Grow Up, Railroads!
BY JACQUES MARTIAL
THE year 1869 was a fateful one in the history of railroads. It was during that year that George Stephenson won the “Battle of the Gauges” over his opponent Brunei, the famous engineer of the Great. Western Railways.
This “victory,” which decided in favor of the narrower gauge of 4 feet 8-1/2 inches, was a fundamental error. From it stem practically all the ills of the present-day railroads. Greater speed, cost of operation, volume, comfort, loads, economy— every possible progressive step needed today is prevented by the initial shortsighted decision won by Stephenson. History is not clear as to how the odd figure of 4 feet 8-1/2 inches was arrived at. Some say it was based upon the distance beteen the Romans’ wheel ruts. Others claim that Stephenson simply found it in the distance between the wheels of his own cart.
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Robot Ticket Agent Books Train Space in 45 Seconds
ELECTRONICS is now making train reservations at New York’s busy Pennsylvania Station. And the new semi-automatic system gets your space in 45 seconds—the old method sometimes took 45 minutes.
The big saving in time is made by eliminating all direct contact between the ticket seller and the file clerk who actually assigns train space. This clerk now receives teletype requests only for space known to be available, and need not waste time in looking up vacant space and then relaying this information to the ticket seller. The Intelex, developed by International Telephone and Telegraph Corp., is already being used on the Pennsylvania’s New York-Chicago trains. By next year it will handle all reservations.
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Can Trains be Run by Perpetual Motion
The fallacies surrounding many ideas in perpetual motion are set forth in this interesting yarn which recounts some of the impossibilities suggested to solve the age old problem of getting power from nothing. Wheels with over-balance, sponge engines, gold leaf machines, and a railroad which appears as though it might actually work are recounted.
by HJALMAR LUERSSEN
OF ALL the mechanical brain-bugs that repeatedly surge over the country, the perpetual motion bug holds all records for depth and duration of sting. The perpetual motion idea has been recurring in cycles and minor cycles for over a thousand years, or since the birth of scientific thought, and magazine editors have recently noted that the virus has again affected inventors.
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Magnets Drive High Speed Suspension Trains Thru Air
ELEVATED trains whizzing at tremendous speed from city to city, powered solely by electromagnetic lines of force, is the new and startling method of rapid transportation now being developed by German engineers.
A war against friction losses has long been waged by scientists; and this electromagnetic rapid transit project now promises to end the conflict. No wheels are to be used for traction. The cars are drawn forward, in one scheme by powerful electromagnets, in the other by huge solenoids.
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PROPELLER-DRIVEN TRAIN
By Frank Tinsley
THE propeller-driven monorail train zooming out of New York’s Pennsylvania Station accelerates from zero to 115 mph in a little over one mile. Its destination, Washington, D. C, will be reached in record time.
This revolutionary streamliner may soon become a reality. Curtiss-Wright Corp. has proposed powering high speed passenger trains with air propellers utilizing C-W’s Turbo-compound airplane engine. Pennsylvania Railroad is considering this project, a possible solution to the American railroads’ quest for economic and lightweight rolling stock.
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Winged Rail Car Rides on Air
CAPTIVE airplanes with clipped wings would hurtle across country at more than six miles a minute, in a “flying-railway” system proposed by a European engineer. His scheme calls for a giant new type of streamline passenger car, having stubby wing surfaces and a body like the fuselage of an airplane. At low speeds, as in starting and stopping, the vehicle rolls along standard rails on flanged wheels at front and rear.
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BIGGEST BABY RAILROAD
NEAR Lancaster, S. C, you can find the biggest baby railroad in the country. Well, maybe not the biggest in size, but certainly possessor of the biggest list of vice-presidents—from James Montgomery Flagg to Gypsy Rose Lee.
Actually, though, this tiny offspring of the Lancaster and Chester Railway is one of the finest miniature steam railroads in the world. Located in the recreation park of the Springs Cotton Mills, it’s the brainchild of Elliott White Springs, World War I combat flier, author, owner of the mill and president of the L & C.
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Is the Iron Horse Doomed?
Electrification of Pennsylvania R.R. on Gigantic Scale May Presage End of the Steam Locomotive
By Kenneth M. Swezey
FROM the Pennsylvania Railroad route between New York and Washington, D. C, the snorting monsters which for more than fifty years have hauled some of the heaviest freight and passenger traffic in America are soon to disappear. By the middle of 1933, at least 150 electric-powered giants, and several hundred multiple-unit cars, will be handling the entire traffic on this section of the line with a speed, smoothness, and economy never before achieved. This greatest steam railroad electrification project, involving 325 miles of route and 1,300 miles of track and costing a hundred million dollars, marks the beginning of a new era in railroad transportation. For almost half a century, the Iron Horse has roared across the continents of the world, snorting defiance at the threat of electricity. Without undue humiliation it let its sleek rival do the quiet and smokeless auxiliary work at terminals, in long tunnels, and on suburban and inter-urban passenger lines.
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“Caboose” Is Tombstone
WHEN Charles E. Witting was killed in an accident in the line of duty while working on the Pennsylvania Railroad, on which system he was employed for eight years, an unusual monument was erected to his memory in the graveyard of Urichsville, Ohio, his native town.
Designed after the old-fashioned type of freight caboose, the headstone is mute evidence of the work Witting so much loved. Members of the Urichsville chapter of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, of which Witting was a member, helped to erect the unique marker.
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Propeller-Driven Car Hangs from Monorail
An improved airline cab, capable of 155 miles an hour, is the latest invention of the French engineer who developed the trench mortar used during the World War. Suspended on monorails, the cabs resemble airplane fuselages. A small propeller at the front of the cab is driven by a fifteen-horsepower electric motor.
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