The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-09-14
AN ELECTRIC RAILWAY.
A System That Threatens Il Revolution
Carrying Mail and Express Packages at
"A Speed of 600 Miles an Hour.

the inventor of new rapid transit
electric railway system which promises
to revolutionize the carrying of mails
and express. He has been interviewed
on the subject of his new invention at
his home in Laurel, Maryland, and has
now given the following interesting
details of the plan: The railway has
two rails. very much like any other
railway, but it is enclosed-here in a
sort of lattice work and there by a
barbed-wire fence, which stretches
along on both sides. But the queerest
thing about this railroad is what travels
on it.
Mr.. Weems, standing in the door of
a shed, touches button, when out of
the shed crawls an iron.plated thing
about two and a half feet square and
twenty feet long, pointed at one end.
1t is on wheels and looks very heavy
and clumsy. No sooner have you be-
gun to look it over and wonder whether
it is a torpedo or rock crusher than
it disappears. 1t goes off like flash.
Apparently nothing touches it, nothing
propeis it. But it goes. A little rum
BILE, dark streak going around the
curve of the circular railway, and it is
hiddenf in clump of trees. Mr.. Weems
still stands with his hand on the but
ton, watching pencil moving in an
automatic device over piece of ruled
paper. cat the half" he exclaims a
on fuyn lnf1 In lap
"a mile and a halfi'' and a few
seconds more the long black things
on wheels whizzes by. You take out
your watch and time it. In a
little less than a minute it re-
appears. In another minute it whizzes
past once more. AS it goes round and
round it is like nothing so much as a
big shuttle moving in circle with in
conceivable rapidity. The track is
exactly two miles in circumference.
1--WE are not running very fast now,"
Mr.. Weems says. Only l, 400 revolu-
tons of our dynamo. This gives us a
speed of exactly two miles minute.
Our machines develop up to 10000 revo-
buttons, and we have run them 3, 500 rev.
olutions, equal to more than four miles
a minute, for twenty-four hours without
| stopping. On first-class track, rea-
sonably straight and without too many
steep grades. we can easily develop d
continuous speed of from three to four
miles minute. In fact, there is prac-
tically no limit to the speed that our
power can produce. The only question
is how much speed the tracks and cars
are able to stand. The track we are
now using il curved and full of heavy
| grades"
The success of this remarkable rail-
way has been so thoroughly assured by
actual demonstration that Chicago may
now begin looking forward to the re-
ceipt of mail from New York in four or
| five hours.
"Within . very few years." said Mr..
| Weems, there will be a double track
electric railway from New York to
Chicago, about 900 miles long. The
track will have a twelve inch gauge
and will be enclosed in net work of
barbed wire. The wires of which this
fence is made will be used for tele-
! graph. telephone and automatic sig
mails. Overhead will be space for car
rying hundred commercial telegraph
wires. The track is so light and the
rolling stock so easily carried that at
very small additional cost the road can
be elevated through towns and cities,
and wherever it may be necessary to
obviate heavy grades. Through this
protected way trains two and half
feet wide and of about the same height
will run at the speed of 200 miles an
hour. No enginemen, conductors or
brakemen accompany the train, whose
movements are controlled easily and
absolutely from the power sta
tions. OF these stations there will
be one in New York, one in Chi.
cago, and seven on the line about 100
miles apart. These power stations will
require a capacity of about 800 horse
each, and any practical engineer can
compute the cost of maintaining them.
1t is really trihing, considering the eff
ficiency developed. If water power
can be had for some of the stations,
even if five or ten miles from the track,
it will be utilized, power being trans
mitted by wire. In operation trains OF
four or five cars will be run, motor
car and three or four others. The cars
are so telescoped together as to form
unbroken surfaces, top, bottom and
sides, and the rear car, as we'll as the
first or motor car, is pointed, so as to
offer the least possible resistance to
air. The movement of each train is
automatically and accurately registered
on chart in the power stations. The
slightest accident to the train or the
presence of an obstacle on the track
shuts off the connection. At the will
of the dispatcher train can be stopped
at any point, backed up or started
ahead again. The trains are, therefore.
under complete control, and if traffic
should not justify the building of d
double track single track could be
easily and efficiently operated"
The ModestY of BoYhood.