Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-01-27
WORK OF AUTOMOBILES
Two Electric Trucks Haul Dig New York Custom House Lintel Stone.

l ~Ssos uoUt ol$ NeW
 York Custom House Lintel Stone.
 That the commercial automobile
 would soon Or late succeed horses has
 long been the belief of many who
 have watched the progress of autonlo.
 bile building. That it could do far
 more work in a given time, too, has
 been conceded in recent years. That the expense of maintenance and oper. ation has been believed to be costly
 has been the only thing that has kept
 the horse still in harness. Tn the ear
 ly days of automobiles the element of
 novelty and advertisement entered into purchase. and increased cost of
 maintenance and purchase was
 charged off to advertising, by most purchasers. But as automobiles be- came more common as carriers of i merchandisa the value of the adver- Using became correspondingly less
 and ill the last year or two cOmmcr- cial automobiles have sold on their l merits alone. As soon as it could be demonstrated that they were cheaper, more reliable, more capable than horse drawn vehicles. sales increased rapidly While all types of commer- cial vehicles are now experiencing q i boom which shows that motor build. l ing will he permanent industry. q re- cent performance in New'York of two electric trucks bids fair to give this type of vehicle an impetus that will mean much for this branch of the in dustry. .-..-.
 1 An attempt was made on December 30 to move the big 5O-ton granite stone which is to form the lintel of the new custom house in New York. fronting on Bowling Green, from the bulkhead between Piers 3 and 4. East river. up Whitehall street to point where it could be hoisted into its permanent {, position. Next to Cleopatra's Needle. 1 in Central Park. this stone is the big gest monolith in New York, exceeding , in weight even the sections of the great pillars of the cathedral of St of RecOrl The stone was brought to New York month previous by the schooner William Booth from the uuarries at Hurricane Island on Pen obscot Bay. Me. It is 31 feet long, five feet broad and three feet six inches thick. The schooner was warp. ed in between Piers 3 and and der rick tug hoisted the stone onto the bulkhead and placed it aboard truck provided bv James Reilly X Sons, who had the contract for moving the stone to the custom house. '.s Two heavy Columbia electric trucks. made by the Electric, Vehicle Co of Hartford. Ct. and capable of developing 45 horse power each. were harnessed tandem fashio, with chains and ropes to the trucks laden with the heavy stone. and tried to move the weight. For an honr the wheels of the trucks simply whirled around. Fi- nally enough Battery Park visitors were induced to stand on the motor trucks to give the wheels q chance to bite the pavement. In this way the stone truck was drawn forward about five yards. but the automobiles could drag it no further. The attempt was postponed until more electric trucks conld be obtained from the New York Edison Co. who use Columbia electric vehicles in all their transportation of freight. inspectors and superintend- ents.
 In the evening at 7:3O two addi- tiOnal trucks lined. One hooked onto the rear axle of the stone wagon. with block and falls. and all starting togeth- CT the big stone truck was pulled out of the rut that it had gotten into. and then the three trucks alone pulled the great stone up to the building without stopping. a distance of about one-third of mile. in about five min utes' time. having no mishaps what ever. The two trucks swung the truck into the custom house gate and drew it up in position. which was Gn q board road of 1la per cent incline. In fact one truck drew the stone alone on this incline for distance of about To feet. as one truck had stopped pull. ing and the other continued to pull alone. The hilf. from tire dock to the custom house. was granite block pave ment. varying from 1 to ? per cent grade all the way.
 Mir Reilly. of James Reilly X Son. who had the contract for carting. had been worrying over this stone for two years and hat figured on using from 'f ,o '0 ho.'.a, to put it ai position. He thought it possible that it would have to he winched rp. which would require about two days time and methods enormously expensive. The ccst of this ioh could nat have been more than the hire of two trucks for two or tl,r-e hours time. with their drivers a-.I several helnarS. The truck. however. from standing had formed a rut in the pavement. and the towing trucks could not get traction on the pavement as there were six inches of close packed snow and frc under them: as soon as if got o.i com paratively drv pavement no trouble was experienced. Eight manhol,s were broken in thc street l,v having the truck Ibass over them. The stone weich.,i l.: tons and tli. tr,icI, nine tons. IL cost tlFe government S:D to have the schooner bearine the Iintel lowed from the quarry to New York. and the moving to the custom house was anti, iIatnd to cost SaO more. The value If the stons k S1V.6st and the contractor stated that it required three years to quarry and dress it.
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