Fast
Passenger Engine for the C. R. I. & P. R. R.
A noteworthy fast passenger locomotive has been huilt by the
Brooks Locomotive Works for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific,
which is called by the builders the "Chautauqua" type. This Rock Island
engine includes several new features, such as box links, a new
arrangement of the valve motion, a cast steel mud ring and a new form
of ash pan openings. The Brooks radial trailer arrangement is used and
the trailer journals are 8 by 4 ins. In size. The carrying wheels are
51 ins. in diameter.
A very direct and stiff valve motion is secured by the use of box links
and straight connections with a parallel motion to pass the forward
driving axle. As laid out, the slip of the links is very small and
special care was taken to obtain square lead, port opening and cut-off.
The side elevation illustrate the valve motion clearly. In the steam
chests special efforts were made to obtain free passages for the steam
to reach the valve ports; the exhaust passages are also large, the
least area through the cylinder casting being 75 sq. ins. The effect of
this is low back pressure.
The boiler, with curved crown sheet, is very high. Its center is 9 ft.
7^4 ins. above the rail. Plates at the front and back water legs
support the back end of the boiler with no shoes or pads at the sides.
The mud ring slopes to give a depth of 24 in. at the throat. The frame
arrangement is like that of an earlier design,
with a single bar in froilt and with screwed bolts in the corners of
the splice to prevent weaving.
A new design of ash-pan doors has been applied. The doors are
self-closing by their own weight and are operated by a rotating shaft.
The mechanism is equalized so that both doors will close together and
it is arranged to provide for slight obstructions to the closing.
Patents have been applied for on this ash pan arrangement.
Among the other details the following attract attention: Cast steel
equalizers with three fulcrum points for those of the trailers; cast
steel "grab hook" spring hangers; a combination of two fire doors in
one as in the recent Lake Shore engines; extended valve rods for the
piston valves, brakes on all wheels, including the truck and trailer
wheels and Pox trucks under the tender. The driving wheels are 72 ins.
in diameter. The service on this road is severe in the number of stops
required of fast and heavy trains.
Special Equipment.
Brakes American for drivers, Westinghouse for tender
Sight-feed lubricator Nathan
Safety valves Ashton
Injectors Nathan
Springs Scott
Metallic packing, piston rods Jerome
Metallic packing, valve stems Brooks Locomotive Works
[This engine is called by the builders a "Chautauqua"; it is, by its
wheel arrangement, an Atlantic
or 4-4-2
type. In a certain sense this
engine is possessed of a traction increaser, that is, the equalizers
which connect the trailing springs with the carrying wheel springs,
have each three fulcrum pin holes, so that, in the shop, by changing
the pin, it is possible to alter the weights borne respectively by the
trailing wheels and the carrying wheels.]
(from
a 1901 magazine, in the public
domain)