It seems evident that we must follow the
lead of the steamship men, and compound the locomotive engine, as
they have done with the marine engine.
Next we must attack the extravagant furnace, and increase its area and
reduce the depth of the bed of coal. The difficulty of making this
change seemed to me to be removed, on examining an engine on the
Providence & Bristol Railroad, the other day. The machine was made at
the Mason Works, of Taunton. It was an engine and tender combined, the
truck being at the rear end of the tender, and the driver placed well
in advance of the fire-box, so that the maximum weight of both engine
and tender rested upon the drivers. In thus removing the drivers from
the proximity of the fire-box, abundant facility is afforded for
widening the fire-box, so as to obtain a grate area as large as that
of the Wootten engine or of a stationary boiler. It seems to me the
increase of grate area can be obtained only by widening; for a length
of more than six or seven feet is very hard upon the fireman. You
certainly cannot get more power by deepening present fire-boxes,
except by an enormously increased waste of fuel, which all will
concede is already sufficiently extravagant.
In arriving at the conclusion of these hasty and I fear somewhat
incoherent remarks, I would say that the object aimed at for the
improvement of the locomotive would be reached, first, by making steam
economically, by employing such increased grate area as will permit
running thin fires and moderate or comparatively slow draught; and,
secondly, in economically using the steam which has been economically
made by compounding the engine.
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