The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-25
HAS MANY ADVANTAGES
FORTY AIR MOTORS TO OPERATE
IN NEW YORK.
Chicago and st. Louis Also Preparing
TO Adopt This Power-Remark-
able Development of the System
During Recent Years BY An
American Inventor.
(special Correspondence.l


put TO use in operating suburban and
street railways in New York and other
American and English cities. The ques-
ton of power for the handling of such
traffic has narrowed down to the al
tentative of compressed air or cleo
tricity, and the decision in favor Of one
or the other Of these is likely to be in
fuenced by local conditions.
For some years electricity has held
the field without a dangerous rival, but
there are abundant indications that
from this time on it must share the
honors with the new motive power.
The compressed air plant now being
established by the metropolitan trac-
ton company in New York is nearly
completed, and by the end Of February
forty air-motor cars win be in opera
ton on the company's TWenty-eighth
and Twenty ninth streets cross town
line. Following this, belt line CO
Meeting the ferries and railway stations
and covering the hotel and shopping
districts viii be established. If the
present plans Of the Metropolitan COM
pany are carried out, all the cross town
lines in New York City. with one or
two exceptions, will be equipped with
air motors in the course of the COM
ing two years.
Although the New York line will be
All6 llISl III LIklS country lO NC ODEI clGQ
entirely by compressed air, it viii not
long remain the only one. One of the
Chicago lines is to be fitted with air
power during the coming summer, and
negotiations for the equipment of a
part Of st. Louis system are nearly
completed. The officers Of the Ameri-
can Air Power company who control
the rights of the compressed air sys-
TEN, have been in consultation recently
with street railway men from a number
of western cities, and it is expected
that some of them viii adopt air power
soon on their lines.
Moreover, it is possible that the sue
cess Of the American system, as dem
onstrated by its annual operation, may
lead to it's adoption on the London I'M
foreground roads. ]. Allen Baker, an
expert engineer, who was sent over to
this country to investigate the subject,
recently returned to London and sub
mtted his report. He compares COM
pressed air with the gas power now in
use on the Blackpool line in London,
and his conclusions are decidedly favor
able to the former. Mr.. Baker finds that
not only is air power cheaper than
gas. but it is superior in cleanliness,
and is noiseless in operation, two i'm
portant considerations on an under
ground line.
ON RAILROAD SUBURBAN LINES.
In addition TO these developments, it
is said that the New York Central rail-
road is preparing to use air-motor en-
zines in its yard operations and n haul
ing trains through the tunnel at the
New York end of the road and on their
Putnam division.
The compressed air engine has been
used for some time in the yards of the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe road at
Topeka, for switching, and is reported
10 have worked satisfactorily.
When it is added that d company is
being formed in New York to utilize
the air motor in running automobile
carriages, it will be seen that 1899
promises to be great year for COM
pressed air in a number of ways.
The American Air Power company,
which controls both the Hardie and the
Hoadley motors is capitalized at $780,,
O00 and among those said to be chiefly
interested in it are 2. a. b. Widener,
William c. Whitney and the other large
stockholders of the Metropolitan Trac-
ton company, Colonel A. W. Soper of
the Pintsch Light company, Henry d.
Cook, Alexander Mcleod, formerly
president Of the Reading system, and
numerous men of Importance in the
financial world.
The use Of compressed air as a mo-
tive power antedateS electricity, al
though it is only within the past few
years that the system successfully en-
ployed by the American Air Power
company has been developed. AS far
back as 1879 an air motor car was run
on the streets of New York. IN the
following year an Englishman named
Colonel Beaumont operated a, conf
pressed air engine at Woolwich, but it
did not meet with favor. In 1889 the
city Of Berne, Switzerland, adopted air
&c
as the Nekarsd system, and in the
following year a. line was installed in
France and another at Chester, Eng
land. In 1892 Samuel E. Jarvis built
an air motor car which was run on a
specially constructed line in Detroit,
and in the same year the Consolidated
company of Toledo made some expert
rnents with a car equipped with the
,AIekarski system.
None Of these experiments We're re-
ported failures, but from none of those
tried in this country did any important
results follow. One difficulty encoun-
tered was in storing enough air to run
the cars any considerable distance. The
air was stored at low pressure, and con-
sequently the capacity of any ordinary
car was sufficient TO carry 1t only about
four miles. The COMPRISING apparatus
was lar from perfect and the expert
mentors We're troubled by the heating
of the air during the COMPRISING pro-
cess and by its freezing when eX-
panded.
THE GREAT EXPERIMENTER.
The development of compressed air
traction as we have it today, is chiefly
Que to Robert Hardie, a mechanical eu-
ginecr and inventor, who carried on llss
experiments in the use of compressor
air at high pressure for several years |
at Rome, y. z, where the first success !
full air motor car constructed from the |
plans now in use was put in operation. /
The results of Mr. Hardie's expert |
ments were embodied in the Hardie en= |
CINE, built for experimental use on the |
Manhattan elevated railroad, and in a |
street car constructed for the American /
Air Power company. The latter was put |
in operation on the One Hundred and 1
Twenty-dfth street line in New York |
on Aug. Il. 1886. Two others of the |
same pattern were added a little later, |
and the three continued to run success
fully for nearly a year. It was the |
practical test to which these cars were /
subjected by actual service that in /
duced the Metropolitan Traction com /
pany to adopt the air motor system for /
some OF its lines. It was found that the /
cars ran smoothly, with less wear and /
tear to car and road equipment, than
the cables; that they were not affected /
by weather conditions, and that they
were less dangerous than cable or elec- !
trio cars, as the entire 2,000-pound air
pressure could be applied TO the brakes
or the motor could be reversed, if
necessary. The cost Of operation was
a little greater than that of the other