Locomotive Coaling

LOCOMOTIVE COALING, the three industrial enter prises which consume most coal are railways, gas works and power stations. Of these three, gas-works engineers were the foremost to realize the need of handling their coal mechanically; those in power stations followed, and employed conveyors practically from their inception, basing their plant on the experience gained in gas works during the previous decade. The railway companies, who probably use more coal than either of the other two under takings, continued, with one or two minor exceptions, to handle their locomotive fuel entirely by manual labour, until ; in the meantime American and Continental railways were leading in the adoption of machine coaling. While England has some of the finest locomotive coaling plants to be found anywhere, they are not as widely used as elsewhere. Since the coal consumed annually by locomotives amounts to many millions of tons, such devices should be provided for all important coaling yards. Large engine sheds may use as much as 600 to 700 tons of coal per day for their tenders and tank engines, while even small ones will require 200 to 30o tons.

Manual Coaling.

To load coal by transferring it manually from the truck to the tender necessitates the employment in a yard of about 3o "coal men," who do nothing else. Moreover, the time taken varies from 15 to 45 minutes for coaling a tender; this delays the engine and wastes the driver's time in the sheds. By modern mechanical means the largest locomotive can be pro vided with its quota of coal in three minutes by the services of a maximum number of four men; i.e., one on each 8-hr. shift of the day, to operate the coal valves, and one during the first shift for filling the bunker and for assisting in the shunting of the coal wagons. It has been realized that if ioo locomotives per day have to be coaled, it is an economical proposition to do so entirely by mechanical means.

Modern methods, by which coal can be handled from the mineral truck to the locomotive tender, are very numerous. Some are quite inexpensive, while others are elaborate and costly. The determining factor is not solely the amount of coal to be handled, but the area, and more particularly the shape of the available site, which have both to be taken into consideration when deciding on the type of plant to be adopted.

The subject may be conveniently divided into three classes: locomotive coaling plant which provides for storage of coal in wagons; locomotive coaling plant in which the coal is held in suspension in overhead bunkers; locomotive coaling plant with ground storage "bings."

Installations of the first kind can only serve one tender at a time, whereas the others can serve several simultaneously. For a plant of the first class a long and narrow strip of land is required and a relatively simple mechani cal device is employed, while the rest of the space is utilized for standing room for the full trucks. The disadvantage of such simple plants is that the operators must always be in attendance during the three shifts of the day.

With all locomotive coaling plants, except those where self discharging hopper wagons are in use, the coal tippler which trans fers the contents of the wagon to the rest of the handling machinery, plays a most important part and generally consti tutes the most expensive item of cost. Such devices are fully dealt with under the heading WAGON TIPPLERS.

The simplest type of fully mechanized locomotive coaling plant in Great Britain is that of the L.M. & S. Rly., at Kings Cross, London, which is shown in diagram, fig. 1. Here the coal is transferred from the wagons into narrow gauge trucks, which are hoisted up and emptied on the tenders. Diagram fig. 2 shows the type of mechanically operated device, as used by the L. M. & S. Rly., at Camden Town and also at Carlisle. In this an end wagon tippler unloads a truck in an under-rail hopper, thence on to a bucket conveyor which raises the coal to a point from which it can be shot on to a tender. The buckets of the con veyor are of such a size that 20 to 25 of them hold sufficient coal to charge one tender, so that the conveyor is run intermit tently for each locomotive. Such an installation will coal over Ioo locomotives per day, three minutes only being required to fill a large tender, with two men operating the device. In fig. 3 an installation on a different prin ciple is shown, also used by the L.M. & S. Rly. Here the coal is taken from a rotary wagon tippler and thence, via a skip hoist and small hopper, on to a locomotive. This is in use at the Willes den coal yard, London. It is of particular interest because it is, more or less, an intermediate type. These three installations were built by the Mitchell Conveyor & Transporter Co. Ltd. For con venience of comparison figs. i to 6 are all drawn to the same scale.