Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1901 — The Life of a Locomotive. [ARTICLE]

The Life of a Locomotive.

The English engine, built in 1870, has run 4,000,000 miles and is still in service. The managers of the road to which it belongs are proud of this record. In the United States a first-class passenger engine makes from 100,003 to 110,000 miles a year, and at the end of twenty years is supposed to be ready for the scrap heap. Seemingly, Americans are more extravagant than British railway managers, but the former do not think thfey'are. They believe their policy is the more economical one. As soon as a locomotive is put in service in this country it is pushed as hard as is possible in doing profitable work oh the assumption that by the time it has been driven to death there will be so many improvements in locomotives that it will be uneconomical to keep the old one in service even if it can be rebuilt. Thus when slaves were cheap a Cuban planter would reason that it was more economic to work a slave to death and buy a new one than to exact less labor from a slave and thus have his services for a longer time. In England an engine is taken great care of. It is rested occasionally. Its life is prolonged as much as possible. Hence it is that an engine can be kept in sar vice for thirty years. The men at the head of American railways contend that so old an engine must be an expensive one because it cannot do the cheaper work a modern engine is capable of. The American policy is vindicated by its resu ts Freight rates on American roads have gone down because of the fearle s use of mechanical improvements by their managers. Freight rates in England are high, and do not come down. One reason is that the managers of English roads have false ideas of economy.