Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-12-02
SEQ MILES AN HOUR.
Efforts at Improvement in locomotives
Possibilities in Railroad Speed.
San Francisco Chronicle

Efforts at Improvement III locomotives
Possibilities in Railroad Speed.
San Francisco Chronicle
When George Stephenson asserted his
ability to run passenger coaches at a
speed Of twelve to fifteen miles an hour.
scientific and practical mon deemed him
fit for lunatic asylum, bat time has
shown that trains may be run at much
greater velocity without materially add
ing to the dangers of railway travel
The flight of the fast express on the
Pennsylvania railway is marked ex-
ample of the possibilities in the way of
sustaining high rates of speed. This
road now runs the fastest train in Ameri-
ca. Nine hundred and twelve miles, in
Guiding several stops, are accomplished
in 2512 hours, and the average time is
$3.50 miles an hour. A portion of the
distance is run at the rate of rs miles an
hour. At a speed of 60 miles an hour
the driving wheels of the locomotive on
this train make 25S1h revolutions a min
ute. William Vanderbilt's squirt of eigh-
ty-one miles in sixty-one minutes on the
New York Central is declared to be the
highest rate of speed ever attained in
this country, but this speed was not a sur
prise to good engineers, many of whom
are firm in the belief that 100 miles an
hour will yet be accomplished on Ameri-
can roads.
Thirty-one years ago Colonel Meiggle
read a paper before the New York Farm
ers club on Future travelling" in which
he expressed the belief that railroad cars
could be safely propelled by steam at the
rate of 800 miles an hour. He said: "The
Emperor of Russia has taken the first
step toward what [ deem the uItinnatum
of railroad travel. Instead of cutting
what call mere drill through the coun-
try and going around everything in the
way for straight line, he has cut a
broad way for five hundred miles
from ST. Petersburg to Moscow.
H. has made it all the way two
hundred feet wide, so that the engineer
sees everything on the road. This is no
part of the future-the railroad from
point to point with mathematical line:
the rails ten times stronger than are now
used; the locomotive on wheels of far
greater diameter; the gauge of relative
breadth; the signals and times perfectly
settled the roads on both sides during
the transit of trains having the gates of
the walls all closed-then, instead of
travelling one hundred miles an hour, we
shall more safely travel three hundred
miles an hour"
One of the latest efforts at improve
ment in locomotives is that of French
man nomed Estrada, who has constructed
an engine which he calls La Parisienne.
La Parisienne, when watered and fired,
weighs forty-two tons. It's driving
wheels, six in number, are So feet in
diameter. The Cylinders are on the out
side, with valveboxes on the top. The
diameter of each cylinder is So inches,
and the length of stroke is 2 feet and 80
inches. This engine is built for high
speed, and will carry a pressure of 200
pounds to the square inch above the at
mosphere, or an absolute pressure of 215
pounds. Estrade's engine is designed run
to at the average rate of seventy-eight
miles an hour.