The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-03-18
FROM COAST TO
COAST IN ONE DAY
Chicago Man Invents Aeroplane
Railroad to Garry Car 24O
Miles an Hour.

CHICAGO, March 17.-Driving a
loaded passenger car which weighs
nothing upon upon the rails of the ele-
waited structure, which shall serve only
to guide 1t, Charles E. Reeve, with q
law office at "a La Sale street, is look
ing forward to transcontinental cleo
trio line which shall enable the New
Yorker to eat an early breakfast at
home, a luncheon in Denver, and late
dinner in San Francisco, all on sum-
mer's day.
Two hundred and forty miles an
hour, with absolute safety to the pas
senger or to the transcontinental fast
mail, is one of the claims for the car.
An elevated structure that shall weigh
only one fifth that of the ordinary ele-
waited structures in the cities is another
feature of the patents, dependent upon
the elimination of weight upon the
rails. Lack of friction upon the jour-
nails, due to this disposition of weight,
is to make ball bearings possible, and
with these the inventor sees the elimi-
nation of distance.
The invention of Mr.. Reeve Is an
outgrowth of a design for an airshfp
in which the aeroplane figured The
original design contemplated the draw
ing of a floating car through the air,
with the motors travelling upon parallel
cables on each side of the right of way.
But from this Mr.. Reeve decided to
suspend a car from two rails set the
width of an ordinary passenger coach
apart, zsand elevated according to the
topography of the country and the OBJ
stacles which cities and towns might
have left in his way.
With the car suspended from these
rails, using drive wheels of cog gearing
interlacing with track of like pattern,
two aeroplaneS, each or three tunes
the width and length of the car, are
| placed above the rails and anchored
to the top of the car and to four other
cogged drive wheels interlocking with
the rail on the lower surface.
Thus with the electric energy car
ried through the medium Of the rails,
the inventor purposes to tip his aero
planes lust enough to cause the rush
of air to lift the weight Of the car,
keeping it somewhere balanced be-
/ tween the upper and lower drivers,
with the result that from above or be-
low his machine will receive the force
of the driving wheels at all times.
The lower aeroplane in the pair is
to be five and a half feet above the
ton of the car, and the upper plane
will be four feet above the other. The
pair will be tipped as the needs of the
car require The faster the speed the
less weight Mr.. Reeve proposes to
have upon the rails, but in the main
he wishes to get his speed from the
force of the upper rather than the
lower drivers.
No matter what the speed, he hopes
to have acquired absolute safety
through putting double fanges upon
each of the eight drivers in the car
making it impossible for the machine
to leave the rails These wheels are
nearly four feet in diameter, and, fig-
uring upon the speed acquired by the
German aerial railway, the inventor
explains that these big drivers will
make eight miles minute as easily
and with more safety than the one-foot
drivers under the German car make
their 200 miles an hour.
ut is friction only that has prevent
ed the German cars from making the
| 200 miles an hour that were credited
to them in the beginning" said Mr..
Reeve. 'In my car the aeroplanes Will
do away with the weight, and, conse-
ouently, with the friction on the Jour-
| nails, such as the Germans have mad
| to contend with, and see scarcely a
limit to the speed that may be attain
ed on an air line, with rotary mo-
| ton rather than piston stroke In the
motors"