Box 14, Veyo, Utah
Dr. Shefer paraphrases General McArthur to say, ‘the place
of the steam engine and country doctor just fades away,’ but we
feel to disagree with him. The country doctor did render some
service and couldn’t do the harm the MD’s with the shots
and wonder drugs are doing. As for steam, whenever it gets pushed a
comeback.
Witness the motor ships. One need not have a very long memory to
recall when it was predicted the diesel engine would drive steam
from the water ways of the world. For a time it seemed this
prediction would materialize, but soon the steam marine builders
upped the pressure and the temperature and soon had the business
back.
Steam is such an amazing and versatile power that it has
withstood amazing abuse. Witness the Stanley Steamer. Two Maine
violinists who made a living manufacturing photographic dry plates
placed a two cylinder slide valve steam engine and an extremely
crude fire tube boiler wrapped with piano wire on an automobile and
made a huge success.
The flat-plate slide valve steam engine is the least efficient
of all known steam engines, yet they used it and still made a
success. They could have used a uniflow engine or a piston valve,
or a poppet valve, or some other form of MUCH better engine.
This illustrates eloquently the superiority of steam. Their
burners were monstrosities and they were so wasteful of water that
the car seldom made more than sixty miles without the necessity for
refilling the large water tank, but the performance was so
phenomenal that people were willing to put up with the burners and
water troughs and other defects in order to enjoy the amazing
performance of the steam car. If such a poorly engineered device
could make good, what would a well designed modern steamer do?
In central station practice we have the Rankine, the Reheating,
the Regenerative, and the Reheating-Regenerative, and the so called
Super-pressure steam cycles. The Rankine is the least efficient of
them all, yet it is the only cycle yet attempted on a steam
vehicle. More than 20 years ago I applied for patents on a
Reheating steam automobile and the like. Abner Doble is now trying
to build a reheating steam power plant for Yellow Coach and
Firestone is reportedly also playing with steam.