The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-06-27
OUR NEW Y0RKLETTER
DETAILS OF THE PLAN FOR PUTTING
IN PNEUMATIC TRACTION.


Hopes and Fears For Compressed Air.
= NEW YORK, June27. Especial. IA da,
: or two ago had something to say abou
r the erection Of plant to furnish com
: pressed air for one of the cross town stree
q railroad lines here. Today am able Il
give some hitherto unpublished particu
lars, which may prove worth while In view
of the general public interest In urban
| traction.
, To begin with, the COMPRISING ma,
chine will be monster, by far the lar
gest in the United States, and not much II
at all inferior TO the compressors used TO
pack away atmosphere for the propulsion
of street cars in Paris. The steam engine,
forming part of the compressor, will DO of
1000 horsepower when running on 100
pounds of steam at 40 revolutions min
ute. It's power may be largely increased,
since ii is being built TO make 20 revolu-
tions If necessary. Those who understand
something of steam engineering will be
interested in knowing that it will be of
the compound type with vertical cylin-
ders of 60 inch stroke. The big flywheel
will be % feet in diameter and its weight
will be 6215 tons, or rather more than
|
be of the Corliss cut off type The air
pumping cylinders will be four in num-
Der and at each revolution of the engine
they will deliver 80 cubic feet of air crowd
ed down to the enormous pressure Of 2, 500
| pounds to the square inch, about 20 times
the ordinary steam pressure maintained
in a locomotive boiler.
An Expensive Experiment..
The friends of compressed air under
stand full well that the installation of this
plant and the use of their favoritc motor
power ON one of the cross town lines will
be really nothing more than an expert
ment Yet, as it will cost 800, 900 or
more to try it and the bills will be paid by
the enormously wealthy Metropolitan
Traction company, they feel sure its trial
will be fair and exhaustive and that sue
cess will be reached if such thing be
possible.
1t is now nearly 80 years since the first
trial of compressed air was made on the
elevated railroad. Like every other motor
save steam that has ever been tried ON the
rails of Uncle Russell Sage's road, pneu-
matte traction air failed utterly there, and
the same may be said Of all the many ex-
periments that have been made since. The
most exhaustive trials ever made here
were entered into two or three years ago
on the One Hundred and Twenty fifth
street line. They lasted a year or more, or
until the corporation making them-not
the railroad company-had sunk all its
available cash. Then, as the company
could not be prevailed upon to adopt the
new traction, the scheme was abandoned
and the cars were taken off.
But the conditions surrounding the
coming trial will be different and moro
favorable. In the case of the One Hun
dred and Twenty-fifth street line the road
was already equipped with cable traction
which worked to the satisfaction of its
owners. change would have involved
great expense without apparently corre-
spending advantages. The Metropolitan
Traction company, however, is in sore
need of a new system for part of its
work. The cable is all right for long,
nearly straight lines, doing enormous bust
ness, like the Broadway road and the de-
pressed trolley is even better. But the cable
is out of the question for the short and
crooked cross town lines, and the overhead
trolley is forbidden by law, and while tho
depressed trolley would work all right on
these lines its installation would be vir-
tually impracticable, both because of its ex-
pense and for other important reasons.
No Torn Up Streets.
The most serious drawback lies in the
fact that depressed trolley installation
would involve tearing up the streets in
preparation. 1t was bad enough when
Broadway, the Bowery and Third avenue,
Fourth and Madison avenues and other
north and south thoroughfares were torn
up for the cable and the trolley. Street
traffic was disorganized for months In
some cases, and the complaints of the
business men along the lines were both
loud and deep But even when Broadway
was affected the resulting inconvenience
and loss were small compared to what they
would be were the streets through which
the chief cross town lines pass to be torn
up. In such circumstances traffic on ev-
cry one of the main arteries of the town
would be interrupted, whereas only one
at q time was interfered with when the
cable and the depressed trolley wires were
laid.
1t is not denied, however, that the ques-
ton Of relative expense is an important
one, even with so wealthy corporation
as the Metropolitan Traction company,
and the saving in first cost of compressed
air plant compared with that of cable or
electric plant is very great. The expense
Oh tne engines ana boilers Tor pneumatic
traction will be about the same, of course,
but the cost of the compressor will probably
be less than that of dynamos. The motors
for the cars will vary little In cost from
electric motors, but there will be no SUBJ
ways to build and no cables or trolley con-
ductors or feed wires to maintain. More
over, breakdown at the central power
station, unless long unrepaired, need not
interfere in the least with the operation of
the road, since once its reservoirs are filled
with packed air each car will be-capable
of running on its own hook for 10 miles
at least
Possibilities Of Expansion.
That cars can be operated through this
agency no one doubts. The only points at
issue are economy Of operation and suffi-
Gent simplicity of construction to enable
motormen of average intelligence to stop,
start, reverse and control the air engine
without delay or sacrifice of safety. In
this connection 1t should be born in mind
that as the air motor must be built on
practically tho same model as the steam