Note 2 — Chapter I · THE OLD AND THE NEW ORDER OF RAILWAY LOCOMOTION

The biggest and most powerful locomotive in the world is stated to be the “Bessemer,” built in 1900 at the Pittsburg Locomotive Works, U.S.A., weighing with its tender 175 tons. Its height is 16 feet from rail to top of smoke-stack, and it is capable of easily drawing a train of 4,000 tons at 25 miles an hour, or 8,000 tons at 15 miles an hour. Its hauling power is therefore enormous, and so it ought to be, as the diameter of the smallest ring of the boiler is 7 feet 10 inches. The nearest approach in size to this monster was constructed in Great Britain for the Santa Fé Railway in Argentina, and weighed 150 tons.