Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 273, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1915 — BUILDING STEEL CARS [ARTICLE]

BUILDING STEEL CARS

WORK THAT REQUIRES FINE SKILL AND MACHINERY. immense Shears That Cut Through a Quarter-Inch Plate With Ease— Thousands of Rivets Used on Every Carriage. The building in which steel box cars are constructed for a leading eastern railroad —the Altoona Steel Car shop—covers the space of a large city square and looks as though it had been buitt to be the mammoth of all convention halls. The visitor’s first impression is that he has entered a boiler factory. This is because every car is put together with 5,100 rivets and every rivet is driven home with a rattle of blows from a pneumatic riveting tool —unquestionably one of the most successful noise-makiqg devices ever invented. Someone with a taste for figures has calculated that on a busy day the riveting tools In this building strike 1,000,000 impacts upon resounding steel, or 25 to 30 per second throughout the working hours. A steel box car from the trucks up —that is, the underframe, body and roof—is built practically altogether of riveted steel plates. These plates are first moved by overhead cranes to the shearing machines, of which there are several of different sizes. Suspended in chains, so that they may be swung and turned with the least possible expenditure of human effort, the plates are seized by gangs of men, who, combining skill with brawn, guide them between the blades of the shears, where they are cut into the proper shapes. The largest of the shears can make a 10-foot cut in a quarter-inch steel plate about as easily as a tailor snips three inches from a piece of cloth. Next the rivet holes are punched. On the longest pieces this is done on the “multiple punch,” a wonderful machine which handles four pieces of work at once and can make as many as 160 holes through a half-inch steel plate on every movement. After the punching, if the plates are not intended for parts of the car which are perfectly flat —this is, if the edges are to be turned for riveting, of if they are to be bent into the “U” forms used in giving rigidity to the underframe —they next go to the forming presses. These are the most powerful machines in the shops. The largest of them is capable of exerting nearly 4,000,000 pounds pressure. It folds steel so noiselessly and easily that it is difficult to realize the enormous power that is applied. Fitting the center sills is the first job in “erecting” a car, Then a gang of men, armed with pneumatic riveting tools, fasten the sills together as fast as red-hot rivets can be tossed to them from the forges. Next in order, after the joining of the center sills, is the fitting and riveting of the diaphragms and braces, the application of air-brake equipment and couplers, and riveting the sides and ends. The car is then lifted from the small erecting trucks and lowered on a set of regular trucks which are placed on a standard gauge track leading out into the yards. The roof is next added. The last operation inside the shop is riveting on the side ladders and hand-holds and applying the hand-brake equipment. The car is pushed out into the yard, where it is cleaned with benzine, to remove grease. It is then ready for painting.