Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-11-03
LOCOMOTIVES WITH SHOUTS.
French Engines to Have Prov t.
Decrease Remittance to the Wind.

EhSihcS 10 u "
Decrease Resistance to the Wind.
From the London Daily Telegraph.
1t sounds almost sacrilegious for any for
eign inventive gerius to lay amending
hands On the locomotive. SO thoroughly En-
glish as it been in its inception, design and
development. Yet it would seem the French
engin GERS are presuming to improve Ste
phenson's iron horse, and in quite an ele-
mentary matter, too. 1t has occurred to
everybody wto has though, of the resist
ance which the air offers to todies passing
through 1t at high velocity as curious, to
say the least, that the designers of the
stearI locomotive raid practically no at
tention 10 this subject-te ated 1t, in fact.
as negligible quantity.
Negligible it is not. Every form of re-
sistance increases at an enormous ratio
with velocity. In liquids and gases it varies
with density as we'll as speed; but, as a
rule, the French engineers are right in as
sorting that to double the velocity will in
crease the atmospheric resistance at least
six fold We have only to think what this
means with train running at, say, fifty
miles an hour, and meeting a wind, blow
ing in the opposite direction, of the same
velocity. 1t would involve an enormously
increased expenditure of Ell ergy in the form
Of fuel
For ships, moving in vastly denser med
ium nature has compelled recognition of
the hard fact Mans earliest craft had pos
sibly bluff bows, like some of our anti
auated liners and merchan tmen, but some
of the rudest canoe builders saw the adj
vantage of the principle of the inclined
plane, and in the latest naval types we see
cutwaters sharp knife. OF course,
Dame Nature modelled her fish on least re-
sistance lines, hut she did the same also
with her birds. From beak to breast the
mechanism is as economical OF power as 1t
is beautiful in symmetry.
And now the Paris. LYONS and Medit-
erranean Railway Company going to
initiate the fish and the bird. and they have
ordered forty locomotives with shouts"
Instead of presenting a large surface square
to the resistance of the atmosphere, they
will make the engine front metal prov,
with iron planes, sheltering funnel, dome
and fire box and inclined to ca IN other, and
to the permanent way at angle of As
degrees. In brief, the train will plough it's
way through the atmosphere, and instead
OF driving a huge column of the resisting
medium in FROM Of twill allow 1t to glance
off as the water does when cleft by the
finny tribes, or the air when an arrow
speeds through it. There can sea rcely be a
doubt that this is a move Al the right direc-
ton. 1t will lead to a considerable saving
Of COAL and the rate of motion, especially
against strong winds, will be increased, be-
cause partially at least, the train will be
enabled to attain high speed without at
the same time expanding it's energy in i'm
parting similar velocity to body of air.
So far as appearances go, we see no rea-
son why the engine with gracefully curv-
ed or inclined ram or PROV should not be
at least as much a thing of beauty as the
locomotive of the present Perhaps even
this will only be transitory stage. Nova
days the engine of passenger trains often
weighs one-half the whole load to be drawn
and the savants are not content to think
that a moiety of the power should be spent
upon its traction. 1t seems inevitable that
electricity will some day be sufficiently de-
veioped to dispense with this waste and
thus become our general motor Mean
while the locomotive with shouts" promise
to be an improved type.