The Washington herald., 1918-04-25
BEELER SEES
TRAFFIC HOPE
IN new CARS
W.R. &E.'s Order for More
Rolling Stock Pleases
Trolley Expert.

John A. Beeler, the street railway
expert who has been busy for the last
few mon hs helping to relieve the
Washington congestion crisis. COM
mented favorably Yesterday on the
action of the Washington Railway
and Electric Company in ordering
fifty new cars CT the haas Eri,ern.
Service by these cars" sair Mr..
Beeler. Twill undoubtedly show a
marked Improvement in many re-
spects over the cars of older design.
which are still giving excellent serv-
ice, but will doubtless be superseded
gradually by the new design cars.
which may be called the last cry in
point of up-to-dateness.
ut certainly looks as /; the W. r.
& E. is doing its part in helping our
efforts to improve conditions in
Washington.
ct understand" Mr.. Beeler con-
tinued, "that these new cars are to
be equipped with the most modern
automatic coupling device, which in
cases where a 'cut-out' occurs-and
these 'cut-outs' are inevitable with
the conduit system, as opposed to the
overhead trolley-wIre systematic de-
lay due to the cut-out will be only
momentary. as the car following the
one which gets stuck at a street in
tersection will be able to couple up in
a second or two and Immediately
give the first car relief. whereas at
the present time two or three min
utes are sometimes wasted by cut
outs"
Other improvements Coming.
Il I'll - - -
Washington Railway and Electric
Company. when asked yesterday
about the extent of the improve
ments contemplated by this COM
pany. remarked laconically that the
purchase OF these new cars Is only
one of several steps being taken
by the w. r. & E. to make the
service adequate to cope with the
ton.
The executives of the street rail-
way companies have evidently been
inspired with the enthusiasm which
Mr.. Beeler and his staff have
brought into their work. and Bet
ter Service Still' is the slogan
which has been adopted generally.
Mr.. Beeler was laughing yesterday
while reading one of the local pa
pers.
Look at this" he said. Here is
a citizen who writes to complain
that our skip-stops have been
worked out by rule of thumb.
at is estimated"-Mr. Beeler is a
man of figures and facts-"that one
of my staff has walked about $40
miles over the car lines of Wash
ington since we started figuring
out the best stopping places for the
new system"
As Mr.. Beeler was making this
remark his pedestrian" came in.
"Oh yes" the new arrival ex-
claimed. "if I don't know all the
points and rails of the entire sys-
tenn by their first names. it is just
because they have not got any first
names"
As to Fifteenth and H.
Look at this" said Mr.. Beeler
again, taking up the paper; ''the cars
don't stop at Fifteenth and II streets,
where there are several office build
ings and the Shoreham Hotel, but
they do stop a little further where
the squirrels are singing and the
birds eating hickory nuts So says
this correspondent True enough: but
when the cars did>stop at the Office
| building corner. they blocked the
traffic for minutes at time. Now
you have to walk forty yards or so.
but you don't have to wait when
you get to the stopping place. This
was one of the stops which we saw
had to be changed almost as soon
as we got here-on the same princi-
PIE as we found it necessary to
change all the stops near the New
York avenue section between Four
tenth ara Fifteenth Streets"
It is estimated roughly that Mr.
Beeler himself has worn out on the
streets of Washington. since he came
here, 4S7 ounces of shoe leather.