, as on the great lines from Hamburg and from Bremen to Berlin. To meet the requirements of a cheaply laid road-bed the engine frame must give a little; and as the extremes of temperature are greater and the changes more sudden in America than in Europe, there is all the more need for a pliable (that is to say an elastic) con struction. "The swinging truck in front is usually absent, and is as like as not supplied, on many roads, by a single axle having only a slight amount of adjustability, and that little obtained as much by end-play as by pivotal motion. The driving and truck wheels are forged up instead of having cast centers with steel tires, as is the case with all our engines except some of those built by the Baldwins; but while the Baldwin centers are struck up of two steel discs crimped between dies into hub and spokes, or at least into one face of each, afterwards welded together so as to leave hollow spokes, the German engines are more apt to have their drivers built up of complete parts, hydraulic forged by steady pressure and then squeezed together by the same means. The tender-wheels are also spoked and are made in the same way as the drivers; and running the eye along the whole train of say 150 axles (the limit of train length), nothing but forged wheels, with spokes, will be seen. "The inside cylinders which still appear in England and occasion so much pleasure to the engine-driver (not the engineer' or even the engine-runner,' as with us) when he has to lie down on his back to get at the slide-valves which lie vertically between the cylinders, are absent here; and with them the cranked axles, which are so frequent a cause of accident. But one peculiarity which we do not find in America is the 'back rod' (a front rod' it might be called on a locomotive, although I have never heard it so called), which gives the enginerunner one more stuffing box to pack on each cylinder. Whether this is any use or not in helping with the alignment and centrality of the piston on a stiff German engine, is at least an open question. With us it would interfere with the idea of pliability which we keep so prominently before us in engine designing, and which was so important a feature, in the opinion of the late Matthew Baldwin, that he even made crank-pins and brasses with spherical surfaces so as to give a ball-and-socket joint. "The absence of a 'cow-catcher' here strikes the American as strangely as its presence and necessity strikes the European. The train and the passer-by are better protected in Germany than with us, against the heedlessness of the latter; tracks are better fenced, and crossings, when necessarily at grade, much better guarded, while trespass on the track is severely punished by fine or imprisonment. Hence the cow-catcher is not needed to save cattle, persons or trains. There are instead two buffer plates with springs, permitting the engine to 'bunt' a train without severe jar, or to be coupled up thereto (by the screw couplings here used universally) so as to make the train more of a continuous unit than with us. The headlight is absent, its place being filled by two good lanterns at the buffer level. Bell, there is none; the attendants at stations ring a hand-bell to signal the starting, and at all grade-crossings the gates are down; or, if not, attendants with flags and hand bells warn the passers that the train is passing or about to pass. There is no whistle, and no need for one. There is entire absence of brass finish-even brass jacket-straps; the engine is considered as a tool to do work, and no more thought is given to ornamenting it than we would give to decorating a coal-shovel. "Equalizing levers are not called for, as with us; the tracks are stout enough to take the whole load likely to be imposed upon them, and the engine strong enough to take any jar likely to occur; twists and skews are not expected, and not allowed for. "The screw-reversing gear is something that in America is unknown and unwished for; yet, when in the cab of an engine on the Prussian Military Railway at Mahlow, last year, directing the work of an American rotary snow-plow which was being tried there, and finding considerable difficulty from the engine-runner 'biting off more than he could chew' and hence clogging the shovels by reason of his going too fast or getting too far in before he could withdraw, I expressed a regret that there was not an American reverse-lever gear instead of the screw. I was much surprised at his reply that that very engine, like many others on both the Prussian State Railways and the Military Railways (they are distinct systems) had had the reverse-lever and that the screw gear had been fitted instead. "Perhaps when we consider the very much less occasion for instantaneous reversal on these roads than on ours, we will agree with the German engineers and engine-runners, that the screw, giving certainly a finer grade of expansionadjustment, and less likelihood of the runner being thrown out through the cab window, is preferable under the conditions here prevailing. "The substitution of flange coupling joints for the screw joints which we use in all pipe connections, strikes us as good for the bolt, nut and sheet packing business, and as such it has its uses, but it certainly not merely mars the appearance of all fittings, as injectors, lubricators, etc., and of the pipes leading to and from these, but prevents the fittings and pipes being placed as conveniently and compactly as with us. "One notices on almost every German cock, valve, etc., the words 'open,' 'shut,' etc., and this matter of labeling or indicating is carried out all through German life. It is not merely the words 'eingang' and 'ausgang' ('way in' and way out'), which they use in the plain language of the people instead of the Latin 'exit,' etc., which we use, but the frequency of these directions, to prevent people from going astray and thus making trouble for others. The German is not allowed to get hurt or go astray, partly out of regard for the individual, but more, I believe, out of consideration for the many. "The fuel mostly used on German railways is of German or Bohemian origin; usually, in Saxony, the latter. It would with us be called almost a lignite, being very soft and pliable, and brown in color, and producing a great deal of smoke when burned in any manner but that adopted in domestic stoves, in which, after the fire is lighted, the upper and under doors are screwed shut, air tight. This system, however, is hardly adapted for locomotive purposes." Cars and Coaches. "Passing the tender with its iron Ibeam frame, its three axles with wrought iron spoked wheels, and its great leaf springs, we note the couplings" between the cars to be entirely unlike our own in construction and operation. In the first place each car has at each end, entirely independent of the other end, two plate buffers with volute springs, and the intention is to couple the cars so as to leave these springs nearly half compressed when the train is being hauled on a tangent. To effect this there is swung up from each car a pair of screw and hook couplings, and the screws are turned until the desired compression of the buffer springs is accomplished. Each 1-2. Street Crossing Watchman (note the bell). 3. Station Master. 4. Inspector. TYPES OF GERMAN RY, EMPLOYES |