Evening star., 1897-05-15

THE STAR should not be addressed
to any individual connected with the
Office. but simply to THE STAR. or to
the Editorial or business Depart
nents, according to tenor or purpose.
A COmPressed Air BuncO Game.
II is high time to call the attention of
Congress to the farce now being enacted by
thesEckington and Soldiers Home Railway
Company of this city in the name of
effort to give the people of Washington
rapid transit facilities. That company is
now operating under an act of Congress
passed June TO- isD6 as amended by the act
of February 3. 1897. requiring rapid tran
sit equipment by the first of July. Isis.
Two systems are in contemplation. COM
pressed air and the underground electric.
The former is an experiment and the latter
Is a known success. The company prefers
to try the former. notwithstanding the
many indications that ii is failure at its
present stage of development. and is today
wasting time. fooling the people of the cap
ital with promises to equip the entire line
with air cars at early day. 1t has al
ways been questioned whether this COM
pressed air system had been brought to
point of sufficient perfection to warrant its
the streets of a modern city: and
the public has awaited the results of the
present so-called tests with patience. hop
Ing that perhaps the long-promised I'M
rroveme1ts had been successfully devised.
Hut from time to time complaints as to the
operation of the experimental car have been
received. verified by trustworthy evidence.
and this paper Is now enabled to publish
such showing of the former performances
of the identical car that Is now running to
and from lexington as to demonstrate be-
yond question that the company is either
blind to the plain facts or Is deliberately
seeking 10 mislead the people and Congress.
The record Of this car is printed today in
the news columns. 1t shows that the mo-
tor and its three fellows. used for many
months In New York as an experiment.
were utter failures from the standpoint of
practical railroading. They developed sew
eral serious fassss. Their valves froze in
cold weather. cripplng them. The connec-
tions burst frequently. cylinder heads were
blown out. and other explosions occurred.
temporarily wrecking the cars and endan-
gering life. The brakes were unreliable and
dit times the piston rods connecting them
with the power became fixed and set the
wheels so that the car was worse than use
less. But above all these facts. 1t is now of
record tnat the cars could not De depended
Upon to make the round trip. the air supply
giving ont. and the memorandum of the
various performances is replete with notes
of cars being pushed into the sheds from
varying distances.
In short, the record Is one of utter failure.
1t Is wonder that the company that WAS
then conducting the experiments rejected
the air system and voted to adopt the I'm
der-ground electric. at a vastly greater
cost This act Of itself should have sufficed
TO warn the local company of the danger of
even experimenting with the motors. Those
In charge of the roads here, as practical
men. should have known every detail OF
these tests I'm New York. 1t Is beyond be-
lief that they were not thus fully ac-
quainted with the record. They were prob
ably aware of many more deficiencies than
those now noted in The Star. And yet they
have given one a few runs over an easy
line of track. never heavily loaded. sur
rounding its performances with q veil Of
secrecy and prociaiming from the seclusion
of their guarded sheds that the tests have
been glortousty successful and that the
next move Is the ordering of fifteen cars of
the same deslGni
The truth of the situation is not far to
seek 1t is notorious that this same COM
pany has been a persistent advocate of and
petitioner for overhead trolley privileges.
Ii yielded It's last urban foot-hod with re-
iuctance. and only when threatened with
legal Intervention. 1t pretends to be willing
TO accept the alternative Of compressed air
or underground electric. and deliberately
undertakes experiments with q car that
could not succeed under favorable condi-
lions and stands marked among street rail-
road men as a disastrous failure
There Is a giaring lack of good faith in
this pretended compliance with the COM
mands of Congress. There Is not a SCRAP of
evidence that the company in question and
ITS associated corporations intend to COM
ply with single provision of the two acts
under which they are supposed to operate.
and 1t Is seasonabie TO bring to the notice
OF Congress the evident disposition to Gre
ate such a condition Of financial as well az
mechanical embarrassments as will enable
the company TO 60 before the committees at
Inc next session or that succeeding and ask
Tor further favors. These favors are to be
apprehended at this juncture. The plea is
easy TO foresee- The alternative of COM
pressed air and under ground electric was
accepted in good faith. il will probably be
urged: but experiments undertaken on this
basis proved unsuccessful: meanwhile the
roads fell into financial distress and TIE
equipment with underground electric be-
came impossible: therefore the trolley Is
reeded as Temporary expedIent to tide
the roads over their difficulties
What will Congress reply to these spe-
cious pleas? The people of the District
have registered their verdict and are de-
t-rminei to resist by every available means
this effort to bull-ioze the community into
accepting dangerous. unsightly and un-
satisfactory fern Of rapid transit.