The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-06-22


II power in urban rapid transit
are proceeding at a rate
which promises early in the twentieth
century to revolutionize the modes of
short distance travel. With liquid air,
compressed air, storage battery and
steam experiments the public is al
ready familiar, and now in a pamphlet
just received from a New York cores
pondcnt, a new project is announced.
According to the information which
it sets forth, the Storage Power COM
pany, a corporation composed of some
of the principal railroad men in the
country, has for two years been expert
menting with the Prall system of heat
| ing hot water to a temperature of 500
| degrees and pounds pressure per
square :rch, storing il in tanks,
which are placed underneath the
car from which small quantities
of water are taken in homeopathic
doses through the medium of q
measuring valve, which releases the
| water under this pressure and tenn
perature to the clearance space in the
|
placed on the trucks Of the car, where
it Immediately flashes into steam and
eXpendS its force against the pistons.
A car has been successfully operated
| under the most adverse conditions on
the New York Central railroad at a
speed of % miles per hour on up and
down grades. AS a result of these ex-
periments, standard railroad coach
| is being equipped and will shortly be
| in operation on the same road. The
| efficiency of the method has been fully
established and only the working out
of the system in actual practice re-
mains.
The chief claims made for this sys-
| TEN are the extreme simplicity of the
generating plant which consists only
of standard boiler, and pump to
| feed it, and the fact that there is less
| weight and greater mileage due to the
utilization of all the available heat
| units instead of only about 33 1-3 per
| cent, as in the best of the other
| powers used in street railway service.
| In electricity and compressed air there
are expensive plants to generate the
power, and expensive wires and equip
ment on cars before il can be utilized.
In using super-heated water, the
| power is turned into work at the point
of its generation, /, e., in the cylinders.
This simplicity of construction and
operation is the great advantage in
view of the absence of the Compli-
Gated machinery necessary in cleo
trcity and compressed air. In addi-
ton to the simplicity of the apparatus
required, great economy is claimed for
the pral system. The pamphlet illus
trates this as follows:
Taking the pressure OF super-hcatcd water at
| 800 pounds per square inch, ii will carry isd
| British thermal units per 900 pound of water
1t has been proved in all cases Of the hest steam
engines in locomotive service, that with 10000
| British thermal units one horsepower ON drivers
can be produced, This takes into consideration
all the initial condensation losses, together with
| the heat given up for actual work in the cy-
| Under. Thus it will be seen that utilizing the
| $4,000 British thermal units in the reservoir,
| there would he tor every 1000 pounds of water
| carried on the car, at least twelve horsepower
| hours. The standard suburban car to carry the
| requisite number of people for that character OF
| work weighs $4,000 pounds standard equipment
and 5000 pounds Of water, together with rcser.
voir and motors would carry this weight to about
| 10000 pounds This would give at least thirty
| six horsepower hours with seven pounds tractive
| effort per ten on the car with its load of 100
| passengers. A suburban car would operate on
one charge of hot water for one hour, with a
surplus at speed Of forty miles per hour, and
| there are very few suburban runs in the world
that exceed forty miles. The tanks under the
| car may be charged with hot water in two min,
utes. There is no doubt Of the safety of the
system, inasmuch as the pressure OF $40 pounds
| per square inch is considered perfectly safe by
mechanical engineers. Compressed air is sue,
cessfully contained in tubes or bottles under a
pressure OF 2,iOO pounds per square inch, nor Is
there any difficulty in providing tanks which will
retain the heat in the water sufficiently long to
make it effective, as there many known sub,
stances which successfully limit radiation.
The first real experiments in allow
ing hot water to give up it's latent
heat within the cylinder of the engine
! were made in Washington in 1898, and