74

BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES OF AMERICAN RAILROADS.

building, can be practically obtained by keeping a number of buckets filled with sand on aplatform adjacent to the track at a convenient elevation, or by the use of a swinging derrick-arm and a bucket with drop-bottom.

The patentees of a cylindrical drying-machine published in the Railroad Gazette of May4, 1888, the following data for drying sand with a cast-iron sand-drying stove, as compared withthe work of their patented machine:

Railroad stove- Patented cylindrical

drier.

apparatus.

16,000

Pounds wet sand dried and screened per hour.

Pounds common soft coal consumed per hour.

Pounds water dried out per lb. coal burned.

Average percentage of water in the two different sandsMen ’s labor required.

6 75

24

1

•035

•°93

3

1

Expense of drying one ton of sand:

Cost of labor at 15 cents per hour.

Cost of coal at 12^ cents per bushel.

Cost of steam motive power.

Cost of interest, repairs, and depreciation

44 cts.

2

Total

571*11' cts. 14 cts.

The following descriptions of sand-houses are introduced as forming an interesting addi-

tion to above general remarks on the subject.

Sand-house at Richmond , Va. , Richmond6 ° Alleghany Railroad. —The sand-house of the Richmond & Alleghany Railroad, shown in Figs. 174 and 175, is a good type of a cheap sand-house, where a

Fig. 174.—Cross-section.

Fig. 175.—Ground-plan.

limited amount of sand is used. The house is a low frame structure, 16 ft. 6 in. X 14 ft. 6 in., withan open bin, 6 ft. 6 in. X 14 ft. 6 in., adjoining one end of the building for the wet sand. In operatingthis house the wet sand is delivered from cars into the open bin, and from thence it is shovelled, asrequired, through an opening in the side of the building into an interior storage-bin for wet sand. Acast-iron sand-drying stove is located in the middle of the house, which is filled from the wet-sand bin.As the sand dries, it drops to the floor through openings in the sides of the stove, from where it isthrown on a screen placed over the dry-sand bin at the other end of the building. The enginemenare required to enter the house and fill their buckets with sand directly from the dry-sand bin.

The frame is 10 ft. high on the front of the building and 9 ft. on the rear. The principal sizes areas follows : sills, 4 in. X 6 in. ; plates, 4 in. X 4 in. ; corner and door studs, 4 in. X 4 in. ; inter-mediate studding, 3 in. X 4 in., spaced about 18 in. ; nailers, 3 in. X 4 in. ; rafters, 2 in. X 6 in. ;