The San Francisco call., 1895-07-20


Snow and ice have always been source of
trouble on Eastern railway lines in winter.
In the old horse days cars would Jump the
track and brakes prove useless, unless the
rail was fairly clean; but with the advent
of electricity an entirely new and vital
feature was presented, namely, the neces-
sity for as perfect contact as possible be-
tween wheel and rail. Various ice break
ing devices for freeing the rail have been
tried, but none was so effective as the time
honored salt, particularly on curves and
switches. Salt, however, is VIGOROUSLY
perverse as to condition, and often most
inconvenient thing to handle. Unless it
was kept in a perfectly dry storehouse,
dampness would attack it, weakening it.,
and making it difficult to feed when put
into the salt boxes. Extra men,
too, had to ride on the salters
to work the levers and poke the hopper to
insure anything like steady flow on the
track. In many cities objection was freely
made to the use of salt, which formed in
piles. and scattering on vehicles injured
the varnish. For many years managers
have studied the question of preparing
very strong brine, and thus using the salt
in liquid form. The theory was excellent,
but in practice it was found impossible to
avoid incrustation and deposits which
gather on the sides and bottoms of the
tanks and quickly choke the pipes through
which the brine is conducted to the rail.
The problem has at length been solved,
and the solution will put many thousand
dollars year in the pockets of the street
railroad companies. After experiments
aEh hNI
has been discovered of producing cheaply
highly concentrated clear salt liquor
with specific gravity greatly in excess of
water. 1t is absolutely free from deposit
or sediment, costs no more than salt
TO begin With, is easy to ap-
ply and most economical in use, as
it involves, practically, no wastage. The
that has been subjected to mechanical
and chemical treatment. 1t will not freeze
even at 20 degrees below zero. 1t has an
immediate action when applied, it's pene-
trating effects being very much greater
than dry salt or the brine formed from
salt melting on the track. For curves,
crossings and switches the brine is applied
by the man who sweeps these points, who
pours the brine from common sprinkling
can. For mainline tracks q small tank
can be set on the front platform, and the
liquid can be fed to the rail by small
iron pipe. For very bad track and long
distances sprlnkler-car can be used and
one tankcar will brine the rails twenty
or thirty miles. Many streetcar COM
panies are preparing to use the liquid en-
tirely next winter, and the public will
benefit in many ways by the change.
SIGNS OF New ERA IN ELECTRIC TRAc-
TIoN. A singular coincidence seems to
have taken place in the field of electric
traction. For many years there has been
a keen rivalry between the electric conduit
and the storage battery for the prominent
place in traction work that everybody
recognized was held only temporarily by
the trolley. The main hindrance to the
adoption of the conduit was the matter of
insulation; the air in the conduit was
often damp and the conduit itself could
not be kept dry. The expense of a
fairly efficient system also played an
important part in the reckoning. With
the storage battery, the great difficulty was
the excessive weight of the lead plates of
the accumulators. 1t could run the car
well enough, but the railroad engineer was