Railway Age Gazette Including the Railroad Gazette and the Railway Age EDITORIAL: Editorial Notes Locomotive Firebox Tests SEPTEMBER 27, 1912. CONTENTS NUMBER 13. Electrical Equipment for a Bascule Bridge; by C. H. Norwood.. W. J. Harahan and the Seaboard Air Line.. 561 562 562 .563, 611 .565, 606 .566, 609 .567, 602 568 569 572 575 577 Cost Accounting in the Engineering Department; by C. D. Passage. 578 Thomas Fowler and the New York, Ontario & Western. 582 586 586 587 583 Legislation Relating to Operation. Foreign Railway Notes... 584 584 584 .571, 575, 581, 582, 583, 584, 587 O more perplexing problem has confronted the mechanical department officers of the railways than that of tender derailments. For years these officers, spurred on by frequent accidents due to this cause, have carefully studied it, and many suggestions have been made as to how the design or construction of the tenders could be improved to overcome the difficulty. In spite of all this, a study of the reports of accidents indicates that the tender is often the first part of the train to leave the track, indicating that there is still much to be desired in the way of improvement. E. W. Summers gives an interesting and rather convincing reason for tender derailments in a letter in another part of this issue. Briefly, he shows that the combination of a high spot in the track and the compression of the truck springs on the same side of the tender, due to a lurching or swaying movement, will produce a hammer blow of such large proportions that something must be distorted or broken. The logical solution of the problem is to provide a truck of such a design that the above condition could not possibly occur. Mr. Summers' suggestion is well worth careful investigation and study. AS was stated in the paper on the Electrical Equipment of Railway Shops, read before the Western Railway Club by G. W. Cravens, and reported in our last issue, the adoption of the electrical system and various appliances depends upon the more or less limited experience of the users. In making improvements of this kind the subject should be thoroughly studied; experts should be consulted and the latest improvements of the various manufacturers should be considered. Many shops adhere strictly to the use of either the alternating or direct current system, whereas a combination of both oftentimes gives the best results. The introduction of automatic electrical devices has done a great deal in making the electrically equipped shop a necessity where economy is considered. Among these may be considered the push button feature for starting and stopping the machines. With this arrangement the workman will be able to devote more time to his output and will be more liable to stop the machine while it is not performing actual work, as it takes but a few seconds to get the most heavy machines up to speed with this device. In this way power is saved and the wear and tear of the equipment is reduced. It will also protect the machine and motor from overloads, for too great a current demand will automatically trip the switch. Mr. Cravens recommends the combination of the flaming arc for general illumination with tungsten clusters for group lighting, and the incandescent lights for individual machines. Good lighting consists in throwing the light on the work and not in the eyes of the workman. THERE HERE is probably no employee of a railway company who has work that is harder to perform satisfactorily and especially courteously than has the man in charge either of the information bureau of a railway in a large station or the parcels check room. The discourtesy that is so often noticed at a railway information bureau is explained and often extenuated by a reference to the difficulties of the work. These annoyances, however, are no greater than those of the men who are checking parcels and other hand baggage; and, added to the passenger's ignorance, hurry, unreasonable requests, etc., is the rather trying physical work of lifting heavy bags in the case of the men in charge of the parcels room. It is not, however, impossible to get men to do either of these services satisfactorily and courteously, and this statement is not based on theory. At the Grand Central station in New York is a parcels room that is as busy, probably, as any in the country, and yet the holder of this concession has succeeded in obtaining and training a force of men who do the work rapidly, accurately and quite uniformly in a courteous way. The first requirement is that the employees for such service must be very carefully selected. A nervous man is impossible in such a position, and this is equally true in the case of a railway information bureau in a large station or, as far as that's concerned, in the local ticket office in a large station doing a rush suburban service. After the proper men have been selected to do the work, they should be carefully trained. Lack of proper training of employees is often held up as one of the cardinal sins of the railways. Of course, each railway has its own rules and methods in regard to training; but it probably is a fact that on a great number of roads the training for such positions as those just mentioned is far from adequate. It is hardly necessary to enlarge again on the importance of such positions, from the railway company's point of view, or on the extent to which the public's opinion of railways is formed by the attitude of just such employees. The Railway Age Ga zette has often spoken earnestly on this point; but what it is desired to call attention to here is the fact that at the present time, in one of the busiest stations in the country, such training and selection of a certain class of employees has been successfully carried out, and the results are plain to anyone who uses that station. LOCOMOTIVE FIREBOX TESTS. RAILWAY officers at large are looking forward to the pub lication of the results of the locomotive boiler tests which were made at Coatesville, Pa., last spring, under the direction of Dr. W. F. M. Goss. The closing part of the test, including the spectacular attempt to blow up the two boilers of the radial stay and Jacobs-Shupert types, is familiar to our readers, a complete account of it having appeared in the Railway Age Gazette of June 28, 1912, page 1595. The crown sheet of the radial stay boiler was blown down, while the Jacobs-Shupert boiler came through the test uninjured, although the water was boiled from the boiler to such an extent that sufficient steam could not be obtained to furnish a draft to keep the fire going. In a paper before the New York Railway Club last week A. W. Whiteford discussed the relation of locomotive boiler design to efficiency, maintenance and safety, and referred to the evaporative tests at Coatesville. The report made by Dr. Goss has not yet been published, in fact we are told that his statement of conclusions has not yet been completed, so that in some respects it might have been much better for Mr. Whiteford to have read his paper at a later meeting, or to have refrained from stating in so general terms such of Dr. Goss' results as he did, for railway men who are interested in the subject will want to have the complete data before them before drawing any conclusions as to the type of boiler best suited to their needs. The most important statements made by Mr. Whiteford may be summed up as follows: At ordinary rates of combustion both types of boiler gives practically the same economy, with a possible slight advantage for the sectional boilers at higher rates when coal is used as the fuel; one foot of firebox heating surface is equivalent to 7.6 ft. of the tube heating surface, thus indicating the importance of a large firebox heating surface. From the results of the final test there is little question but that the sectional boiler will be more safe than the ordinary radial stay boiler. The problem of maintenance, the remaining factor, is something that can only be decided by thorough trials in actual service. A. M. McGill, shop superintendent of the Lehigh Valley, said that sectional boilers had been in use on that road during the past five months and that very little scale had accumulated; and that no difficulty was found in washing the boilers out thoroughly. The master boiler maker of the same road, Thomas Lewis, said that the sectional boiler was easier to inspect than the radial stay. Mr. Whiteford mentioned an instance where the sectional boilers on the Santa Fe had a very much longer life than radial stay boilers in the same service. He also suggested that while the economy of the two types of boilers might be the same when both were in first class condition, as at the Coatesville tests, it was altogether probable that the sectional boiler would show up to much better advantage after the boilers had been in service a while, because of the fact that scale does not accumulate in the sectional boiler to the same extent as in the radial stay type and it can be kept cleaner. George L. Fowler, who made a series of circulation tests on the boilers at Coatesville, found that the rate of flow of the water in the water leg of the firebox was extremely low-only a few feet a second—and that the stay plates used in the sectional boiler could not, therefore, affect the efficiency of the boiler by impeding the circulation. It is expected that Dr. Goss' complete report will shortly be available, at which time we will review the tests more thoroughly. AUTOMATIC STOP OR CAB SIGNAL? TH HE automatic stop propaganda has made very slow progress. The experience on the underground lines of the Interborough in New York City has now been a familiar fact for eight years; numerous inventors have worked industriously in the whole field, and we now have a good variety of plans or methods; and a few experiments have been made on the lines of conservative railways, as was shown in our article of September 20; but still there is no general advance. There are good reasons for this lack of progress. In the first place the best managed railways have made good records for safety without any mechanical check on the engineman. A second troublesome objection to the automatic stop is that, although it is simple in theory, there are serious difficulties which would surely be encountered in the management of long freight trains and in the arrangement of the signals and the stopping apparatus at and near junctions; and there is the general difficulty, at all places, of keeping up the very highest maintenance at all times. A third obstacle is the necessity of reducing the capacity of the railway by the use of the overlap. All of these are weighty considerations. As compared with other operations performed by the human mind and hand, the best railways are able, for long periods, to show really high percentages of safety in obedience to signals. Well-known fast trains are run many thousands, and even millions of miles with no fatal failure. We are constantly demanding of the train operating department a very high degree of perfection, and this demand is met in a way which would be called marvelous were it not such a familiar fact. The tendency to stick to well tried means is not strange. In considering the second point we have to remember that stopping long and heavy freight trains by a quick application of the air brakes is a fine art which is not yet fully mastered. Numerous inventors promise an automatic stop which will apply the power brakes vigorously on one train and mildly on another; but this is a difficult problem also; and its solution would call for a long campaign. At junctions, where "blocking back" may be necessary every day, an overlap extends the distant signal so far back that the signalman would be liable constantly to stop heavy trains unnecessarily, and perhaps at some risk. As to the overlap, on those roads where stops are most needed the traffic is dense and the demand of the traffic manager is that trains shall be run as closely together as practicable. To do this, and at the same time use the overlap, necessitates shortening the blocks to the lowest limit; and if there are fast trains, the introduction of a series of short blocks makes it necessary to have two or more distant signals, which introduces an undesirable complication. And any unnecessary space between trains is a perpetual loss of efficiency. In the presence of this formidable array of reasons for doing nothing, only the boldest among railway officers have felt warranted in developing the automatic stop; and even the bold ones have realized, of course, that except under comparatively easy conditions, as in the subways, anything like complete success must be far in the distance. In this situation Mr. Cade, vice-president of the Federal Signal Company, and a veteran signal engineer, well known to railway officers, comes forward with what may be called a radical novelty. He proposes to abandon the attempt to make a machine take the place of a man. Instead, he would adopt a new method of making the man himself more surely to be depended upon. We print his letter on another page. Mr. Cade answers our question, Automatic Stop or Cab Signal? in favor of the cab signal, but when he gets into the cab he reverses the process, as it were. Instead of making the roadside apparatus go into the cab and affect the engineman, he has the engineman take action, in the cab, which will affect the roadside fixture. This scheme has very attractive features. An automatic stop provides for cases where the engineman does not see and obey the visual signal. The proposed apparatus will make him heed it if he is alive and mentally competent; and, this much accom plished, the question of securing action in accordance with what the signal says may be said to be easily dealt with. And if the engineman is dead or has fainted, the apparatus will call the attention of the other men on the front of the train. As it is fair to assume that these other men, the fireman and one or more trainmen, would hear the sounds made by the audible apparatus, we may reasonably say that all failures of enginemen to see distant signals are provided against. Leaving out of account inveterate recklessness, we may say that a cab signal is as good as an automatic stop, if the engineman is not dead or unconscious; this being so, Mr. Cade's scheme will be as effectual as an automatic stop, except when three men, the engineman, the fireman and the front end trainman are all insensible or dead. On an electric car the passengers would take the place of the trainmen as reserve guards, as the audible apparatus, being sounded only very rarely, can be made loud enough to startle everybody within a hundred yards. Every engineman has to do his work alone. His superior cannot be near him, and the monitorship of the fireman is of indifferent value. After years of use (in the printed book) of the rule requiring firemen to "call" signals to the enginemen, superintendents are far from agreed as to its worth, or as to how fully it can be applied to all situations, and how well it can be enforced. In this situation, surprise checking of enginemen has been our main recourse. This idea has been employed with much success now for a dozen years; but it is still far from being generally prescribed and carried out, and far from affording all the protection reasonably to be desired. Its satisfactory enforcement is full of perplexity. Mr. Cade's scheme at once provides universal checking in the place of occasional checking. He calls the engineman to account at every distant signal; and the distant is the vital signal. In short, the scheme here presented proposes to make the observance of visual signals so entirely satisfactory that the demand for an automatic stop will die out. The first objection to Mr. Cade's scheme is that the apparatus does not report its own failures; it is not arranged on the "closed circuit" principle. This principle, which demands that any instrumentality which, by action or failure to act, can help a train along on its journey, shall instantly disclose its condition whenever it is out of order, so that its indication, favorable or unfavorable, cannot be depended on, is held very tenaciously by conservative signal engineers. It is made a first requirement, wherever possible. Mr. Cade, himself, has, no doubt, sworn by this principle all his life, and realizes its importance, for he is a conservative of the conservatives. There is also the objection to all devices requiring special equipment on engines, reinforced by general conservatism. To this last it seems sufficient to say that the sentiment in favor of any scheme of experimentation in this line which looks hopeful is now too strong to be ignored. There is an answer also to the main objection; and it is not to be laughed out of court. Any proposal to depend on "open circuit" schemes is to be considered with great caution; but such dependence is not in practice the great and fundamental error which it is sometimes thought to be. It is not unknown in railway operation; it is a familiar fact. A track relay may stick and hold a signal at clear, and the dangerous condition not be disclosed. The signalman at an interlocking cabin has opportunity constantly to make various dangerous mistakes, and no one can prove anything against him. The safety of a locomotive boiler depends, in important features, on the unremitting vigilance of the engineman. But in all these things a high degree of efficiency is maintained, nevertheless. Mr. Cade holds that a high degree of efficiency can be maintained in the care of his adjunct to the fixed visual signal. He will be called upon to "make good." He does not describe the apparatus which he has in mind, but there is nothing inherently impracticable in the idea. In view of his knowledge and experience, and of the completeness with which he has met the views entertained by con servative railway officers, we may fairly say that his scheme should have a friendly reception. It is to be remembered that his adjunct is only an adjunct. If it should fail entirely, in a given case, there is a strong presumption that, if the apparatus has been well cared for, the engineman would not fail on that same occasion. A failure of the new auxiliary apparatus would not be equivalent to a positive proceed signal (as in the case with an automatic stopping apparatus which gives no proceed indication). The engineman would not know that it failed. In fact, he cannot depend on it at all. In the ordinary routine he knows nothing about it except that it is the invisible reason why he is required to be very careful to do his duty as he approaches every distant signal. And to make men careful, when the problem is taken up in the right way, is not such an utterly hopeless task as we often assume it to be. A "smash signal" at a certain drawbridge on one of the busiest railways in the country, performed its functions untouched by a locomotive for over twenty years. If it be said that enginemen are always much more careful at drawbridges than at places which seem to them less dangerous, we may reply that with Mr. Cade's scheme, if it works out well, we can, at an expense not entirely beyond reason, make the entrance of every block section in a sense as dangerous as a drawbridge. "Dangerous," we mean, to the engineman; the danger of losing his job. Making actual danger would be a questionable policy. It is possible that we do too much of that now, in the use of derails. THE MISSOURI PACIFIC. HE annual report of the Missouri Pacific and of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, which are together operated as one property, is a rather unusual account of the benefits resulting from improvements made in the two previous years and showing in a year while further extensive improvements were being made. It is seldom that a property which is still undergoing heavy improvement work reflects, in increased gross business handled at a decreased cost, the effect of very recent betterment work. Generally the increased cost of handling traffic due to additional betterment work offsets the benefits due to work just completed. Possibly the fact that there was such a wide margin for improvement on the Missouri Pacific accounts for the showing that was made in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1912. The Missouri Pacific and the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern together operate 7,231 miles. Although the road runs through highly competitive territory in places, its average ton mile rate is not low, being last year 8.24 mills. As will be seen from the map, the road connects the best traffic producing cities in the Middle West, and in most of these cities it has terminals of its own, which in many cases are very advantageously located as compared with its competitors. It enters the Illinois coal fields; and in 1912, 21 per cent. of the total tonnage carried was bituminous coal, with 16 per cent. of the total tonnage products of agriculture and only 14 per cent. manufactures. In 1912 operating revenues amounted to $54,500,000, an increase of $1,730,000, or 3.27 per cent., over 1911. Total operating expenses amounted to $41,280,000, a decrease of $2,050,000, or 4.73 per cent. After the payment of fixed charges and rentals there was a net corporate loss of $1,980,000, as compared with a net corporate loss in 1911 of $5,230,000. This is a decrease of 62.18 per cent. in loss. The increase in revenues came from an increase in freight traffic amounting to 3.35 per cent., and an increase in average length of haul amounting to 12.64 per cent. Thus the revenue tons carried one mile totalled 4,794,000,000 in 1912, an increase of 402,000,000 ton miles, or 9.15 per cent.; the average receipts per ton per mile being slightly less (3.85 per cent.) in 1912 than in 1911, and, as was previously mentioned, amounting to 8.24 mills in 1912. Passenger business decreased, passenger mileage amounting to 463,000,000 in 1912, as compared with 488,000,000 in 1911. Of course, passenger service could not be cut down to offset the decrease in business. The most important increase in tonnage was in bituminous coal. This tonnage amounted to 4,230,000 tons in 1912, an increase over 1911 of 36.5 per cent. It is probable that this remarkable increase in coal tonnage is due to the fact that owing to the improvements made in 1910 and 1911 the Missouri Pacific is now able to handle coal tonnage, whereas in 1910 it was not in physical shape to take care of this low-grade traffic. It is hard to overestimate the importance of such an increase as this in coal traffic in considering what the road may do as compared with what it has done in the past. Crop prospects in the territory served by the Missouri Pacific were never brighter than they are for the present year. In 1912 the road carried 3,290,000 tons of agricultural products, or about 8.6 per cent. less than in 1911. Agricultural products last year formed 16.3 per cent. of the total tonnage. With prospects for very much increased tonnage of agricultural products in the 1912-13 year, and with no present prospect of a let-up in the demand for bituminous coal for manufacturing purposes as well as domestic purposes, and with the aid of the very extensive improvements was shown so soon after the program of improvement was commenced under the new régime. Additions and betterments to roadway and track cost $4,110,000. A total of 542 miles of track was ballasted largely with chatts, cinders and gravel; embankments and cuts have been widened on 566 miles; 322 miles of track were laid with new 85-lb. rail; 69 miles of second track were completed; 1,403 miles of manual telephone block signals were established. Missouri Pacific in 1912 bought its first heavy power. One Mallet was bought, 50 Mikado locomotives and 14 Pacific type, the latter having an average tractive power of 31,500 lbs. The improvement in train loading has already been mentioned. Car loading was also heavier, due probably, in part at least, to the increase in proportion of low-grade freight. The Missouri Pacific has a very light freight and passenger density. In 1912 the average ton miles carried per mile of road amounted to but 663,051. This, however, is an increase of 9.21 per cent. over 1911, and the passenger miles per mile of road amounted to 64,048, a decrease of 5.11 per cent. To carry 9.15 per cent. more ton miles in 1912 than in 1911, the Missouri Pacific used 6.89 per cent. less freight train miles. Average loaded cars per that have been made during the year 1911-12, the prospects for the fiscal year that will end June 30, 1913, are probably better than they ever have been for the Missouri Pacific. In studying the annual report for 1912 one constantly has to bear in mind the fact that comparisons between 1912 and 1911 are for the Missouri Pacific, and that however much the improvements themselves call for admiration and enthusiasm, the property still has a long way to go before it can be considered in the same class, either as a railway or as an investment, as many of its competitors. Even in 1912 the combined Missouri Pacific and St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern earned only $7.538 per mile operated. The average revenue train load was 333 tons; the average tractive power of its locomotives was 28,319 lbs. Only 38 per cent. of the total track was laid with 85-lb. rails or heavier, and 32 per cent. was laid with 56, 54 and 52-lb. rails. It will take years of improvement and betterment to put the property in shape to compare with the Union Pacific. The remarkable thing about last year's operations, however, was the fact that such marked improvement in operating efficiency train totalled 19.70 as against 17.93 the year before, an increase of 9.87 per cent. The company, however, did not increase its per cent. of loaded car miles to total car mileage. During the year, the Missouri Pacific sold $4,000,000 bonds and $1,553,000 equipment trust obligations. There was on deposit with trustees at the end of the year $5,450,000 cash available for additions and betterments. The Missouri Pacific, itself, excluding the Iron Mountain, had on hand $1,480,000 cash, with no loans and bills payable, and total working liabilities of $5,820,000. The St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern had on hand $830,000 cash, with a little over $800,000 loans and bills payable, which has been paid off since the close of the fiscal year through the sale of securities, and total working liabilities excluding the loans and bills payable of $5,267,288. Although the working capital of the Missouri Pacific and the Iron Mountain combined is still much too small for a property carrying on the business that this system does, the companies are in very much better financial shape than they have been for a number of years, and from a study of the income account one is inclined to agree with Presi in mind in comparing the figures in this year's annual report with those for 1911; but even so it is not by any means sufficient to explain such a remarkable increase in operating efficiency as is shown by an increase in the average revenue train load of 100 tons, bringing the average for 1912 up to 756 tons. Neither is it probable that the improvement in condition and operation of the Chicago line is sufficient to account for an increase last year of from $32,580,000 in total operating revenues in 1911 to $34,290,000 in 1912. This increase occurred in a year that was not generally prosperous for railways, and in a year in which the weather was quite unusually severe, with consequent increased difficulties in handling business. The Chesapeake & Ohio operates 2,306 miles of road, including the Chicago line, but excluding, of course, the Hocking Valley, which is controlled but not operated as part of the C. & O. The C. & O. now has two tracks all the way from New DESPITE the fact that the Chicago line of the Chesapeake port News, Va., to Cincinnati, Ohio, with the exception of nine & Ohio has not begun to yield any return to the parent company on the sums invested in this property the C. & O. earned in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1912, a net available for dividends of $4,270,000, or $1,050,000 more than in the year before. This is equivalent to 6.81 per cent. on the total stock Chicago miles in the mountains of West Virginia, which at present there is no immediate intention of double-tracking. The Chicago line is single track, with the exception of its entrance into Chicago. The freight density, that is, ton miles carried per mile of outstanding, and is after the payment of fixed charges, which include the interest on the cost of the Chicago line. It will be recalled that in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910, the Chesapeake & Ohio earned over 10 per cent. on its stock. In 1911, the first year in which the operations of the Chicago line were included, the company earned but 5.14 per cent. after paying, however, the interest charges on the cost of the new line. In both 1911 and 1912 interest charges include the carrying charges of the Hocking Valley majority stock and the half interest held in the Kanawha & Michigan. In 1911 not only did the C. & O. have the financial burden of the Chicago line to bear, but the fact that this line was not in physical shape to handle the traffic which the C. & O. could turn over to it made the operations of the C. & O. itself probably somewhat more expensive, and when the figures were combined made the average cost per ton mile of operating the entire property very considerably higher. This, of course, should be borne road, was 2,960,000 in 1912, an increase of 8.4 per cent. over 1911. The average revenue per ton per mile for coal was 3.17 mills in 1912 and 3.22 mills in 1911; and the average revenue per ton per mile for freight other than coal was 6.39 mills in 1912 and 6.45 mills in 1911. Of the total tonnage carried, 68.11 per cent. is bituminous coal, nearly all of which originates on the lines of the C. & O. The tonnage of bituminous coal in 1912 amounted to 17,810,000 tons, as compared with 15,750,000 in 1911. Besides its heavy freight density, the C. & O. has a passenger density of 110,000 in 1912, a slightly lower density than in 1911. The C. & O. operates in highly competitive territory. It is paralleled as far west as Cincinnati, at places quite closely, by the Norfolk & Western; its coal has to compete with the coal of both the Norfolk & Western and the Pennsylvania, as well as the Baltimore & Ohio; so that its prospects for higher earnings in the future depend on its ability to handle ton miles |