Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 303, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1913 — MAKES COALING EASY MAKER [ARTICLE]

MAKES COALING EASY MAKER

Modern Machinery Loads Tons of Fuel In Space o? Only a Few ' ' Seconds. ~ The coaling of locomotives at large terminals, where a great many engines are dispatched, requires the handling of a large amount jgf coal. The modern engine carries 15 tons —30,000 pounds. In the early days this’ coal was shoveled direct from cars, carried into engines by hand In small two-bushel boxes, or taken direct from mines adjoining the main line, but since the near-by coal deposits have ’ been worked out and the mines have been located on spur tracks away from the main line, coal chutes designed to deliver coal in from one to ten ton lots on the engine tender have been erected at convenient places, usually about fifty miles apart. Freight trains require coal about every fifty miles, while passenger trains usually run 100 miles more without taking eoal. In renewing the old coaling plants or adapting them 'to double track, the Wabash railroad is erecting modern steel structures having 300 tons storage, and so arranged as to deliver coal on either the main tracks or passing tracks, or all, at the same time. The coal is dumped from self-clearing cars into a concrete pit, where it runs by gravity into an elevator having ton buckets, which are hoisted by electricity. The whole arrangement makes a resourceful and .economical coaling plant, as an engine can take ten tons of coal in as many seconds, thus insuring the minimum stoppages and avoiding delay to trains.