Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 198, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1912 — PURE WATER FOR THE BOILER [ARTICLE]

PURE WATER FOR THE BOILER

Western Railroad in the Future Will Safeguard the “Health” of its Locomotives. A western railroad has an official “water doctor” on its list of officials, whose duty It Is to see that the locomotives of that road are supplied with pure “drinking” water, suitable to the nature of the interior of the engines. Locomotives have persistent attacks of "dyspepsia" which cost the railroad considerable money. It seems that all waters have more or less of two kinds of mineral salts — Incrusting salts and alkali salts. These salts clog up th* boiler very quickly and make ft necessary to have the boiler “blown off” frequently, and now and then taken out of service and washed. Both the blowing out and the lay-offs mean a loss of money. By the liberal use of soda ash, through certain chemical processes, the salts can practically be eliminated from the water. As the waters vary at different points, the treatment must also vary, but this railroad intends to have the water at every point “cured” so that It will be suited exactly to locomotive consumption. The cost of the treatment will be about seventeen dollars an engine each year, but it is estimated that the saving on each engine on account of the “cured” water will amount to more than |4OO a year.