High Pressure Engines

Locomotive development all over the world is in the direction of increased steam pressures. Several interesting high pressure locomotives have been constructed of late in Europe and America, and now, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway of England is undertaking a most interesting experiment. A fast passenger locomotive of the “Royal Scot” type is to be equipped with a boiler constructed on the Schmidt-Henschel high pressure system, as experimentally employed in Germany, and modified in design to suit British conditions and the “Royal Scot” class of engines. High pressure steam will be generated in a drum, distinct from the normal boiler, by the passage of hot steam through tubes passing through the drum. The steam within the tubes will be generated in a water tube firebox. Steam from the drum will first be employed in a high pressure cylinder of 11 1/2 inches diameter at approximately 900lbs. pressure, and thereafter will be mixed with low pressure steam from the boiler, and utilised in two low pressure cylinders each of 18 inches diameter, at 250lbs. per sq. in. The new locomotive will be of the three-cylinder compound class, with a tractive effort of about 33,200lbs.

The “Royal Scot” locomotive weighs, with tender, 127 tons. Each carries 5 1/2 tons of coal and 3,500 gallons of water, and is employed for hauling the Anglo-Scottish express between London and Glasgow. The run out of the Euston Station, London, to Carlisle, on the Scottish border, involves the negotiation of many steep gradients, and presents many locomotive difficulties.—(From our special London Correspondent.

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