Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1886 — Life of a Locomotive. [ARTICLE]

Life of a Locomotive.

The average life of a locomotive is placed at about ten or twelve years. By this it is not meant that the engine endures active service for ten or twelve years and then goes to the scrap heap, fey the nature of its construction, and the multiplicity of its parts, a locomo- - tive is practically undergoing constant repairs, though ordinarily a new engihe will go about two years before needing extensive repairs. Thus it is estimated that in ten or twelve years the cost for repairs has been equivalent to the cost of a new engine. * ' ■ - • - A large quantity of belt, says the American Machinist, is, required to transmit s little power. The sooner wo investigate and believe the above fact, the better it will be for our shafting, machinery and coal-heap. We may look at the fact as we please, it will bear it, and find that a slow-running belt to carry a given power must be very wide. If running at high speed, we must have the same number* of square inches of belt passed over the pulley, but the belt need not be as wide to do it.