Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-06-13
RAILWAY EXPOSITION,
Interesting Letter from the Record. Union
Special Correspondent.
Cu1cAcn lime Z i

CHICAGO, June I, 1888.
The National Exposition OF Railway APP |
pliances is very superior and costly affair, |
and reflects great credit on the managers, OF.
ficers and gentlemen who by gifts and guar
antees have, so far as the exhibit is con-
cerned, made it pronounced success. The
display of costly and ponderous machinery,
tools and appliances for railway purposes,
is not only imposing but beautiful, and ex-
csedingly gratifying to the eye of the me-
chanic and practical man. Given an object
to be attained, or work to be performed,
here are numerous different and apparently
impossible ways of accomplishing it, but
it is done with more or less merit in the
method.
In the case of coupling two railway cars
together, there are said to be on exhibition
no less than one hundred and thirty differ
emit ways ; and although most of the meth
DDS are ingenious and show the expendi'
ture of much thought and labor, it is safe
to say one hundred and twenty-five are
useless four more not much account, and
one, the Junney Coupler, just the thing.
Many roads are now adopting 1t, and al
should. l don't include the Miller hook
coupling, which is very good, but not, In
my opinion, as good as the Junney.
| witnessed the starting of the electric
car at this Exposition. The track on
which it runs is the same as the ordinary
rail track, with the addition Of middle
rail of ordinary bar iron-say three.quar-
tiers of an inch by three, secured and set
up on edge, added to which is a copper
wire humber one) running along and in
side of the track on one rail. The dummy
or car on which is the motor or dyna-
mo. has beneath it an apparatus with two
wheels that run along, one on each side of
the middle rail, clasping it. As electric
sparks fly from this rail, | suppose the cir
cult is completed by it. There is dynamo
on the dummy itself in motion. The
power is generated from distance, and
appears to be conveyed by means of the
copper wire from a steam-engine. The
dummy, with some five or Six persons,
attained speed of about four miles an
hour. 1t is probable they night go faster,
but as they attached a car to the dummy
With no one on it, and after moving slowly
a short distance it stopped, l presume the
full power was exercised. Of course the
trial is not conclusive, but incline to the
belief that locomotives have yet long day
to abide with us. l am told that there is
an electric railway in successful opera
ton at Berlin, which may or may not be
the case. If the car can be made to go no
faster than the one here exhibited, and
the Berlini:es are Satisfied with it, the Ger.
mans are not fast people, and are easily
Satisfied.
There are three or four systems shown
of the application of electricity for the
working of switches and signals on rail-
ways, either of which, to all appearances,
seems to be as near perfection as attainable.
They work signals at long distances ahead,
and by means Of the train itself, which
cannot pass in either direction without
working very conspicuous signals at any
distance desired or necessary, thus block.
ing the road in convenient sections, and
making all The trains or engines on the
whole length of the road practically in
sight at all hours OF the twenty.four, and
rendering collisions or running into the
rear end of train as near an impossibility
as can be possible.
The North Chicago Rolling Mills have
an exhibit OF what appears to be very
fine quality of steel rails of different sizes
and weight, and as a specimen Of the i'm
mense power and perfection of their ma
chinery, they display one 65-pound steel
rail to the yard, l20 feet in length, weigh.
ing 800 pounds, and rolled from one ingot
= nd ~ 1+au
These mills are the latest and best APP
pointed steel mills in the United States,
and visit to them is worth a trip for a
long distance. The works are some ten
miles south of Chicago, and are reached
either by the Lake Shore, Pennsylvania or
Baltimore and Ohio Railroads. The build
ings are massive, and extend at present
over eighty acres of land, most of which
has been reclaimed from Lake Michigan.
Here the iron ores are placed in immense
cupolas, melted by the intense heat Of
gases made from coal quarter of a mile
from the cupolas, and led to them under
ground from the retorts where the coal is
converted into gas for the purpose, mixed
with gwen quantity of air. This Is found
a more economical method than to use the
coal in the cupola with the iron, as is done
ordinarily, and besides more effective. AS
the molten iron runs from the cupola it is
caught in great iron ladies holding ten
tons, conveyed by locomotive to the con-
verters, which are practically oval cupolas
hung on their centers, weighing over fifty
tons, and adjusted very perfectly. They
turn on their centers by means OF hydraulic
engines with the greatest facility. Into
these converters is forced a tremendous
blast of air which consumes the carbon in
the liquid iron, and by the addition of a
small quantity of what is called spiegel,
Bessimer steel is produced. 1t is conveyed
from the converters by means of hydraulic
cranes and carriages in great ladies, thence
poured into large castiron dies, which hold
and form the iugots, and each of which,
when removed from the die, weigh about
), go pounds. These are carried forward,
intensely hot, on iron.cars, by engines to
the rolling mills, aud after passing num-
Der of times come out railroad rails ninety
six feet long. About three feet is cut off
at each end, being more or less imperfect,
and the other ninety feet are sawed into
three rails, each thirty feet long. Thus
the ore goes in at one end of the establish
ment and steel rails come out at the other.
These enormous weights OF white hot steel
are moved about as though they were
feathers, for they pass along up and down
with great rapidity, and for great dis
taness. No one is near them, nor is the
strength of men demanded. at suffi-
Gent distance away you see men and boys
moving levers and turning cocks and
wheels, and these are the directors of the
moving masses. It is q wonderful exem-
plifcation of the power of mind over mat
ter. The present production of the works
is 10, 500 tors Of rails per month, and
soon to be increased 20 5000. ".