Locomotives

Accomplishments of three locomotives warranted reporting last week, despite the popular impression that the last locomotive word had been said with the construction of the monster double-articulated Mallet engine which hauls mile-long coal trains over the Cumberland Mountains.

Of the three new locomotives, two were in the U. S., one in Denmark:

B. & O.'s Long-Lugger. The Baltimore & Ohio has 21 engines named after Presidents. They haul the B. & O.'s Capitol Limited and National Limited and other crack trains and last week the President Pierce, with a mechanical stoker feeding Pittsburgh seam coal into the fire box, made an experimental trip over the 786 miles between Chicago and Washington, /- Normally four locomotives, changing at three stations, are necessary on the Chicago-Washington run.

Thus, more efficiency for the B. & O., more kudos for George B. Ecker, its inspector of fuel economy.

Illinois Central's Locomotor. It looks like an interurban or subway electric car, but is a combination steam locomotive and passenger car. Within a sheet steel inclosure is a steam generator only 6 ft. high by 4 ft. diameter. Oil distillate, left after crude oil is refined, keeps superheated steam under 550 to 600 Ibs. pressure. The steam automatically operates two driving engines hung from the car body, and an auxiliary engine which operates lights, fans, pumps. Built experimentally by International Harvester Co.* and the Ryan Car Co., tested by the Illinois Central since last August, this locomotor easily maintains a 60 m. p. h. speed with full load.

Danish Diesel. In the usual Diesel engine, fuel oil and air are sprayed together into the cylinders and exploded under 1,000-lb. pressure. Burmeister & Wain, Danish motor builders, have redesigned a Diesel which uses oil under 5,000-lb. pressure and takes in its air on the cylinder down-strokes. No time is needed to get up steam, as in the locomotor (15 min.) or the usual locomotive (30 min.). Operating cost is, by report, one-fifth that of ordinary Diesels. The unit is 10% to 15% lighter, and powerful enough to draw a train. Danish railroads are testing it. Three new Danish ocean liners may adopt it.

/-The B. & O. used to run its trains under the Hudson River through the Pennsylvania's tunnels into Pennsylvania Station, Manhattan. For almost two years the B. & O. has been motoring its passengers by bus between Manhattan and Jersey City (its own terminus). The B. & O. bus terminal in Manhattan is opposite Grand Central Terminal. *Besides harvesting machinery, International Harvester also makes motor trucks, motor coaches, gasoline and oil engines, wagons, farm implements and binder twine.