A BIG LOCOMOTIVE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1820, 20 December 1879, Page 3

A BIG LOCOMOTIVE.

Uncle Dick (says an American paper) weighs G 5 tons, and he is 60f fc long from his head light to the rear end of his tender. He is the biggest locomotive in the world, and has been turned out of the Baldwin Locomotive Works for duty on the precipitouo inclines of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. A boiler 21ft long supplies ateam for cylinders 20in by 261 d, and gives motion to eight 42in drivers, while a large tank surmounting the entire structure not only carries a water supply, but helpsto give Uncle Dick a tighter grip on the rails. His driver will have control over three independent systems of air-brakes, and can bring to bear at once upon his wheels a restraining force of 75 tons, which is none too large, inasmuch as a "shoe pressure" of 50,0(X)lb is required to keep him, when standing still and alone on the steep road over the Button Pats, from surrendering to gravitation and rushing down hill by his own weight. How heavy these grades are can be understood when it is noted that one end of Uncle Dick will often stand more than 3ft higher than the other, so that in travelling his own length he will do the work of lifting about 250 tons a perpendicular foot. And yet this monster, rejoicing in his strength, wiil rush up the flank of the Rocky Mountains with ten loaded cars behind him.