Arizona republican., 1910-02-01
GYROScOPic EXPERIMENTS IN
 NEW YORK.

The New York corresondent of the
 Boston Transcript. under date of Jan
 aary Ilth. describes experiments made
 the day previously in Brooklyn with the gyrOscope. The correspondent ] says:
 Before number of engineers and
 others interested in mechanics. a dem
 onstration was given yesterday in the Clermont Rink. Brooklyn. of the gyro scope monorail car of the common type. invented by Richard Scherl. An 1 oval single track. with spur running
 into one of the anterooms. was laid around the rink. and on this the car ran easily. in perfect balance. on its single wheel. The gyroscopes, of which two are placed at each end of the car and revolve on their own axes in op- posite directions, were covered over. so that the gearing. the most interest ing part of the invention from the technical point of view, was not dis played. But the whirring they made as they turned at the rate of 5000 rev olutions minute could he plainly heard, and their power to sustain the car in it's proper position was demon strated by a simple experiment.
 Severel men climbed up on the out side of the car in an endeavor to tip it over. The gyroscopes were at once reused to action. and fought strongly against the strain. so that it looked as though they actually made the car in- cline in the direction opposite to what seemed natural. Around the track. with curves a great deal sharper than those used on any regular railroad track. the car ran smoothly. and with out any perceptible deviation from the perpendicular.
 Some damage, it was explained. had been done to the machinery in the transportation of the car from Ger many, and 1t was not operated at greater speed than four to five miles an hour; but at that rate it ran back ward and forward indiscriminately and could be left to negotiate the curves without an operator oboard. which ever way it was running. The experimental car used yesterday was eighteen feet long and four feet wide The weight is two and q half tons. of which about 5l4 per cent is attributa- ble to the gyroscopes. It was stated liiol III tdIS LII SldHudTu SlZt aflu weight there would be a slight in- crease in the proportional weight of the gyroscopes. so that if a Pullman car was fitted with them they would weigh about or 9 per cent as much as the sleeper.
 A point explained yesterday was what would occur if the electric motor running the gyroscopes failed while the car was in motion. The big tops. it was asserted, would continue to re- volve on their own momentum for nearly an hour after the current was turned off. In that time there would be plenty of opportunity to bring the train to a standstill. Moreover. the cars would be fitted with struts. or supports, so that by letting these down the car would be kept in an equilibrium
 A great deal of emphasis was laid by the demonstrators yesterday on the possibilities of the car in negotiat- ing sharp curves. This they explained by saying that in double-tracked rail- roads the rails on a curve have to be banked to accommodate the natural inclination of the train and the speed at which train moves. The gyro- scope. however. adjusts itself to con- ditions of curve and speed automati- cally, say its demonstrators and is as safe and as smooth running on the curve as on straight stretch of track It was admitted that there would be an additional element of expense in operation. owing to the cost of run ming the gyroscope as well as driving the train; but this, it was maintained, would be negligible in the case of railway Of considerable length on ac- count of the saving in the cost of lay ing and keeping up a single track in stead of a dOuhle opa