Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 161, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1916 — CENTENARY OF LOCOMOTIVE [ARTICLE]

CENTENARY OF LOCOMOTIVE

Progress Made In 100 Years Shown by Comparison of the Billy No. 1 and the Matt H. Bhay. In connection with the completion of the Matt E. Shay, the, largest locomotive ever put into service, the Erie railroad has issued a pamphlet describing the development of the locomotive since the Billy No. 1, the first locomotive with direct transmission of power' to the wheels, was put into service in 1815. Something of the change made in locomotive construe; tion during the last 100 years may be realized by a comparison of the Billy No. 1 and the Matt H. Shay. The Billy No. 1 was nine feet long, weighed 8,000 pounds and had a hauling capacity of 8,000 pounds, distributed on ten wagons. It had four driving wheels- two feet in diameter. The Matt H. Shay has a length of 105 feet, a weight of 410 tons, and Its hauling capacity is 640 gondola cars with a total weight of 90,000,000 pounds. It has 24 driving wheels of 63-inch diameter. If the Shay were placed at the head of a train of its maximum hauling capacity of 640 cars, the length of engina .and train would be four and three-quarters miles. In actual service it Das pulled a train two miles long, weighing 36,284,000 pounds, at a speed of 15 miles an hour. Other large locomotives are in service In this country. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe uses one with 1® driving wheels. Its weight is 616,000 pounds, and It can draw a train weighing 60,000,000 pounds. The Missouri Pacific owns a mountain type locomotive weighing 296,000 pounds which, can take a train of 1,640,000 pounds up a grade of more than 100 feet to the mile. The Chemin de Fer du Nord, a French railroad, operates a locomotive which weighs 225,000 pounds. These engines make a long step from the primitive Billy No. 1, but the principle of direct drive Is embodied in both the old and the new. There were locomotives before the Billy No. 1, but It was this engine upon which, in 1815, the British government issued the basic direct drive patents. The Billy No. 1 was the invention of the Stephensons, George and Robert, who in 1829 won the prize offered by the Liverpool & Manchester railroad fqi- a thoroughly practical machine capable of carrying passengers.