The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1910-09-07
YHE BRENNAN uON0RAlL
Something HbOJf fhe Wonderful InuenfiOn THAI MaV
ReuolJfionize Railway Trauel.

track to keep her on the rail. A line
Of rails to travel on, and ground that
will carry her weight-she asks no
more. With these and a clear road
ahead she is to abolish distance and
revise the worlds schedules of time.
"A hundred and twenty miles an
hour" l hear Brennan saying in that
sad voice of his, cor maybe 200. That's
detail
In the back of the cab were broad,
unglazed windows, through which one
could watch the tangle of machinery.
Dynamos are bolted to the floor, pur-
ring under their shields like comfort
able cats; abaft of them twenty
horsepower Wolseley petrol engine
supplies motive power for everything.
And above. the dynamos, cased in stud
ded leather, swinging a little in their
ordered procession, are the two gyro-
scopes, the soul of the machine. To
them she owes her equilibrium. OF all
machines in the world the gyroscope
is the simplest, for in it's essential
form it is no more than a wheel re-
volving. But a wheel revolving is the
vehicle of many physical principles,
and the sum of them is that which is
known as gyroscopic action. 1t is
seen in the ordinary spinning top, that
stands erect in it's capacity of a gyro-
scope revolving horizontally; the ap-
partus which holds Brennan's car up
right and promises to revolutionize
transportation is top adapted to a
new purpose. 1t is a gyroscope revolv-
ing in perpendicular plane, steel
wheel weighing $500 pounds and spin
ming at the rate of 5000 revolutions to
the minute. Now, the effect of gyro-
scopic action is to resist any impulse
which tends to move the revolving
wheel out of the plane in which it re-
wolves. This resistance can be felt
in a top; it can be felt much more
strongly in the beautiful little gyrO-
scopes of brass and steel which are
sold for the scientific demonstration
OF the laws governing revolving bodies
Such one, only few inches in size,
will develop a remarkable resistance.
This resistance increases with the
weight of the wheel and the speed at
which it moves, till with Brennan's
horoscopes of 1,50O pounds each, whirl-
ing in vacuum at 5000 revolutions
per minute, it would need a weight
which would crush the car, into the
ground to throw them from their up
right plane.
The working of Brennan's gyroscope
was described at length in the press
on the occasion of the exhibition of
his model monorail car before the
Royal society and in the grounds of his
residence at Dillingham;; for a clear
understanding of the first full-sized car
it will be we'll to recapitulate few
of the characteristics of the gyro-
scope. When Brennan made his early
models he found that while the littI.
cars would remain upright and run
along straight rail, they left the
track at the first curve. The gyroscope
governed their direction as we'll as
their equilibrium. 1t was the first
check in the evolution of the perfect
ma chine; it lasted over ten years be-
fore he found the answer to the prob.
lem, ten years of making experimental
and scrapping them, of ILL.,
ing useless patents, of doubt and per-
sistence. But the answer was found
in the spinning top. A top set spin
ming and put down so that it stands
at an angle to the floor will right it.
self; it will rise till it stands upright
on the point of equal friction. :Bren-
mans resource, therefore, was to treat
his gyroscope as a top. He inclosed
ii in case, through which it's avles
and at each side of the car
he built stout brackets reaching forth
a few inches below each end of the
axle. The result is not difficult to de
duce. When the car came to curve
the centrifugal action tended to throw
it outward; the side OF the car that
was on the inside of the curve swung
up and the bracket touched the axle
of the gyroscope. Forthwith, in the
manner of its father, the top, the gyro-
scope tried to stand upright on the
bracket; all the weight of it and all
it's wonderful force was pressed on
that side of the car, holding it down
against the tendency to rise and cap
size. The thing was done; the spin.
ming top had come to the rescue of it's
postelty. 1t only remained to fit
double gyroscope with the wheels re-
v0lving in opposite directiclE. and
save FOR engineering details, The MONO.
rail cahr was evolved
= D. N