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Some Engine.

The talk in the grill room turned to big locomotives.

One of the guests said he believed he had seen the largest engine on record during a recent trip to Atlanta, and proceeded to describe it as follows:—

“This engine,” he said, “has five acres of grate bars, four acres of netting in the smoke-box and it takes a man a day and a half to walk through the cylinders. Every time the engine exhausts, it rains for twenty minutes afterwards. There is an elevator that goes to the headlight to hoist oil and it requires five barrels to fill it. It takes two men forty-five minutes to light one signal lamp.

“They use a steam shovel to give her coal; the tank holds twenty-seven carloads and every time they wash the boiler it is necessary to drain the Gulf of Mexico, and transportation is held up for several days. The pony wheels are as large as an ordinary turntable and the engine house forces hold a picnic each year in the fire box. She carries 850 pounds of steam in her boiler and 360 pounds of air in her train line. She can haul 722 loads in good weather and seventy-two in bad weather. She runs from Atlanta to New Orleans, a distance of 475 miles, and makes the trip in two hours and eleven minutes.

“While the tank was being filled, one of the pumpers fell into the tank. The injector was on at the time and the enormous suction drew the poor labourer through the water main (60 inches in diameter) which led to the injector. He was discovered bobbing up and down in the water glass, and it had to be broken with a 25 pound sledge hammer to release him.

“The engineer was called to take out this locomotive, and on arrival at the roundhouse, found he only had 40 pounds of steam, and he remarked to the negro fireman as to why he could not get up steam, and the fireman said: ‘Cap'n, da's the third time dat gauge has gone round and it's just started ‘round again.’”

W. C. White, in “Pennsylvania News.”