The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-09-23

indispensable as guard rails to prevent
trains jumping the track. Curves must
be very gradual; twelve wheels will be
needed to a car, spreading out almost
under its entire length; and everything
else must be changed and strengthened
at great expense.
At Zossen a single steel car weighed
more than 100 tons, and its 1000 horse-pow-
er motors required 5000 horsepower In
starting. On the other hand, 1t was found
that a suspended car need weigh only
twenty-nine tons instead of 100, and to
require only $50 horsepower motors to
attain the same speed.
At the same time such a car is just as
safe with a single rail and four wheels
able to take far sharper curves at full
speed. the roadbed costing much less, be-
cause with such an elevated line there
would be no entertainments to fill in, less
land needed and everything else sim
pier.
When the high-speed line is built be-
tween Brussels and Antwerp there will
be some astonished railway men In this
country-astonished because we have
failed so long to appreciate the immense
value for passenger transport of the sus-
pension principle seen in our cableways
and trolley conveyors.
Good for City Service.
1t is for city service that the suspended
type of elevated railway offers the great
est advantages, too startling for belief
First of all, it is even quieter than a
surface car.
1t costs less than any other elevated
type and only from a fifth to tenth of
what subway does. 1t can be built with
no flooring or ties of any kind to shut
out any light or collect snow, having slen-
der Orders supported by graceful arches,
almost hidden by trees, If desired, as over
a street in Elberfeld
Instead of being a dangerous road 1t has
proved the safest known. On the first
line no train can run off the track in
any possible way; neither can the break
ing of an axle or wheel or any part of
a truck allow a drop of more than an
inch or two. No employee can be run
over and the third rail is completely out
of the way
At stations there Is no space between
car and platform to fall into, and a
netting prevents falling into the street
This netting can be placed low, so that
even a person trying to commit suicide
by jumping in front of an approaching
train cannot be struck and as the wheels
are over the cars there is nothing that
can kill
A car with twice the seats of surface
car can be run at twice the speed for
half the cost, there being a great saving
in weight, especially from the simplicity
of the trucks. Switching cars so sim
plifed that local and express trains can
change tracks or relative positions at
will without loops.
Suspended cars could even run in the
New York or Boston subways If desired,
and can pass over existing bridges without
expensive changes. They can run as close
to the ground as surface car, If wanted,
with no snow to be ploughed off, and of
to
pedestrian.
There is no shock in taking curves, or
even friction. The cars swing out automat-
icaly to just the right angle for every
speed.
Letter Than Subway.
Cities that cannot afford a subway can
now have something far better at far less
cost; no darkness, no heat, no noise no
dust, good air, sunlight, economy and
speed. Cities that already have noisy
elevated roads can afford to build lines
parallel to the present ones on account of
the low cost and then tear down the old
structures.
With the $3O0,0o0,OO0 to be spent for sub
ways New York might build even 100 miles
of line, though 500 miles would supply
every need for years to come, allowing
thirty-nine north and south tracks on
Manhattan Island, hfty-eight crosstown
tracks, lines radiating all over Brooklyn
and the replacing of every present ele-
waited road with the improved type.
In the congested parts of the city all
surface cars could be removed from the
streets, with their awful roll of costly
accidents. The more economical suspend
ed cars would probably allow even two
cent fares for short distances, to the great
advantage of the companies as well as the
public.
Today the cry everywhere is for sub
ways. Paris is constructing a sxty-mile
system. London has been driving deep
tubes in every direction, and is now bur-
rowing close to the surface. Berlin is
planning three more systems. Budapest,
Vienna, Liverpool, Glasgow have their
underground lines.
Buenos Ayres has been waiting five
years to begin model four track sub
way, and even Athens has an electric
tunnel under the city.
Boston and Philadelphia are building.
San Francisco Cleveland and Pittsburg
are longing. New York is to undertake
the expenditure of $500 100000 more for
construction alone
SubWays Partly Failure.
But even today, with all the advance
in electric traction and improved methods
of ventilation, no subways in the world
are wholly satisfactory. One OF the most
serious problems with some subways in
the future will be to keep them cool.
Where a river flows overhead or there Is
much water in the ground, or the subway
is short, the temperature tends to keep
down.
One London tube has already gone up
twenty degrees since it was built, and
the New York subway, in which about
nine times as much heat is being con-
stantly produced as in the London tunnel,
has already been forty degrees warmer
than the ground around it. and is hotter
than the outside air almost every minute
of the year; and this too in spite of a
million cubic feet of fresh outside air
drawn in every minute and circulated
everywhere by the movement OF the
trains.
The earth around it is soaking up heat
like a sponge, and if IS degrees has al
ready been reached what will come in