While electric operation is doubtless destined to replace steam working in many main and branch railway lines in the years that lie ahead, there still remains a very big future for the steam locomotive. Improvements and refinements are constantly being introduced with the idea of increasing the power and efficiency of the steam engine, and the days of the trusty “Iron Horse” are certainly far from being numbered—as some of the electrification enthusiasts would have us believe.

Among new locomotive equipment to be introduced on the English railways is the A.C.F.I. feed water heater apparatus, for reclaiming heat from the exhaust steam and utilising it for the boiler feed water, thus saving the combustion of an equivalent amount of coal in the firebox. A batch of standard 0—8—0 type heavy mineral locomotives of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway have been equipped with this device, with most satisfactory results.

Exhaust steam from the blast pipe is carried to a drum on the boiler barrel, where it meets cold water from the tender. Falling through a perforated pipe, the water is rapidly heated by the steam and passes to the hot water cylinder of the steam pump, which forces it into the boiler through a clack box, in the usual fashion. The hot and cold water cylinders of the feed pump are so arranged that the cold water cylinder always supplies more water to the mixing chamber than the hot water cylinder can pump into the boiler, the excess water being returned through a special valve to the feed pipe leading from the tender. In addition to the feed water pump and heating equipment, an ordinary live steam injector is fitted to the locomotives. Apart from fuel economy, the new equipment is found to result in valuable savings in maintenance, the special apparatus preventing the introduction of gases into the boiler and lessening scale deposit.