Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/61

 A Fireless Locomotive

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��It is run on live steam secured from the power plant on the fac- tory site and stored in the engine tank until gradually exhausted

^HE locomotive illustrat- I ed consists of a large, round-ended tank with a false end at the front and fitted with only such appa- ratus as is required for the control of the steam to the cylinders. The latter, all the driving mechanism and the outside lagging to prevent heat radiation are exactly like those of an ordinar>' loco- motive.

Three crosswise perforated baffle plates are fitted in the tank. These serve to prevent the water from surging from one end to the other and to prevent the locomotive from rocking.

In operation, the tank is first filled about half full of water. This enters through a valve at the front and passes into and out of a long perforated pipe extending the full length of the tank near the bottom. Then live steam from the power plant on the factory site is admitted to the tank through the same pipe as was the water. By the time the pressure be- tween the boiler and the tank is equalized, generally at one hundred and fifty pounds, the water level in the tank will be raised considerably and the temperature of the water will be nearly equal to that of the steam by which it is charged, about three

���For freight-car switching service in and around industrial plants and factories, the fireless locomotive meets an urgent need

��BAFFIE PUTES

��THROTTLE VALVE

���The fireless locomotive has no boiler and no means of provid- ing fire. Outwardly, however, it resembles the steam engine

��hundred and seventy degrees Fahrenheit. The steam is then drawn off through a throttle-valve in a dome in the tank top and led through a pipe to a reducing-v^alve in the false front end of the tank. This valve reduces the pressure of the steam to between sixty and sixty-five pounds per square inch before it is led to the cylinders. These are especially large in diameter so that the piston area is such that the locomo- tive can be moved when the steam is at a pressure of four pounds. The exhaust steam is carried out through a pipe in the stack as shown.

As the steam is used, the pressure in the tank becomes less and less, allowing the water to evaporate gradually and maintain a steam supply until it has been depleted to the point where it is no longer sufficientlv effective.

��EXHAUST

'STtAM PIPE

) 5TACK

WATER

STEAM AND WATER CHARGING VALVE

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