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Show THE HYDROGEN LOCOMOTIVE. The following is a description of the locomotive which recently ran upon the Jersey Central Railroad, the fuel being hydrogen gas, which was constantly reproduced by its own heat from water by means of naphtha, as explained by the inventor. The new locomotive is fueled with hydrogen gas, which is constantly reproduced by its own heat from water through the mediation of a small proportion of crude naphtha. No oil is burned in this process in the ordinary or proper sense of combustion. It is used exclusively within retorts without air as a decomposing agent for steam. The present new locomotive, commenced at the Grant Works in Paterson in the summer of 1881, was originally designed with considerable modifications supposed to be favorable to the utilization of gaseous fuel. The boiler as then constructed was tried in October, 1881, and, as the result, the more extensive and costly changes were rejected and the simple ordinary pattern of boiler, with certain adaptations only in the fire-box and vent-pipe (no longer a "smoke-stack, as there is no smoke), was substituted last winter. The gas-making retorts are four in number, of massive wrought-iron, semi-cylindrical or dome-shaped, the size and shape being nearly that of half a peck measure with the convex side up. They are set on short iron posts in a row across the fire-box, near the floor and near the door. The interior of each retort is a single undivided chamber, into which enters from the top an oil-pipe, extending to within one inch from the bottom, and also pipes from the steam space and water-space in the boiler, all opened and closed by finely-fitted and gauged valves. An outlet pipe also passes from the top of each retort to a "manifold" joint, in which those four pipes unite and so connect with a massive cast-iron gas "main" running centrally through the fire-box fore and aft (length eight feet, diameter three inches), at level of about three inches below the bottom of the retorts. This main is divided into three sections by cut-off valves, enabling the engineer to supply or withhold gas to any section of the burners at pleasure. From each side of the main horizontal branch pipes of one-inch caliber and three or four inches apart extend at right angles across the fire-box, to the number of sixty-two. Each of these pipes (except the extremes) is pierced on its upper side with two rows of minute burner holes, alternating in position and obliquely pitched in such a manner that the gas-jets from the right side of the one pipe and those from the left or nearer side of the next pipe converge and meet in pairs, each pair uniting at an angle of, say, forty-five degrees directly over a one and one-fourth-inch air-hole in the iron floor of the fire-box. The total number of jets thus placed is 618. The air-holes are opened and closed wholly or partly at will by under-slides controlled by levers from the engineer's cab. Under the whole is constructed an air-chest, open forward, to secure a pressure of air into the air-holes during rapid motion, and also to warm the draft and thus save the great beat radiated downward from the fire. The retorts of a locomotive in service will seldom be cooled; but for initiating the process in cold iron a small priming oil-pipe runs under the four retorts, touching each of them with six jets which are turned on and lighted temporarily until the retorts are hot enough to vaporize oil in their interiors.-N. Y. Times. |