Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-07-21
AIR POWER
To be Utilized In the second Avenue.
New York Cars-NO More Horses,
No More Noise. and Forty
Miles an Hour.

New York Sun: While Prof. Edison is
working out his phonautograph, and studying
the effects therefrom, the Second avenue rail-
road have been perfechng means of obvlat-
ing the difficulties of the Metropolitan eleva-
ted road. A month or two ago the officers of
the Second avenue company successfully ex-
perimented with Car made under the auspi-
ces of the Pneumatic Engine tramway COM
pany. The system is based on the fact that
atmospheric air is capable of being COM
pressed into very small compass and giving a
reservoir of energy representing the mechan-
zeal force employed la COMPRISING it. This
being liberated and applied to an improved
engine, the force can be used as a motive
power, and be under the perfect command of
even an inexperienced driver after few
trials. So satisfactory were the results of the
experiments that in few weeks half a
dozen cars will be running in Second avenue
from Nlrty- sixth to One Hundred and Twen-
ty-ninty street without visible means of
motion. The car used for the experimental
trips last April has been remodeled, and will
start again with passengers regularly next
Monday. As fast as possible the whole line
of railroad will be supplied with rapid tran
sit, at speed of forty miles an hour, If nee
essary, from Harlem to the city hall. The
old cars will be utilized, and the horse service
and the danger attendant on steam done away
with at a small cost and great saving. At
First avenue, is a working model of the cars.
The foreman of the shop, inaanswer of an in
quiry, says Robert Hardie, of Glasgow,
and John James, of Edinburg, are now en-
ployed by the company on the utilization of
the old street cars. A citizen of New
York met these two engineers in Glasgow last
year, and on his representations they came to
this country. They intended to give Scotland
the benefit of their compressed air service,
but America will first reap the advantages.
In December last they built their first car at
the depot of the Second avenue railroad COM
pany, and it was pronounced very successful.
docs it make much noise in transit ?" was
asked.
Every little," was the answer. sit is COM
paratively noiseless. If the Metropolitan line
were to run these carriages on their road the
doctors and the Sixth avenue residents would
not have much to complain of. Besides, as
each car has its own motor, and as the ele
waited roadruns three carriages and an engine,
seventy-hve per cent. of the noise would be at
once obviated by one car running at time.
That IS, OF course, granting that the noise
arising from each was equal to what is on the
Metropolitan now. Cars then could easily be
run one at time every half minute instead
of every three minutes. The pneumatic force
has never been used to carry passengers by
wholesale before. 1t has, however, been
found of great service In England. By a
London, transmits its mail bags from place to
place. These heavy weights are shot along
tubes on the principle of the air-gun. Often
one or two persons have safely ventured to be
transported by this means"
"Will you explain the workings?" was the
next question.
Taking small tin model in his hand, the
engineer pointed out two long compressed air
receivers of steel, that are placed under the
seats of the car, and six for filling under the
end platforms. The eight" he said 'are
connected cylinders, aud are fixed inside of
iron frames between the wheels of the car.
These are connected by an engine situated
beneath the car between the crank axles and
wheels. The air is pumped inside the re-
ceiver by rubber hose attached to a COM
pressing engine at the depots. A new FIVE
hundred horse power engine, especially made
for the purpose, will take about one minute
to give each car its supply of motive power.
This will be less time than it often taken to
change horses. The driver stands in the same
reversing and braking gear that is of the old
locomotive style. 1t is a lever, and can be
handled by any one, and not necessarily an
engineer. In running down an incline the
engine Is transformed INTO an air-pump and
Greats new power"
will there by any pecuniary saving?"
Considerable. Mr.. HardIe, the chief en-
that the present cost of horse shoeing, feed,
harness repairing, stable expenses, and re-
placing of horses alone amount up In New
York to ever two millions of dollars per
annum. To run two-horse street-car 1t costs
on an average, all told, ten dollars and sixty
cents day. To run the fifteen hundred
horsecars now used costs nearly six million
dollars, The entire expenses of the pneuma-
tic system would be little over two millions.
The total saving would be somewhere about
three million FIVE hundred thousand dollars.
1t has been calculated that the pneumatic
system can be worked at least thirty per cent.
cheaper than steam.''
what other advantages will there be In
the proposed method?"
Every many. Animals would not be ex-
cited on the road by the whistl.ng and puff
ing of the steam cars. The guys, pillars and
other paraphernalia of the elevated roads
would be needless. Where these now exist
they could be utilized, as we'll as the surface
street rails. There would be no escape of hot
steam or blazing cinders to set awnings on
fire. 1t would do away with the aroma of
horse railroads and of coal gas with its sui
phuric vapors. The terrible catalogue of dis
eases cited by the physicians as probable to
result from the noise of the Metropolitan
would be entirely obviated. After all, fifty
per cent. saving on horsepower and thirty
on steam would be the most important adj
vantage to be derived from the pneumatic
tramway system.
For Upward of Thirty Years
Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup has been used