Eureka Reporter | 1906-04-27 | Page 4 | Hard Job to Start Fire

HARD JOB TO START FIRE labor in getting up steam for first time in locomotive the average citizen manages to set the house in an uproar every time he has to mal e a fire in the heater but his job is a trifle m comparison with what a railroad fireman faces when a new fire has to be built in a lococo alve As a starter about pounds of wood are necessary to fire up the ord nary engine the wood used is old railroad ties cut into convenient blocks when the firebox has been lined with wood it is drenched ditl oil and the match applied As soon as the fire gains headway force 1 draught is applied the operation necessarily being performed in the roundhouse where all apparatus for quickly producing high tempera at hand when a good bed of blaz ng wood has been produced the fleemin gets busy with his shovel placing coal in even layers over the flames this part of the work is hard OE the back and the aggrieved andl vidual whose woes are evident to th whole block when he labors with the heater would go down and out in the first minute at it under the forced draught it is only a few minutes before the coal had been reduced to a sheet of embers at white heat and by this time there au enough steam pres sure generated to permit of the loco motive being moved under it own power continuous resort to the shovel on the part of the firman does the rest it is only about once a month that a new fire is built in a locomotive while in service the balance of the time the fire is kept al afy being banked when the iron horse is not on the road