The Works Of Messrs. Schneider And Co.

FITTING AND ERECTING SHOPS. 99 presses, so as to prevent cooling and conséquent inçrease in the number of heats required for intricate shapes. Besides cylindrical boilers for the Navy, Messrs. Schneider and Co. have manufacturée! for several years the new types of multitubular boilers, the use of which is largely on the increase. They produce also in large numbers, stationary tubular boilers, as well as those of the more recent water-tube type. The necessary plant for manufacturing the varions systems has been on several occasions modified and completed to keep it up to a high standard. The construction of frames and absolute, and the varions shops help each other in the execution of certain Orders. The section which deals more especially with locomo- tive work, comprises eight buildings, covering an area of 8,500 square metres (10,000 square yards) ; three of these contain the lathes ; four others, varions machine tools, one being the fitting shop ; and the eighth is the erecting shop for locomotives and fenders. All these shops are pro- vided with overhead travellers for serving the tools and for the érection of the engines. A traverser facilitâtes the removal of the locomotives and tenders from any one Fig. 262. Interior of Boring Shop. platforms for land and marine turrets has acquired a great extension at Creusot, and this dass of work, much of which passes through the boiler shop, is still on the increase. Fitting and Erecting Shops.—These shops are the largest in the department ; they occupy half of the total number of workmen employed in this section of the works, namely, 1,000 out of the total of 2,000. They contain more than 500 machine tools of all kinds and power, lathes, planing, drilling, boring, machines, &c. Owing to their importance, the shops have been divided into two main sections, one for locomotives, small stationary engines and torpedo-boat engines ; the other for large marine and stationary engines. These divisions, however, are not of the erecting bei’ths to a neighbouring shop, in which they are painted. The same traverser serves to place the locomotives on the track belonging to the works, from where they are hauled to their destination. When loco- motives manufacturée! by Messrs. Schneider and Co. are for delivery to Spain or Russia, where the gauge is different from that of the other European countries, they are delivered, ready erected, on special cars, built in such a way that the locomotives can easily be removed and placed on the gauge on which they have to run. Only those locomotives that are for delivery beyond sea are delivered in parts. Figs. 256 and 257, Plate L., are two interior views of the locomotive shops. The section more especiallv set apart for the construc-