The Locomotive - Lighthouse Survival Blog

1901.] THE LOCOMOTIVE. 27
Rising Sun, Ohio. The boiler house was wrecked, and a dwelling near by was badly
shaken up. Orrin Graham was painfully injured by flying fragments.
(33S.) — A slight boiler explosion occurred, on November 28th, in the electric light
plant at North Baltimore, Ohio. Nobody was killed and the damage was small.
(339.) — The pump boiler that supplies the Central Illinois water tank at Little
Cypress, Marshall county, Ky., exploded, on November 28th, seriously scalding Edward
Sargent and otherwise injuring a section foreman. The boiler house was literal lv
demolished.
(340.) — On November 29th a boiler exploded in the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad
pump house, at Somerset, Orange county, Va. James McGayhee was killed, and the
building was completely demolished.
(341.) — James Coleman and D. C. Cook were killed, and John Peters, Charles
Peters, Charles Gieberstein, Victor Kiefl'er and Joseph Wohl were injured, on Novem-
ber 29th, by the explosion of a boiler at the Davenport Glucose Works, Davenport, Iowa.
The explosion completely wrecked the engine room, and demolished a part of the boiler
house. The property loss is estimated at .$10,000.
(342.) — A boiler used for shredding fodder exploded, on November 30th, some
four and a half miles north of Spring Hill, near Bellefontaine, Ohio. Upton Moore and
Harley Heater were killed, Charles Mohr was fatally injured, and John Makemson was
also hurt.
(343.) —-A boiler exploded, on November 30th, in the Henney Buggy plant, at
Freeport, 111. Engineer James Keene and Fireman A. Straus were seriously injured.
A boiler exploded in the same place about a year ago.
(344.) — A slight boiler explosion occurred, about November 30th, in the power
house at Forty-sixth street and Woodland avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. William Beard
was fatally scalded.
About ten years ago an epidemic of flywheel explosions began, and in the three
years 1892, 1893, and 1894, it prevailed to the extent of about one large wheel a month,
not to mention those under twelve feet in diameter. These wheels, without exception,
were of cast-iron, and of all sorts of designs and qualities of metal; and most of them
went to pieces from overspeed, commonly known as "racing." In the following years,
down to the present time, the casualties have been decreasing, and I have not noticed
more than one or two since the beginning of last year. Flywheels, as their name im-
plies, are primarily used to regulate the speed of an engine; — not the number of revo-
lutions, but the uniformity of speed during any one revolution, storing power while the
piston is exerting more than the average power, and restoring it when the piston is de-
livering less than the average; and this, of course, causes a series of fluctuations in the
strains thrown on the Avheel. With most engines the flywheel combines with its regu-
lating function the office of main driving-pulley carrying the main belt, or it may take
the form of a large gear wheel. The combination of these several functions and their
accompanying strains subjects this member of the machine to greater variations, per-
haps, than any other part.— Extract from a Paper on " Flywheel K.rplosions" read by
Mr. Ciiahles II. Manning before tlie American Association for the Advancement of Science.