Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-04-09
VARIOUS QUAINT LINES
FRENCH RAILROADS BUILT TO
 OVERCOME OBSTACLES.
Ireland Has One of the Most Remark
 able Rail Routes-"Rack" System Has Been Found q Necessity in Switzerland.

Of the various quaint railroads in the world one is not so very far away, although you have perhaps never heard of it, much less travelled along it's eccentric line, remarks London Answers.
 This is the Lartigue railroad, at Bal lybunion, in Ireland, some idea of which you can glean from the picture. This strange train. you will observe, is in duplicate. the engine and car riages being double, while the line consists of a central rail, which passes down the center of the train. To add to the humor of the thing, passengers are sometimes requested to change their seats from one side of the train to the other, so that proper balance may be maintained.
 Other out-of-the-way railroads are sometimes used in order to negotiate any very steep ascents or descents where the ordinary train would come to grief. In this connection we find what are known as rack" railroads, more than one of which is used in Switzerland.
 The rack railroad, instead of having ordinary smooth lines only, has q rack-rail in the center of the track. this rail being cut into series of teeth, which jut out rather like the teeth of saw held upside down. Under the engine of the train itself there is fixed cogwheel. which grips the teeth of the rack-rail, and so pre- vents the train from slipping back along the ordinary rails that lie on either side of the rack-rail.
 Cars fitted thus are able to ascend and descend mountains on which an ordinary train would quickly meet with disaster
 Another form of mountain railroad Is that run by means of cables. The cable principle is roughly this: The cables" wind round drums at the top and bottom of the slope. Then. as one train descends the other climbs up the hill. the process being reversed for the return journeys.
 A sensational train, which we may yet see in everyday work, is the Bren- nan monorail, demonstrations of which were given by it's inventor a few years ago. The peculiarities of this train are that it has only one rail- being balanced by means of couple of gyroscopes.
 ] There is also moving-platform rail road. which has been actually used in New York, and which somewhat re- sembles the moving staircases now in use in parts of London. In this case the first platform is stationary, but beside it there is another platform which moves forward at the rate of three miles an hour. Next to this comes a third platform. moving at six miles per hour, while the fourth and last moves at nine miles per hour.
 The idea is, of course that passen- gers shall step from platform to plat form. according to the pace at which they wish to travel; it being in their power always to return to the station ary platform when they so desire. In leaving one platform for another, moreover. they are never changing their rate of progress by moro than three miles. On each platform, also, there are a number of posts and hand rails to which passengers can cling, if nervous. Believers in this method of travel prophecy a great future for the invention; but whether their be- liefs are justified or not remains to be seen.