The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-02
REDUCING THE WEIGHT OF CARS.
Eyperiments Made on the New E

Experiments Made on the New Haven
 and Illinois Central Roads
 Two of the largest and best equipped railway systems in the United States are devoting serious attention to the problem of reducing the dead weight of N ir standard passenger coaches. The New York, New Haven and Hartford, one of these systems, which practically controls all the railways east of New York and south of Boston, has baen giving effect to the impressions made on it's president, G. P. Clark, during his visit to England two years ago. MT. Clark said, after his return, that what struck him most favoraby about the British railways was the lightness of the passenger rolling stock as com- pared with that in the United States. Apparently in accordance with his sug- gestion, F. E. Pratt, superintendent of buildings on the New Haven railway, designed a model passenger coach with wrought iron fittings instead of cast iron, with lighter scantlings and with lighter floors. This car was put into service in November, 1896, and, up to | January 1 last, had run 59,SS1 miles. | Compared with the coach of the old l pattern which it most nearly replaced it weighed about 52,G00 pounds, as against l 59, BOO, and it is expected that this I weight will be fur her reduced by 250 i pounds when the new coach gets alum
 mum fittings for the seats-a purpose for which that metal seems well adapt ed instead of the iron frames used at present. But if the new coach l cbouc itcalf bu ant,1a1 cpryipa to hauo no drawbacks, 1t will replace not only the standard New Haven one of 59500 pounds, but also numerous others of a larger type weighing 65,000 pounds. This would mean a decrease in weight of more than 20 per cent. on the present heavier coaches, and 121s per cent. on the lighter coaches. In other words, five of the new coaches could be hauled with the same coal consumption as four of the old ones in the former case, and eight instead of seven in the latter
 On the Illinois Central system, under the direction of Mr. Renshaw, superin- tendent of motive power, the process of turning out lighter passenger coaches has been developed on larger scale, and perhaps in more practical way, for some years past. Most of the old coaches on that system have from one to three tons of old rails placed be- meath the floor of the coach, which were put there to check horizontal lswaying by lowering the center of gravity, and consequently to make
 them smoother riding vehicles for the public. Every time one of these old coaches comes into the shop for a thor ough repair MT. Renshaw removes this dead weight of old rails. For two or three years past he sas also substituted ! wrought iron for cast iron fittings in all the new coaches built under his direc- tion. What is more, he finds that the | saving in metal more than covers the additional cost of labor involved in making wrought iron fittings. Proba-
 ply the time is approaching when We shall see mild steel everywhere em- ployed for car fittings, as we see it to- day employed in all ship construction.
 AS the relative tensile strengths of cast iron. wrought iron and steel are, respec- . lively, twenty-five. fifty and eighty | thousand pounds per square inch, this
 would mean a reduction of more than