The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-07-17
AMAZING SCHEME PROPOSED BY
AMERICAN RAILWAY COMPANY.
To Test Its Feasibility the Projectors
Say They VIII Construct a
Model Road I'm New Jersey.

compartment cars-the shape of a naval
projectile-will, they say, soon make 1t
possible TO whizz from the Atlantic to the
Pacific in a single day. And all this Will
absolute safety and comfort to the travel
ing public.
Electricity will be the motor power and
the single car trains will be operated by
one man at the handle of a gearless motor
in the point of the vehicle. The cars will
be built of aluminium and will hold fifty
persons. They will travel on a single rail
elevated structure and can be run a minute
apart. A magnetic brake will make it
possible to stop a car in forty feet.
Noise will be almost eliminated and the
nuisance of burned-out fuses and flashes
of electric flame in the cars will be un-
known, as little power will be concen-
trated. Instead generating s%ubpower
houses will be scattered over the line at
a distance of one hundred miles from each
other. The cars will not stop nor even
slow up at these points. The higher the
| speed the less the strain will be. for the
new cars will be operated on the bicycle
principle. with ball-bearing wheels and all
the weight In the center.
Each compartment will be entirely
separated from the rest Of the car. They
will be similar otherwise to a sleeping car
section, with two double berths facing
each other. Each passenger will sit beside
a window. There will be a private door
for each compartment, and these doors viii
all slide open or shut at once at the touch
of a single button in the motor cab.
INVENTOR A RAILROAD MAN.
Captain Lima Beecher. of No. 231 Lin
coin place. Brooklyn. is the inventor of
this wonderful scheme to revoluntionize
the business of the world. and he has de-
voted all his time to the study of 1t for the
last ten years. He has one railroad of the
Kind in operation in Ontario. Canada, OPP
posite Buffalo. This is a short road as a
summer resort and runs only four months
in the year.
Work will, IL is said, be begun within
two months on the first of these roads. L,
will run from Philadelphia to Atlantic City.
and the charter has been granted by the
State OF New Jersey. That document speci-
fies that the cars must run at a rate of at
least ninety miles an hour and that the
motive power must be other than steam.
The right of way is 55.6 miles long. and
there is hardly a curve in its entire length.
The run will be made in less than half an
hour. putting the Philadelphia as close to
his famous seaside resort as the New
Yorker is to his.
The Atlantic City terminal has been Sc
cured and negotiations are now being made
Tor the station at the Philadelphia end.
The road will be completed in time TO be-
gin running regular trains-and there
will be at least a hundred trains
a day-as soon as the summer sea-
son opens next year. The structure
will be elevated, single rail and double
track. A belt line is also to be constructed
at once around a Western resort. Work
will, ii is said. begin on the New York
Il ChiCaC en- road i'm the carly fall and II Is
that the first train will be run
ever its entire length a year from next
December.
Stops will be made at Buffalo. Cleveland
and Toledo. The actual length of the route
is $50 miles. New York and Phila delphia
capital is interested. Great secrecy Is main
tanned at the offices of the company. No.
G Wall street. especially as to the Atlantis
City road. In fact, Captain Beecher and
President Osborn Congleton. a retired
banker and broker. positively refused to
tell where the short road from Philadelphia
was to run. They said the American Rail-
way Company itself. exclusive of the sew
eral roads. was capitalized for s.. 1000 600,
and that Edward A. Green. of Battle Creek,
Mich, was their constructing engineer.
WESTINGHOUSE CONFIDENT.
Asked how the cars could run at the
speed of 200 miles an hour, Captain Beecher
said:
"well, in the first place, George West
Il l1k ID our OIe anu
our short road in operation in Canada, and
he is thoroughly convinced that that speed
can be attained. There are many reasons
for the superior speed of this system over
all the existing steam and electrical sys-
tens.
"Ohr cars are long and narrow like ar
rows, and the air resistance is about one
fourth that which any other system meets,
Il fnr n xahfo1o CARRYING tho nm n,.rnhor ~
persons.
Then, too, we have the bicycle system,
and there is so little friction that only
one-tenth of the power required on other
systems is needed. A man who has only
one-eighth of a horsepower can propel
a wheel at the rate of nearly sixty miles an
| hour. This is because the whole weight.
or nearly all of it. on a bicycle falls or
the center of the machine. And as only
one-tenth of the horsepower is used the
weight is tremendously reduced.
Our cars are light, being constructed
of aluminium and only four feet in width.
and are remarkably strong. They are to
be lined with asbestos, and the sides will
be prefectly smooth. They will be warm
in winter and cool In summer.
"One beauty of our system is that it is
impossible for our cars 10 fall from the
tracks. The traction wheels. of which
there are four in each car. carry roller
journals and fit into the single traction rail-.
The magnetic brake when applied grips
this rail securely. The rail is fastened to
NA@ AtAN
goes through It's center.
Now. the security comes from the eight
guide wheels, which act as the trolley.
They descend around from the bottom OF
the cars to the bottom of the ties, where
there are two charged rails. one to take
i'm the current through an insulated wire
and the other to carry 1t away. These oper-
ate on springs and are under the rails.
This makes the charged rails face down
ward under the ties. and so does away
with the possibility of getting shocked on
the track.
WILL CARRY LESS WEIGHT.
1.-TWO and one-half tons balance weight
has to be carried on the Empire State ex-
press for each passenger to keep the train
on the track. In our road ii will only be
necessary TO carry $50 pounds. or one
tenth of the weight. So the reason We can
beat them In speed is that we have one
tenth the weight. one-tenth the power and
one-fourth the air resistance.
"One hundred tons of mail matter are
carried each day from New York TO Chi
cago, and more than that much comes
this way. This immense bulk of business
would be increased, perhaps doubled, when
by our system il would be possible to
write to your agent in Chicago in the
morning and receive an answer before YOU
left your office in the evening. and without
the costly use of the telephone or, tele-
graph wire.
by the way. speaking of telegraph