Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1888 — Soda Instead of Coal. [ARTICLE]

Soda Instead of Coal.

At tfie Baldwin Locomotive Works there are in course of construction four locomotives which are designed to run by soda, which takes the place of fire under the boiler. Soda has much the same power as coal, says the Philadelphia Record, without any of the offensive gases which that fuel emits. The engines are now nearly finished and ape to be shipped within two weeks to Minneapolis, Minn., and are to be run on the streets of that city, where steam engines are forbidden. The engine has much the same appearance as a passenger car. It; is about sixteen feet long, entirely boxed in, with no visible smokestack or pipes, as there is no exhauster refuse. The boiler is of copper, 84| inches in diameter and 15 feet long, having tubes running through it as in steam boilers. Inside the boiler will be placed five tons of soda, which, upon being damped by a jet of steam, produces an intense heat. When the soda is thoroughly aturated, which will occur in about six hours, the action ceases and then it is necessary to restore it to its original state by forcing through the boiler a stream of superheated steam from a stationary boiler, which drives the moisture entirely from the soda, when it is again ready for use. The exhaust steam from the cylinders is used to saturate the soda, and by this means all refuse is used These engines are the first of their kind that have been built in this country, and are being constructed under the supervision of George Kuchler, a German engineer. The engines will have the same power as those on the New York elevated roads. Soda engines are used in Berlin and other European cities very successfully, and they also traverse the St. Gothard tunnel, under the Alps, where steam engines can not be used, because the length of the tunnel renders it impossible to devise a system of ventilation which will carry off the foul gasses generated by a locomotive. So overpowering would these gases become that suffocation would ensue. ■_ ' - —v