SAFETY PROVISIONS BEYER. 219 



passenger locomotive, running at the rate of 60 miles an hour. If an 

 engine is allowed to speed up, additional energy is imparted to the 

 flywheel until it bursts from centrifugal force, unloosing a power 

 which might be likened, roughly, to a locomotive and a train of 

 several cars plowing their way through the mill at the rate of 

 " a mile a minute." This terrific force is controlled and held in 

 check by the " governor," which is usually an arrangement of two 

 fly balls revolving at a speed proportionate to that of the engine, and 

 automatically reducing or increasing the steam supply. Certain 

 parts of the governor may break and cause the engine to " race," and 

 if the engineer can not get a valve closed quickly enough the flywheel 

 will " explode." 



There is a safety attachment on the governor, which is intended to 

 stop the engine in such emergencies, but engineers frequently allow 

 this attachment to become ineffective. On a single inspection trip, 

 this was the case with 10 out of 16 engines observed. In one instance 

 a roll of waste was placed under the governor bracket — in another a 1 

 wood block was used — in others the bolts were clamped so as to 

 produce the same result, in two or three cases the man in charge 

 simply said he had " forgot " to fix it up after a shutdown. One 

 grayhaired engineer of perhaps 50 years to whom I spoke about this 

 condition, minimized the danger, saying, " I have been running this 

 engine now for six years and have never had an accident," and yet on 

 further questioning he admitted that such an accident might occur 

 at any time, due to that insignificant handful of waste, and that 

 probably he would be the first man injured. Each of the men run- 

 ning these engines realized what might result from their interfering 

 with the action of the governor, yet they all took the chance, because 

 it never had happened in their experience. 



To improve matters we are having counterweighted brackets placed 

 under the engine governors, so that they will drop out automatically 

 when the engine is running, without any attention from the engineer, 

 and a written report is made weekly on one of the inspection blanks 

 previously mentioned, which shows whether this safety feature is 

 being used or not. As an additional safeguard, practically all the 

 large engines in this company have been equipped with automatic stop 

 valves having a speed limit attachment. These are intended to shut 

 the engine down automatically when it exceeds a certain safe speed, 

 and the valve may be closed also by pushing an electric button in 

 various parts of the mill. At intervals here and there in the different 

 departments there are little blue lights, each of which marks the 

 location of a push button for the engine stop system. Sometimes they 

 are on a column, sometimes suspended over a machine, and there are 

 anywhere from five or six up to forty or fifty of them in each system. 

 If a man is caught in the machinery, or there is a breakdown of any 



