The steam gauge is a later addition, but could have been put on as early as the 1860's, since the most recent patent date that it bears is 1859. It is an Ashcroft gauge having a handsome 4--4--0 locomotive engraved on its silver face.
The steam jet (item 3, fig. 18) is one of the simplest yet most notable boiler fitting of the _Pioneer_, being nothing more than a valve tapped into the base of the steam dome with a line running under the boiler jacket to the smokestack. When the valve is opened a jet of steam goes up the stack, creating a draft useful for starting the fire or enlivening it as necessary. This device was the invention of Alba F. Smith in 1852, according to the eminent 19th-century technical writer and engineer Zerah Colburn.[15]
The two feedwater pumps (fig. 20) are located beneath the cab deck (1, fig. 17). They are cast-iron construction and are driven by an eccentric on the driving-wheel axle (fig. 27). The airchamber or dome (1, fig. 27) imparts a more steady flow of the water to the boiler by equalizing the surges of water from the reciprocating pump plunger. A steam line (3, fig. 18), which heats the pump and prevents freezing in cold weather, is regulated by a valve in the cab (figs. 18, 27). Note that the line on the right side of the cab has been disconnected and plugged.
The eccentric drive for the pumps is unusual, and the author knows of no other American locomotive so equipped. Eastwick and Harrison, it is true, favored an eccentric drive for feed pumps, but they mounted the eccentric on the crankpin of the rear driving wheel and thus produced in effect a half-stroke pump. This was not an unusual arrangement, though a small crank was usually employed in place of the eccentric. The full-stroke crosshead pump with which the _Jenny Lind_ (fig. 22) is equipped, was of course the most common style of feed pump used in this country in the 19th century.
[Illustration: Figure 19.--BACKHEAD of the _Pioneer_. (Smithsonian photo 48069F.)]
Of all the mechanisms on a 19th-century locomotive, the feed pump was the most troublesome. If an engineer could think of nothing else to complain about, he could usually call attention to a defective pump and not be found a liar. Because of this, injectors were adopted after their introduction in 1860. It is surprising that the _Pioneer_, which was in regular service as late as 1880 and has been under steam many times since for numerous exhibitions, was never fitted with one of these devices. Because its stroke is short and the plunger is in less rapid motion, the present eccentric arrangement is more complex but less prone to disorder than the simpler but faster crosshead pump.