Bulletin 73. Brass-furnace practice in the United States, by H. W. Gillett. 1914. 298 pp., 2 pls., 23 figs. Technical Paper 45. Waste of oil and gas in the Mid-Continent fields, by R. S. Blatchley. 1914. 57 pp., 2 pls., 15 figs. Technical Paper 70. Methods of recovering oil in California, by Ralph Arnold and V. R. Garfias. 1914. 57 pp., 7 figs. Technical Paper 73. Quarry accidents in the United States during 1912, compiled by A. H. Fay. 1914. 45 pp. Technical Paper 75. Permissible electric lamps for miners, by H. H. Clark. 1914. 21 pp., 3 figs. Book Reviews. valuable to the engineer or machinist. It Plain Facts on Locomotive Firing.This is a handy book for locomotive firemen, with practical suggestions upon proper methods of firing, by W. W. Thompson and J. McManamy. It gives some plain facts upon firing locomotives; treats of automatic fire doors, with questions and answers regarding the fire door; automatic grate shaker; Street locomotive stoker; description, operation and maintenance of the top header (Schmidt) superheater; oil fuel; combustion of bituminous coal in a locomotive firebox; superheated steam; miscellaneous; contains a list of important tunnels of the world, and tables of railroad equipment, etc. The information embodied in this book should prove helpful to all locomotive firemen. It contains 60 pages, size 4 x 7 inches, illustrated, and bound in limp cover. Price, $1. Orders should be addressed to W. W. Thompson, 413 Sheldon Avenue, Grand Rapids, Mich. Motorcycles, Side Cars and Cyclecars.— This is a new book by Victor W. Page, M. E., author of "The Modern Gasoline Automobile," etc., etc. It traces the motorcycle from its earliest forms to the approved models of the present day and gives detailed descriptions of the leading types of machines, their design, construction, maintenance, operation and repair. The representative types of free engine clutches, variable speed gears and power transmission systems, two and four cycle power plants, ignition, carburetion and lubrication systems, electric self-starting and lighting systems, types of spring Link Motions, Valve Gears and Valve frames and spring forks, and leading conSetting. This is the third edition, re- trol methods are fully treated. The book vised and enlarged, of this excellent trea- contains chapters on motorcycle developtise by Fred H. Colvin, Associate Editor ment and design; the motorcycle power American Machinist. In an interesting plant group; construction and design of chapter on locomotive link motion the in- engine parts; lubrication, carburetion and formation is given that same was the in- ignition; power transmission system vention of a man by the name of Wiliams, parts; design and construction of frame and not of Howe or Stephenson as gener- parts; constructional features of cycleally supposed. In the chapter on valve cars; motorcycle maintenance, operation movements, the complete movements of and repair. Tables and formulas to asvalves under various conditions of travel, sist in designing are included for those lap and lead are shown by twelve charts. desiring technical information, as well as There are chapters on slide valve setting; much other data of a practical, helpful analysis by diagrams; modern practice; engineering nature. It is written in a slip of block; slide valves; piston valves; pleasing, entertaining style easy to undersetting piston valves, and a chapter on stand, and should prove a valuable work other valve gears such as the Joy, Allen, of reference. It contains 550 pages, size Gooch, Allfree-Hubbell, Walschaerts, 5 x 7 inches, with folders, profusely ilBaker, and Southern. It should prove lustrated, and bound in cloth. Price, $1.50. Published by The Norman W. hard; motor stops without warning; moHenley Publishing Company, 132 Nassau tor stops gradually; motor races; motor Street, New York City. will not speed up; motor will not stop; Location of Motorcycle Power Plant motor speeds up suddenly; motor runs Troubles Made Easy.-This is a chart ar- irregularly or misfires; motor noisy in ranged by Victor W. Page, M. E., and action; motor loses power. It should shows a sectional view of a single cylinder prove useful to anyone who has to do with gasoline engine with the names of parts the operation, repair or sale of motor designated thereon. Printed at each side cycles. Size 30 x 20 inches. Price, 25 of the chart is a review of cycle troubles, cents. Published by The Norman W. same being treated under the following Henley Publishing Company, 132 Nassau heads: Motor will not start or starts Street, New York City. Echoes from the Firing Line Engine Blocking Netting. In the May, 1914, issue of the Magazine, page 589, W. L. asks: ". if the engine was drifting down hill and lubricator feeding freely, when the throttle was opened would she throw oil over the netting?" A short time ago, after running freight all winter, I went out on a passenger train one night and had the same engine that pulled that same train over this subdivision since April, 1908. I had run the same train over different sub-divisions with this engine and other engines of the зame class, Pacific type, a few months every year for several years, and those engines were all free steamers, and I believe their draft appliances were good. The engine was steaming poorly on that trip and the fireman told me she had been failing that way for a little while past. I knew that all the engines had been supplied with a very low grade of coal for a few days, and that would account for steam getting low; but she was burning her coal only in back of firebox and building a high bank ahead, and I knew that the fireman could keep a level fire if engine were all right. very very When I came in after the trip I asked for the diaphragm to be lowered. The roundhouse foreman began to shiver and change color when asked to alter the smokebox arrangement. The poor man had been one of the best fitters in this shop. He was also the man who would take abuse the most gracefully from the former foreman, who was exacting and ill-tempered. So when the former foreman was promoted to the position of master mechanic he chose that good fitter and good-natured fellow for roundhouse foreman, and had him appointed. Likely he expected the good workman to have work well done and to always take the blame if something went wrong, whether the blame belonged to the M. M., the foreman, or somebody else. The new foreman appears to be afraid of his superior officer, and also afraid to do some work while trying to improve things and make them worse. The only thing he appears to be not afraid of is to leave work undone. Possibly he can offer as an excuse for that that he has too much to do with his limited number of men. Reverting back to the subject, will say that the baffle plate was behind the steam pipes and nozzle and hard to get at when the boiler was still hot. The position of the petticoat pipe was such as to make it much easier to alter. The foreman had the petticoat pipe raised so that the bottom tubes would not take so much of the tube cleaner's time. He knew the fire would burn more evenly after raising the petticoat pipe if she had blocked her fire ahead, and it would save the fitter the harder job of lowering the diaphragm. On the second trip the man firing for me was an engineer who had been put back on account of a reduction of traffic. I knew him, as well as the first fireman, and that he could keep the engine hot with very little difficulty when there was days, and during the same period we were nothing wrong. The engine steamed well burning the poorest coal we had had for until we were about half way over the a year. The first trip was made after road. Then the steam pressure came the tube cleaner had cleaned the top down so fast that we had to open the tubes, while the second trip was made smokebox door to take out cinders. The after he had cleaned the lower half of netting was blocked badly and we lost them and cleaned them all. When he twelve minutes, having to clean the net- told me this, I then understood why the ting three times. When I got in I asked engine had burned her coal only at the that the petticoat pipe be put lower than back of the firebox while making the first the standard, in order to see what change trip and had maintained a level fire on it would make, and the foreman appeared the second trip. to be more afraid to have the engine losing time than. to have the change made. The petticoat pipe was lowered and she has not blocked her netting since and has steamed good. The petticoat pipe is very low now and this engine does not bank her fire at the back any more than at the front of the firebox, and the top flues do not fill up any more than the lower ones. Previous to The reason for the engine not steaming this she had burned her fire level and in the first place was that the west-bound steamed well when the petticoat pipe was train had run very late for several days, high and the tubes clean, but only until this during extreme cold weather. The the netting became blocked; the remedyengine coming in late, the tube cleaner lower the petticoat pipe and give her all had no time to get on her at all for a few the oil you like. MEMBER, LODGE 119. Our Special Study Course TRAIN STEAM AND HOT-WATER HEATING (PART 4, SECTION 2.) Copyright, 1914, by Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen. The Vapor System of Car Heating-Continued. 1. Standards Common to All Systems. In all systems of present-day trainheating by steam, the train pipe, hose and hose couplings are practically alike, the inside diameter of train pipe and hose, the location of train-pipe ends and the contact faces and connecting parts of hose couplings being made on one standard for all American railroads, for convenience in the interchange of cars; these standards have already been described, and in explaining the straight vapor system of train heating those common parts will not again be explained in detail. The particular system selected as the subject of this paper is that manufactured by the Chicago Car Heating Co. 2. Arrangement of Piping, Valves, etc.-Fig. 1 is a plan view of the Chicago Car Heating Co.'s style of the "straight" Vapor Heating Equipment as applied to a passenger coach; it is of the "single-unit coil" description-meaning that on each side of the interior of the coach there is a single set of pipes, or "coil," for the circulation of the atmospheric-pressure steam, or vapor, that heats the car, and that the vapor is admitted from the train pipe to, or cut off from, each "coil" by a single valve (located on the floor, each valve opposite the corresponding one across the aisle, under the near end of a seat); these two Vapor Cut-out Valves are the only devices within the car for operating this style of train heating, and are, in fact, the only man-operated valves in the entire heating equipment of the car-with the exception of the common end, or train-pipe valves. In Fig. 1 the dotted lines show the parts of the equipment underneath the car; the full lines the interior equipment. The duty of the trainman or other operative is simple: the vapor cut-out valves have a lever handle with a movement of a quarter-turn only, and to admit the heating vapor to either or both sets of coils, either or both of the valve handles are to be turned fully to the position indicated as "open"; if a coil is to remain cold, the valve handle should remain fully in the position marked "shut"; as the cut plainly shows, steam from the train pipe, reduced to vapor at the “regulator" under the car, is received through one of the vertical pipes coming up through the floor to the cut-out valve, and if this valve is "open" the vapor will be admitted directly to one of the branch pipes on the floor (under car seat), thence entering one of the pipes of the main heating coil, through which it flows to one end of the car, doubling back to the other end and returning by way of the other branch pipe to the cut-out valve, from which the vapor and water of condensation passes down through another pipe in the floor, and back again to the regulator and thence to the atmosphere-or ground. |