CHAPTER LXXX

ACCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH BOILER AND ACCESSORIES

Q. Where should the cleaning process be begun on a boiler?

A. In the lower parts, working gradually upward.

Q. If you had an engine with a common ash pan, and you burned or broke your dump grate, how would you fix up, so as to avoid delay?

A. If the grate was burned or broken, so I could not make it stay, I would fill up from the bottom of ash pan to the level of the good grates with cobbles or scrap iron, spread the fire over, and go along.

Q. If you broke or burned the "drop" grate on an engine that had a deep or "hopper" ash pan, how would you fix up?

A. Pull the fire back off the front of the remaining grates for three feet or so, then (if near a section house) bridge the opening with splices laid lengthwise. If I could not get splices, I would take the next best thing I could get.

Q. Would it be possible to draw your train any distance with the drop grate down?

A. No; if a space of the size of the drop grate in any engine were open, all the air that the exhaust would draw could pass up through it, and the fire on the remaining grate would not burn enough to maintain steam, even with light engines.

Q. What do you mean by "all the air that the exhaust would draw"?

A. All the air needed to fill the vacuum made by the exhaust in the smoke-box.

Q. What is "honey-comb"?

A. A sulfuret of iron forming on flue-sheets.

Q. When is it most likely to form?

A. Where the flues have large end beads, or are weak and sweating, or the sheets are covered with mud on the inside (hence hotter than if clean).

Q. What classes of coal cause it to form?
A. Those containing much sulfur.

Q. Where is the shell usually most pitted?

A. Below the checks, and around rivets, studs, or tap bolts, as for instance where the guide yoke or the frame brace angles are fastened to the shell.

Q. What should be done if a gage-glass breaks?

A. If there are automatic valves to close it, it is only necessary to put in a new glass; otherwise the handvalves will have to be depended upon; both cocks should be shut off and the gage-cocks tested as frequently as the water-glass would have been looked at.

Q. Should the glass of a water-gage break, that had no automatic valve, what should be done?

A. The hand-valve closed.

Q. How may non-automatic water-gages be cleaned? A. By removing the valves and punching clear through with a steel wire of the same diameter as the bore of the fitting.

Q. What should be done in case of a burst flue?

A. If it does not put out the fire, the engineman should dump this latter; he should lower the steam-pressure in order to save the water in the boiler; then he should plug the flue.

Q. With what should it be closed?

A. With an iron plug held in a special pair of tongs while being driven in; or if no iron one is carried, by a wooden plug.

Q. What precaution should be taken in driving flueplugs?

A. Not to drive too hard, lest the flue-sheet be broken.

Q. If a wooden plug is used, what precaution should be taken?

A. To drive it into the flue for some distance.

Q. Where are wooden flue-plugs apt to be unreliable? A. In case of a burst in the flue when near the fluesheet.

Q. How far should a wooden plug be driven in a flue in case of a burst?

A. About six inches.

Q. Why will it not burn up?

A. It cannot, inside the flue, as little or no air can get at it to supply oxygen for its combustion.

Q. How can you clear the smoke-box from smoke in case of the necessity of plugging a flue?

A. By putting on the blower slightly.

Q. How can you get at the flue to plug it?
A. By putting a plank on the coal.

Q. Under what circumstances cannot you very well calk or plug a burst flue?

A. If there is a brick-arch or similar obstruction in the fire-box.

Q. What is the proper treatment for an engine with old and tender or leaky flues?

A. Regular pumping, holding steady pressure, keeping a bright, even fire, keeping cold air from the flues, letting the fire die out when the time comes, slowly shutting dampers after going into the round-house, and covering the stack after the fire is cleaned.

Q. How may leaky tubes or stay-bolts be cured temporarily?

A. By putting in the feed some starchy substance, as bran, potatoes, or rye-flour.

Q. What is the effect of too liberal dosing this way? A. Foaming.

Q. What is the permanent remedy?

A. Calking.

Q. If the petticoat pipe falls down and fouls the exhaust tip, how may the trouble be removed on the road? A. The smoke-box door may be opened, the netting trap door removed and the pipe taken out.

Q. Is not this difficult, by reason of the smoke and hot gases in the smoke-box?

A. It is not necessary to get into the smoke-box to remove the split keys from the netting trap door bolts. In most cases one can stand on the pilot sheet, and with cold chisel and hammer draw the keys from the bolts by inserting the chisel in the loop of the key and striking it gently until it comes out. When all keys are removed, the trap door may be taken out and the rake used to haul the petticoat from over the exhaust; it may then be taken out and placed on the tank. The netting trap may then be replaced and the smoke-box door closed.

Q. Suppose an engine suddenly begins to steam badly and the pressure falls from say 200 to 80 pounds, and that when it is shut off the smoke and blaze come out around the fire-box door; what is probably the matter?

A. The petticoat pipe is down; perhaps only one of the hangers is broken and the pipe is lying so that the exhaust is turned to one side of the stack base.

Q. Suppose that the diaphragm, or its slide or plate, falls down and "smothers" the engine?

A. The engineman should open the smoke-box door, get a pinch bar or something else that will serve as a pry, insert it under the diaphragm or plate, pry it up and shove the bar into one of the flues. When the diaphragm is as high as wanted, the other end of the bar should be rested on the flange of the smoke-box door, or it should be blocked up on a steam pipe, and the door closed.

Q. In order to change the boiler, what must be done? A. The engine must be stripped, the wheels, truck and back frames removed; if there is no crane to lift the boiler, it must be run off and trucks placed under the mud-ring and just back of the cylinder saddle. The dis

tance between the front of the water leg and the back of the cylinder saddle must be measured on a wooden strip before the boiler is loosened. The cylinders should be blocked up level both ways, the back ends of the front frames supported by screw jacks, all scale and dirt removed from the saddle top, and the new boiler run ahead on trucks until the distance between the saddle back and the front of the water legs is the same as with the old boiler. The front end of the boiler should be lowered by a jack nearly to the saddle and the front end set central to the cylinders by running over the barrel a line. weighted on both ends, and measuring between the hanging ends of this line and the inner sides of the cylinder. The back end is then to be plumbed in the same way; it first being made sure that the boiler-leg sides are parallel with each other and with the boiler axis. The boiler must be level lengthwise. Lines should be run through the cylinder axis to the back end of the boiler, and the latter set equidistant therefrom. The smoke arch is then to be fitted to the saddle by a line on the back and one on the front of the saddle. A wooden templet being made of the curve of the smoke arch at the front, the saddle must be chipped to fit this. The frames are then to be put up and

lined.

Q. What are the usual causes of incontrollable throttle?

A. (1) Breaking or coming out of bell-crank bolts or other connecting bolts within the dome, (2) breaking of a throttle-valve rod, (3) working off of nuts in the connecting pieces, as on the top of the throttle-valve stem; (4) sudden reversal causing the steam-pipe release-valve (where there is one to keep undue pressure from the pipe) to jump out and leave a passage for steam between boiler and valve-chest.

Q. How would you handle an engine if the throttle became disconnected while open?