The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1906-08-24
NURSlNG TROLLEY CARS.
THEY DEVELOP ALL SORTS OF
UNEXPECTED ILLNESSES.

Years the Average Life.
The average passenger in a trolley
car probably has an idea that car
simply need be purchased and put on
the rails, whereupon it can, like the
brook, go on forever. But trolley cars
develop all sorts of unexpected Ill
nesses; they have to be taken to the
doctors, or, more prosaically, the re-
pair shops, at frequent intervals, anu
their lives, considered from the point
of view of the human three score and
ten, are very short indeed. Under the
most favorable circumstances troll
ley car is not expected to last mucn
longer than twelve years. And, I'M
like babies, remarked the car mana
ger, of big traction company, trolley
cars require more and more care as
they grow older.
In addition to the regular care con-
nected with embarrassing ana
sweeping, the trolley car must be In
spected every few days-on most
roads twice a week-to see that the
apparatus is all in good order. ms
is supplemented by an occasional
thorough overhauling. The superin-
tendent of the largest of the New Jer-
sey trolley companies says that on MS
lines q new car may run 10000 miles
before it has to be overhauled, OF, III
other words, may run about one nun
dred days. Cars operated entirely III
crowded cities have a shorter term Oh
activity, about sixty days, before they
go under the doctors hands. AS
car gets older it has to be oVerhalled
with greater frequency.
On the occasions of these overhaul
ings the trucks are removed from the
car bodies, the motors taken out ana
examined, the armatures cleaned ana
the whole machinery thoroughly test
ed. In addition to this the car body
must be painted and vanished and
thoroughly renovated at least once
year.
After the overhauling a car is ready
for the road again, but at any time IL
is likely to develop that most trouble
some ailment a fiat wheel. A nat
wheel is the terror of the operating
department of trolley line. 1t may
be compared to appendicitis, be-
cause it comes when least expected,
but while human being has bat
one appendix, car may go lame
with a fiat wheel over and over again,
and pound over the road, punching
holes in the rails and wearing out the
equipment at an astonishingly eXpen-
siVe rate.
A too sudden application of the
brakes, a piece of snow or ice frozen
to the brake shoe, and the little spot
is on the wheel to stay there until
the whole steel circumference has
been laboriously ground into perfect
roundness again. Up to the present
time no way has been found to avoid
this nuisance, expensive to the COM
pany and annoying to the public. Inc
best thing that can be done is to send
the car to the shops, there to substl-
tute perfect wheel and grind down
the defective one at leisure. Accord
ing to experts of several companies,
about 3 per cent. of the cars operated
on a line go to the shops with nat
wheels in the course of month.
Naturally this repeated grinding
down of defective wheels has an ef-
feet on the life of the tires, for when
a tire becomes less than five-elghths
of an inch thick it is thrown away
and a new one substituted. Ordlnar-
ily it is calculated that two and
quarter inch tire will take hve years
to wear down to the minimum thick
ness. The life of a motor is longer,
about seven years, and the trucks last
at least as long as the car body, about
a decade.
These things give an indication OF
the constant nursing trolley car
must undergo In addition, there are
all sorts of minor details, such as
replacing broken windows and substi-
tuting new seats for old. And the
life of car is, of course, likely TO
be materially shortened by unaFolc-
able accidents, such as collisions.
Calculating that car runs one
hundred miles a day with $50 full
running days in year, and giving 1t
a life of ten years, it may be ass1m-
ed that a car ON suburban line Will
travel $4,000 miles before it has to
be put on the retired list. This is
very liberal estimate. In congested
cities like New York or Brooklyn, the
cars make smaller mileage per day,
about eighty-iye miles.
But while the suburban trolley cars
go a longer journey than their city
brethren, their lives are not nearly
so busy, or. as the companies view 1t,
they do not earn nearly so much per
mile or per car. Hence one would
naturally expect the city cars to be
smarter in appearance and more com
Portable and commodious, though
this is seldom the ease-New York
Post.
ARTIFICIAL VARIATION OF
SPECIES.