Illustrated Catalogue of Locomotives; Baldwin Locomotive WorksBaldwin Locomotive Works
History
Illustrated Catalogue of Locomotives; Baldwin Locomotive Works
Baldwin Locomotive Works
Baldwin locomotives; Locomotives -- Catalogs
Another feature of construction, gradually adopted, was the placing of
the cylinders horizontally. This was first done in the case of an
outside-connected engine, the "Ocmulgee," which was sent to the
Southwestern Railroad Company of Georgia in January, 1858. This engine
had a square smoke-box, and the cylinders were bolted horizontally to
its sides. The plan of casting the cylinder and half-saddle in one
piece and fitting it to the round smoke-box was introduced by Mr.
Baldwin, and grew naturally out of his original method of
construction. Mr. Baldwin was the first American builder to use an
outside cylinder, and he made it for his early engines with a circular
flange cast to it, by which it could be bolted to the boiler. The
cylinders were gradually brought lower, and at a less angle, and the
flanges prolonged and enlarged. In 1852, three six-wheels-connected
engines, for the Mine Hill Railroad Company, were built with the
cylinder flanges brought around under the smoke-box until they nearly
met, the space between them being filled with a spark-box. This was
practically equivalent to making the cylinder and half-saddle in one
casting. Subsequently, on other engines on which the spark-box was not
used, the half-saddles were cast so as almost to meet under the
smoke-box, and, after the cylinders were adjusted in position, wedges
were fitted in the interstices and the saddles bolted together. It was
finally discovered that the faces of the two half-saddles might be
planed and finished so that they could be bolted together and bring
the cylinders accurately in position, thus avoiding the troublesome
and tedious job of adjusting them by chipping and fitting to the
boiler and frames. With this method of construction, the cylinders
were placed at a less and less angle, until at length the truck-wheels
were spread sufficiently, on all new or modified classes of
locomotives in the Baldwin list, to admit of the cylinders being hung
horizontally, as is the present almost universal American practice. By
the year 1865, horizontal cylinders were made in all cases where the
patterns would allow it. The advantages of this arrangement are
manifestly in the interest of simplicity and economy, as the cylinders
are thus rights or lefts, indiscriminately, and a single pattern
answers for either side.
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