The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-05-17

work on our new power-house has hardly
advanced far enough,' said Mr.. George w.
Pearson, president of the Metropolitan Rail
road Company, yesterday, ''to give you clear
idea of what it will be like. But you can see
what is being DONE"
The location of the new buildings is on p
street, above the present stables, and the scene
presented was one of activity. The massive
walls of the three buildings have reached the
ground level, the excavations for which had
to be blasted from the solid rock, thus giving
first-rate foundation. First comes the boiler
house, about 4Ox3O feet, which, when com
pleted, will contain boilers of the latest design
and improvement. Next comes the engine
room, about 60 feet square, where three i'm
mense engines will be placed to generate the
electric fluid for the storage batteries placed in
each car. Next to the engine-room is large
building for the recharging Of the storage bat
teries. The cars containing them will be run
into this house, connections made, and the
work of ''storing" commenced. The delay
will be no longer than the time now taken to
change horses, besides which car can make
six or eight trips before it is necessary to re-
charge the batteries Everything will be ar
ranged SO as to work automatically and with
clocklike regularity.
"Ever since the company decided to adopt
the motor SYSTEM" said Mr.. Pearson, sit has
been all uphill work with us. We had no
guide to go by and improve upon, as the
cable and electric roads here had, but ali the
details of this system have been worked out
by our expert engineer, who has SO arranged
his plans that coming improvements can be
made without radical change in the plant
''The wood work OF the cars is being built
here in our shops. The mechanism will be
furnished by the motor company, whose
patent we will use. Five cars at time will
be run out until all the horse-cars are with
drawn, but that will not be all at once. OF
course, we will keep our horses until the sys-
tenn is in thorough working order, and until
we are positive beyond doubt that there can
be no miss fire. After we are confident of
that the horses will gradually be disposed of.
1t is an expensive experiment, and if fail
ure will be big loss to us, but we have
every confidence in the system, which is en-
tirely different from any here, and have no
doubt but that it will be success.
81 have been thinking lately" continued
Mr.. Pearson, in a meditative voice, 'of the in
consistency of human nature. During the
recent three days of cool weather we had here
we received numerous complaints in regard to
our summer-cars, which had only been put in
use few days before that time. We only run
every other car an open one, with two min
utes and half between them, but rather than
to wait for closed car many people prefer to
complain and abuse the company. AS a mat
ter of curiosity 1 stood on Seventh street for
quite while one of the cold days and watched
the cable-cars They consisted of the grip-car,
which is open, and the other closed one.
My record showed that five passengers rode
in the open car to one in the closed. 1t is
very queer how some people like to kick
about discomfort they can avoid, if SO dis
posed but such is life, SUPPOSE