The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-08-22
RAILROAD NEWS.
Railroad Locomotives Are Out
of Date.
New Motor introduced for
Operating Purposes.
Is ALREADY IN USE.
This Motor Is Running Passen-
ger Trains on Iowa Road.
Railroad Men Think That Plan
of Motor Car Is Feasible.

Chicago. Aug. 22.-Oficials of the Bur-
lington road We're greatly surprised at
the intelligence they received yesterday
that gasoline meters had been used on
heavy railway coaches with perfect sue
cess and at a nominal cost.
The new motor was introduced on an
insignificant road in Iowa which con-
meets with the Burlington and is known
as the Tabor and Northern. It's whole
length is only eighteen miles 1t is
quite freight road. but the gasoline
Improvement has been used so far ex-
clusively for its passenger traffic. 1t
was found impossible, except at loss,
to run all the locomotive trains its
patrons needed, and in searching for a
cheaper motor the management turned
its back on electricity and took up with
gasoline.
The new motor as yet, is applied to
each car separately. and it is announced
that the expense of driving the car the
whole length of the road is 20 cents, OF
practically 1 cent a mile. That this re-
suit is likely to revolutionize railroad
operations may be seen from the fact
that to propel the same car by a loco
motive costs from 80 to 40 cents for one
mile.
Railroad men say the gasoline car is
so reasonable IL Is a wonder no one mas
ever thought of II before. They point
to the gasoline automobile and ask why,
If such a machine can be driven from
San Francisco to New York over turn
pixies and country roads, people should
never before have thought of its use
fulness on railroads, where it must OBJ
Viously be more powerful.
The officials point out two uses to
which they think the gasoline car will
almost certainly be put. They say il
viii come into universal use on subur-
ban lines. The Illinois Central has been
studying for a long time what it could
substitute for locomotives on its local
trains. The only recourse II had was
to electricity, and there are so many OBJ
jections to that power that 1t has never
been adopted. 1t is suggested that the
Iowa experiment has solved the prob
lem.
The other field in which it is expected
that gasoline may come into use is on
elevated lines and surface street cars.
1t is pointed out that if this motor will
work satisfactorily on a street car it
will save the immense expense of cleo
trical plants, electrical motors and I'M
foreground conductors and reduce the
expense of operation to a minimum.
The officials who discussed this in
vehtion all commented on its availa-
bility for the traction lines in Chicago.
1t has been assumed in all the negotia-
lions between the city and the traction
companies that the car fare under the
vate citizens have made more than one
effort to induce the city's representatives
to insert in the new franchise a pro-
vision that il by any means the cost of
operating the street cars should be
greatly reduced there should be an
equitable readjustment of the fare rate.
These well-meant efforts have not had
much effect. Bion ]. Arnold, the city's
consulting electrical expert, said that If
the franchises were to run for seventy
five years he thought readjustmeni
should be stipulated for But he thought
no new motor could be developed and
made practical in twenty years But
to all appearances, the cheap motor has
been discovered before the city and the
traction people get ready to negotiate.
The railroad officials of Chicago have
never heard Of gasoline cars before, fol
freight or passengers east or west, anc
they are as yet entirely ignorant how
the Iowa experiment originated anC
where the equipment for it was manu-
featured.