Personal reminiscences of the Corliss engine in Carillon Park,
covering nearly fifty years of continuous service.
For quite awhile now, I have been sitting over here in Carillon Park and
I expect to go on doing that for some years to come. When you weigh a
couple of hundred tons you don’t move around any more than you have to
and once you find a good spot you are likely to “stay put.” Through the
windows of my comfortable little power house I look out at my neighbors
across the way. One of them is a Grasshopper locomotive which I can just
see through the windows of his “station.”
I haven’t actually met “Grasshopper” but I did learn not long ago that
he has written the story of his life. I wouldn’t go so far as to say
that he was “blowing off steam” but it does seem to me that if he has a
story to tell I should have one too. Of course, I know that size doesn’t
mean everything, but if you should weigh old “Grasshopper”—wheels, cab
and all—he wouldn’t weigh nearly as much as my flywheel. But I feel that
we do have several things in common ... we both know what it means to
get all steamed up and we have both done a lot of work in our day.
My friend “Grasshopper” has traveled quite a bit but I think he has
settled down now, just like me. They say that a rolling stone gathers no
moss and certainly “Grasshopper” is bright and shiny but I don’t believe
you will find much moss on me either.
[Illustration: Part of the Corliss on its way to the NCR power house
in 1902. Five teams were required to move it.]
My ancestry doesn’t go back quite as far as “Grasshopper’s” but the
difference is only about thirteen years, at that. He was born in 1835
and was the second generation of his family. True enough, I came along a
good many years later but my forefathers reach back to 1848, for in that
year the Corliss line was begun. In the following year, on March 10,
1849, Mr. George H. Corliss, a remarkable man whose name I bear, was
granted his first patent for steam engine improvements embodying his
famous “drop cut-off valve gear.” He had developed some new ideas about
steam engines, mostly about making them run steadier and on less coal.
Those ideas meant a lot to industry all over this country. Outside of
the teammate who worked next to me in the NCR power house for years, I
never met any of my brothers but I am sure they were all hard workers
who gave a good account of themselves.
Like anybody else, I don’t remember much about my birth. I was built in
Mount Vernon, Ohio, by the C. & G. Cooper Company, which manufactured
Corliss engines. My various pieces never really met until they all came
together in the NCR power house back there in 1902. As I remember, it
was a rather bumpy ride from the freight yards to the NCR factory but I
felt quite important. Who wouldn’t, with five teams of horses pulling
you along and people stopping to look at you all along the way. I gather
that I was considered quite a fellow in engine circles in those days and
I guess folks figured if the people at NCR went out and hired a big
engine like me to work for them business must be good and expected to
get better.
I really don’t know who figured out all the intricate variations in my
anatomy but I have heard that E. A. Deeds, who was an engineer at NCR in
those days, asked them to put in some special features which he thought
would make me better. Those ideas must have been all right, for I have
never known a sick day in my life. And for the record, let me say that I
was running full speed right up to the moment I was shut off, in 1948.
That had happened before when they made me stop to be looked over but
they always let me start up again. Glad I didn’t know what was happening
that day for I certainly had no idea of quitting, and I wouldn’t have
liked the idea a bit. Of course, I came out all right, but for a while
things looked pretty dark, I can tell you.
[Illustration: The Corliss as it looked in the NCR power house in
1902 where it functioned for almost fifty years with never a single
failure.]
As a matter of fact, according to the story I have pieced together from
chance bits of conversation, I missed the scrap heap by just a hair. It
seems there was some idea of putting only my fly wheel in Carillon Park,
because they didn’t quite want to see me pass out altogether. Then one
day, Colonel Deeds got the idea of putting all of me over here. He said
there were not too many Corliss engines around and that we were getting
fewer every year. He figured that future generations ought to know what
we looked like, because we had done a good job. So, in the nick of time,
he saved me. Nick of time is right! It was a matter of hours. The scrap
man had already been out to look me over and I could almost feel the hot
breath of the acetylene torch eating right into me.
[Illustration: On March 13, 1948, Colonel E. A. Deeds turned the
control wheel which shut down the Corliss for the last time. It was
an act which brought with it many memories for him because 46 years
before he had turned that same wheel in the reverse direction for
the first time and brought the Corliss to life.]
Now maybe before I go any further, I should tell you what I did for
almost fifty years at NCR. I really had two jobs: one to turn out
electric power and the other to heat the factory with my exhaust steam,
which you might say I did with my left hand. That’s one reason they
always liked me. I used a lot of coal—guess I’ve burned up about 175,000
tons in my day—but I never wasted it. I got just about as much out of a
ton of coal as I possibly could and then I did that extra job of heating
the factory with my exhaust steam for practically nothing.
[Illustration: The Corliss moves again but this time one powerful
motor truck with heavy-duty trailer is sufficient to do the job.]
I could tell you a lot about some of the things that happened during my
almost half century on the job. Of course I saw NCR grow up. When I went
to work in the power house there were just 5 buildings in the whole
plant. When they took me out I was amazed at how the place had changed.
I had seen some of the new buildings out the window but by no means all
of them. There are over 30 now. And what a lot more people there are! I
think there were about 2,000 in 1902 and now there are 15,000. Well, I
like to think I did my share in helping things along.
About eleven years after I started to work, a terrible thing happened to
Dayton. I am talking about the flood of 1913, and while I didn’t get
wet, I knew the situation was bad. You see, the water knocked out the
power houses downtown and my friends and I in the NCR power house had to
step in and take over. Of course we were glad to do it and those days
remain one of the great experiences of my life, but I wouldn’t want to
go through that again. Or see the fine people of Dayton go through it
either. Fortunately nobody needs to worry any more, for I understand
they have fixed up that flood business for good.
I know people don’t like too many figures, but I’d like to give you just
a few about myself. As you see me today, I weigh 210 tons. My flywheel
is twenty feet in diameter and weighs 38 tons. When I was working full
speed I turned out 800 kilowatts. According to people who should know
and who looked me over just before I moved over here, I was in just
about as good shape when I went out as when I went in. Give me a little
steam and my two old friends, Tom Monks and Ross Morgan, to look after
me and I’d be right back in business.
You know, there is an interesting point of difference between
Grasshopper’s experience and mine. He went onto the side track because
bigger and more powerful engines took his job away from him. Well up to
a point my experience was the same; the fellow who’s doing my job now is
certainly more powerful—about six times as strong—much as I hate to
admit it. But the funny part of it is, he’s a midget compared to me.
Naturally, I haven’t been back to the power house since I left, but they
tell me this fellow, whose name is Turbine, something or other, is
hardly more than a good-sized bump on the power house floor. He weighs
only one-fifth of what I do. Doesn’t seem possible that he can get more
done than I did, but I know times change, and I guess engines, like
everything else, change with them. Don’t think I’m critical; more power
to him. If things keep on growing around there, he’s going to need it.
But I just have a little hope way down deep, that once in a while
someone is going to look over that way and think back to the days when
they could see my old flywheel whirling around day and night, trying to
keep things going.
You know, when you have spent your life trying to do the right thing,
you like to feel that you have done a good job. Do you know the last
thing they said about me, just before I moved? This is part of the
Company’s records so it’s official and it’s something I’ll always
remember. Here it is: “This engine has given excellent service and no
power interruptions were ever experienced due to failure of this unit.”
That makes a fellow feel pretty good and being over here in Carillon
Park, looking shinier even than when I was on the job, makes me feel
good, too. I know I am going to meet a lot of fine people and I hope
they’ll enjoy coming in and looking me over. You know, I think that even
for a Corliss ... I’m a very lucky fellow.
[Illustration: Corliss engine which furnished power for the
Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.]
[Illustration: The Grasshopper locomotive in Carillon Park weighs
about 28,900 pounds, cost probably $4,000, and had a theoretical
tractive effort of 5,094 pounds.]
[Illustration: A modern two-unit Diesel passenger locomotive, on the
other hand, weighs 630,000 pounds, costs about $400,000, and has a
starting tractive effort of 107,000 pounds. The Grasshopper’s top
speed was 15 miles per hour, while most passenger Diesels are geared
to about 90 to 100 miles per hour.]
[Illustration: The Corliss was for many years the most efficient
engine built, but the modern steam turbine gives much greater
efficiency at lower cost. The Corliss engine in Carillon Park weighs
210 tons. It occupied 950 square feet of floor area and its maximum
output was 800 kilowatts.]
[Illustration: The turbo-generator, which replaced it, weighs 44
tons and occupies 200 square feet, but develops 5,000 kilowatts, or
more than 25 times as much power per square foot of floor space as
the Corliss.]
CARILLON PARK
DAYTON, OHIO
One of a series of Carillon Park booklets.
Price ten cents.