The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-12-04
RAILROAD MEN IN
WEST INTERESTED
Two Recent Developments
May Alter the Entire Bust
ness of RaiIroading.
TELEPHONES MAY BE USED
MoNoRAIL, TESTED IN ENGLAND
ATTRACTS MUCH ATTENTION.

| Western railroad men, including many
! in Salt Lake, where nearly every officia
| at one time or another has been con-
| cerned in problems of construction, are
| immensely interested in two recent deveI-
opments which they believe may alter the
| entire business of railroading.
The first is the possibility of trains be-
ing dispatched by telephone. Since the
Western Union has been absorbed by the
telephone combine, il has been announced
that one of the purposes of the eonsolida-
ton was to use the wires for both tele-
phoning and telegraphing at the same
time. This has been done for years, but
the telegraphing was only incidental.
Nearly all of the big telephone companies
have telegrapher who sends orders to
employees and other things of which it
is advisable to keep written record.
With the big copper wires in use on
modern telephone lines, promoters of the
combine say they will be able to tele-
graph clear across the continent without
relaying, in favorable weathefs and they
believe the gain in efficiency will prevent
any congestion of kilograms except when
very bad storms take place.
The Santa Fe railroad is already using
the telephone in train dispatching. Off
Gals on that line say the principal adj
vantage is that train, no matter how
far from a station, can get into COM
munication with the train dispatcher in
five minutes time. The Santa Fe Off
Gals are also eXperim enting with devices
which will enable them to stop trains at
all telephone booths on lines where the
block system does not serve much the
same purpose. The chief drawback of
telephone dispatching-and most tele-
grapherS believe it to be a fatal one
is the inability to make a record of train
orders except at the sending offices.
A Bad Drawback.
Another drawback is that the human
voice over the telephone is apt to be mis-
understood, and that when one word is
misunderstood by the man receiving 1t
the same misunderstanding will take
place when he repeats 1t to the sender
The original sender is more than apt to
misunderstood it. In telegraphy this dan
ger Is obviated, because Morse Signals are
seldom misunderstood, and it is almost
inconceivable that the error would not
be discovered by the repetition which is
the iron clad rule for all train orders.
Railroad men are anxiously awaiting
the beginning of transmission of tele-
grams over telephone lines, because when
it begins it will certainly compel the rail-
roads to pay the wages of all their opera
tors without receiving aid from the tele-
graph conpany's commercial messages.
Another modern development which NAV
or may not affect railroading in the next
decade is the monorail, which was tested
successfully in England recently with
car carrying forty persons. The Penn
sylvania railroad representatives who saw
the test were so much impressed that they
Immediately obtained the right to use it
if their company desired to do so.
If the monorail in actual practice is
what 1t is in theory railroad men say
1t will be the biggest boon the west has
ever known, except, perhaps, the reclama-
ton of arid lands.
Practical railroad engineers figure that
the monorail line can be built for one
tenth of the cost of the ordinary rail-
road and it can go where no ordinary
railroad can. The operation expenses
would be only a 1.-THE of the cost of runs
ming railroad, although the first cost
of the cars themselves would be great
gyroscope There are two horoscopes in
each car, Weighing several tons and re-
volving at the rate of 1900 revolutions
minute. These prevent the car from
tipping and maintain the balance far
more evenly than it is maintained ON
the coaches of the smoothest standard
road At the test in England the car ran
around a circular track and on to switches
where sharp turns were required Theo-
it is impossible for the car to
leave the rails so long as the horoscopes
are in operation. Many practical rail-
road men have grave doubts whether
practice would confirm the theory in cru
cial tests of actual railroad operation