u,.:- • - Clpdigital.org

difficulty inasmuch as raising one end of the pan
and leaving the other stationary causes the slope
of the chute to he so reduced that the
COAL WILL CEASE TO FLOW.
It was accordingly decided to design a pan which
could be raised at the will of the car trimmer
and which nevertheless would retain the same or
approximately the same pitch. This was accomplished
by providing a track on which the pan
could travel and installing a long air cylinder
operated by compressed air to furnish the power
to move the pan back and forth whilst the end
was supported by a hanger of unvarying length.
The power house is a massive piece of construction
; the engine and boiler rooms are set
parallel to each other but side by side, separated
for cleanliness and fire isolation by a party wall
36 feet high, the full height of the building. The
power house is provided throughout with a concrete
floor reinforced with iron, the lower part
or basement being used for the piping and for
the delivery of ashes from the boilers. The roof
is supported by steel trusses and covered with
slate. The engine room measures inside 67 ft.
by 324 ft., and the boiler room 39 ft. by 260 ft.
In the latter are five batteries of Rust vertical
water-tube boilers of 350 horsepower each, making
3,500 horsepower in all. These are tired by
Murphy automatic stokers. The fuel is supplied
by a belt conveyer from the tipple; this runs
from a bin under the screen to an overhead
storage bin and the coal is distributed by a traveling
automatic tripper. One man tends to the
fires, dumping the ashes into hoppers beneath
the furnaces whilst another man takes care of
the water supply of the boilers. These two men
do all the work of the steam raising. Judging
by other plants, at least 8 men are saved b.v the
use of automatic stokers, which is a considerable
saving when the cost of a year's stoking is considered.
This saving would not be so apparent
were the plant of less capacity and it must also
be remembered that by using this automatic feed,
the boilers can be made to give satisfaction using
the finest and most unmerchantable slack.
The ashes from the boilers, dropped into concrete
hoppers, are sprinkled with water and
hauled away from the basement in special ash
cars by an electric locomotive and
DUMPED FROM A STAGING
into railroad hopper cars. To effect this, a special
form of dump has been provided. The trestle will
hold several ash cars, and as many as desired are
pushed by the motor up an easy incline to the
top of the trestle. They are permitted one by
one to drop back to the head of the incline.
There, singly, they are stopped on a revolving
dumping table, turned a quarter circle and
dumped into a railroad gondola or hopper stand­
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49
ing below. The tilting of the dump is performed
by a small cylinder pivoted at the lower end.
Thus speedily and cheaply the ashes are removed
from the plant and delivered to a place where
they can be made to fill a useful purpose.
The water for the boilers is supplied from six
wells and is pumped into two Stillwell feedwater
heaters. Like all boiler rooms with automatic
stokers, it is cleanly in the extreme and it is
possible to keep the engine room in perfect condition
despite the fact that the two are ranged
side by side. The power house is flanked at each
end by a brick stack -50 feet high, lined with firebrick
and of 12-foot inside diameter, supported
on concrete foundations. An arched concrete
underground flue connects the boilers with the
stacks.
In the engine room are three C. & G. Cooper
cross-composed engines with 2(1 and 34 inch
cylinders and 42-inch stroke, making loo revolutions
per minute, directly connected to Crocker-
Wheeler dynamos of 500 kilowatt capacity generating
a direct current of 500 volts. The Ridgway
Dynamo and Engine Co. supplied the dynamo
for furnishing light. It has a capacity of 100
kilowatts and furnishes an alternating current
of 1,10(1 volts, being a 60-cycle generator coupled
directly to a McEwen engine.
There are also four Allis-Chalmers cross-compound
air compressors. The high-pressure steam
cylinders have a diameter of 26 inches, the air
cylinders are of 26-inch and 44-inch diameter, respectively,
and the stroke is 48 inches. Each
compressor produces 5,000 cubic feet of air per
minute at a pressure of 100 pounds to the square
inch with the horsepower rating of 1,000.
Along the full length of the engine room and
hung 26 feet above the floor, travels a standard
erecting and dismantling electric crane of 22 tons
capacity, manufactured by the Northern Engineering
Co.
A standard gauge railroad track, connected
with the B. & S. R. R., enters one end of the
engine room, and space is provided for one car
to stand inside the power house for convenience
in loading any injured machinery or for unloading
any additions to the equipment.
All piping in the engine room is beneath the
concrete floor. The pipes from the header over
the boilers drop through the floor and are passed
through the concrete wall of the engine room
basement, holes being provided large enough to
permit of all possible side motion resulting from
CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE
in the steam lines. This provision keeps the engine
room clear, with the head room entirely
unobstructed. In both sides of the power house.
there is abundance of room. On the boiler side,
there is accommodation for four more batteries