i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org

32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
STABLE TRANSPORTATION ASSURED.
All that I have said applies also to trade agreements
between shippers and the wage earners
organized under the title of the International
Longshoremen, Marine and Transport Workers'
Association, with whose representatives we meet
yearly and make contracts covering the terms
and conditions of hauling and transporting coal
from every port in the Great Lakes to the mouth
of the Mississippi. These contracts mean the
stability and prosperity of transportation,
throughout a territory imperial in extent, of
fuel, ores, lime, lumber, stone and grain. It is
these contracts, taken together, that make the
capitalists and the wage earners interested in
the production, transportation and marketing of
bituminous coal the leaders, during the past
seven years, in the actual accomplishment of
peace in their own industry throughout an immense
area of this country, and affecting favorably
in turn all the other industries of transportation
by land and water, and of manufacture,
that consume fuel. The mine operators rea..ze
that this result, with its benefits to invested capital,
could not be attained without restraint of
their individual freedom of action. The mine
workers realize that in their corresponding individual
sacrifice labor is concerned all along the
line—the labor of the man who delves, the labor
of the mine workers above the ground, the labor
of those who load and unload vessels and cars,
the labor of the vessel crews and trainmen, the
labor of the men who deliver the fuel to the
consumer.
Thus, with all their faults of detail, trade agree
ments in principle and in practice are the very
embodiment of far reacning benefits to employers,
wage earners and the general public, through the
voluntary surrender of individual liberty. (Applause).
Special Home-Seekers' Excursions via
Pennsylvania Lines.
Anyone contemplating a trip west may take
advantage of the reduced fares for the special
Home-seekers' .irsions via Pennsylvania Lines
to points in C orado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas,
Oregon, Washington, Texas and other sections in
the west and in all the states of the south. Stopover
privileges permit travelers to investigate
business openings. These tickets will be on sale
certain dates during the summer. Detailed information
as to fares, through time, etc., will be
freely furnished upon application to J. K. Dillon,
District Passenger Agent, 515 Park building, Pittsburgh,
Pa. ji
CRYSTALLIZATION EXPERENCE.
By Walter 11. Finley, before the Engineering Association
of the South.
While connected with the New Soddy Coal Co.,
at Soddy, Tenn., I had my attention called to a
very practical demonstration of the fatigue of
metal by crystallization. The track connecting
the mines with the railroad must follow, to some
extent, the sinuosities of a restless stream. The
result is an incline 7,200 feet long, with 210 de­
grees of curvature and a difference in elevat'on
of 450 feet. The heaviest grade is all above the
center. A trip of 36 one-ton mine cars will be on
the steepest part of the hill, while the empty
"trip" at the other end of the rope is on the flats
below, offering very little resistance to assist
the brakes in holding the loaded "trip."
It is a thrilling ride, even to one accustomed
to it, to make the journey from tipple to mines,
seated in one of a string of empty cars 100 yards
long, around curves, over bridges, and along the
sides of deep ravines much too picturesque and
rugged to be associated with a prosaic coal mine.
About a year after this incline was put in, the
loaded "trip" parted on the hill, with the result
that possibly half of the 36 cars could not be used
again without having to be entirely rebuilt. The
coupling that parted was found without a pin,
which in mine hitchings is not removable from
the clevis without breaking. The wreck, therefore,
must have been caused by the breaking of
this 1%-inch pin, though it and the balance of
the hitching was made by William Harris & Son,
of Pittsburgh, who use nothing but the highest
grade iron.
Not more than two weeks later this accident
happened again in identically the same way. I
was fortunate enough this time, however, to find
a piece of the broken pin, which showed, instead
of the dark, velvety, appearance one would expect,
a bright, crystalline fracture like burned steel.
Following this clew, several hitchings were laid
on an anvil and the pin broken by a single blow
from a sledge. Pieces of the broken pins were
then heated to a bright red. and after cooling
slowly, were again put under the hammer, which
failed entirely to break them. After cutting with
a cleaver, the pins were broken, and the fracture
showed a complete restoration of fibrous structure.
This annealing process was then applied to the
whole supply of hitchings. Piles of twenty-live or
thirty were covered by a hot wood fire, which
was allowed to die down and go out, leaving the
hitchings in a bed of ashes to cool off slowly. By
repeating this every six months the danger from
brittle pins was entirely avoided.