THE STREET RAILWAY JOURNAL, February, 1881
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VOL. III. The Pole Street Car Motor. The automatic foot action in this motor car called the "Differential Car Starter." is a perfect step action, made so that there This is also of peculiar construction, being The motor* and car starter system here- is a perfect rise and fall accurately placed a wheel within a wheel. There are no with illustrated is not complex, though it on the ground, there held dowu, aud the springs or cog-wheels in it. The back axle produces very important results. The motor motor forced forward. This action is en- of the car rests upon two small wheels, and car starter can be used either sepa- tirely different from the indefinite swing these wheels run upon and in the flanges of rately or in conjunction with each other. of a prop or strut to push forward a two larger wheels, and are elevated four The motor can be supplied with motive vehicle ;for, if the said prop or strut should inches above the pavement, out of the way power from electricity, gas engine, com- not catch or hold against anything it would of sand. The draft is applied to two small pressed air or steam, the great feature of simply beat air ; in this foot action the friction wheels, which bear uj.on the large the motor being the system of traction, step is that of the front legs of the horse. wheels near their top periphery, and thus is THE POLE STREET CAR MOTOR. which is adapted to operate the motor on It may not be generally known that the obtained a twenty-eight inch leverage act- tbe surface of the ground. When the front legs of a horse perform the hardest ing directly upon the small wheels upon well-known driving-wheel system fails to labor. The foot is not required to be in which the axle of the car rests. This lev- pull on a slippery rail, then the motor is constant action, but only at grades and erage comes into action whenever there is provided with an automatic step or foot slippery places, the general running being auy resistance, such as starting a car load- action. As a test, the driving wheels of done by the driving wheels, and being the ed with passengers, going up grade, or run- the motor were locked, yet these great same as in ordinary motors. All four ning over a stone or other obstruction. feet were able to push the engine along, wheels under this motor are drivers, and This car starter is of great value for use breaking the cohesion of the driving the whole force of the engine is thrown with auy kind of a motor, for it avoids the wheels and forcing forward the motor with- on to the driving wheels, or into the feet, necessity of a very heavy motor depending out slipping the feet, showing at once that or the force maybe in both feet and drivers, upon cohesion, and when operated in the the feet were superior to driving wheels for at the discretion of the engineer. contrary direction is a brake. traction purposes. In connection with the motor, an appar- No. 3 motor now built is supplied with *B. C. Pole, 150 S. Fourth street, Philadelphia, Pa. atus is attached underneath the passenger power from a specially constructed engine. " 5 — 194 THE STREET RAILWAY JOURNAL, February, 1881. This is a low pressure condensing engine, and the fuel burns from the top downward. Timber versus Metallic Track. and has no escapes to the street. The whole The heater is perforated to leave the cold Editor Street Batlway Journal : is arranged to be noiseless, smokeless and air in on the side and the hot air out on In October last year I wrote you a de- have no dripping. These motors will the top, giving the passenger the same scription of the metallic system, which shortly appear in the streets of Phila- effect as a register in a room. The heater brought out some advocates of the yellow delphia. and fuel have been given a test and are » pine stringers with chestnut and oak ties, claimed to have proven a success and we Warming Street Cars. and I am sorry to see that all contractors are informed it is adopted by the Chicago and managers of street railway property West Division By. Co., City Omnibus For the past six weeks the Fourth and are not up with the advancement of the Co., of Chicago; The South Chicago City Eighth Street Bailway management of times, as I look at it. Ky. Co., of South Chicago; The People's Philadelphia, have been experimenting The principal features of our system were Pass. Ry. Co., Philadelphia, Pa.; Pitts- with a new apparatus* for warming their designed to obviate some, if not all, of the burgh & Birmingham Pass. By. Co., cars, and the invention has proved so suc- defects that have hitherto constituted va- Pittsburgh, Pa., and many others. cessful that it will in all probability be lid objections in the street railway con- Our illustrations show a car with heater adopted. The scheme is not to heat the struction, that is, valid objections as they in position as used by the Chicago West seem to us, namely, the use of timber, Division By. Co. Fig. 2 is a perspective spikes, bolts, and fish or joint plates, all of which seem to be a source of expense for re- pairs, and if they can be dispensed with will effect a great saving. It does not seem that it has been pointed out by any objec- tor of the system, that the claims which are made for the metallic way in general have been confuted, namely: FlG. 3. That a railway track composed entirely view of heater, and Fig. 3 a sectional view of iron and steel has not longer life than of heater cut through the center, showing one composed of timber cro?s ties and the inner fire pan and its circulation of stringers. cold air going around same and passing That a system which has practically re- out at the top through the perforated lid. moved the use of spikes, joint plates, knees and timbers is not less expensive than a Street Railway Traffic in New York. system using the same. During the year ending September 30, That a system which will lock the rails 1886, there were carried on the street rail- together and allow them to act individually ways of New York city 325.427,015 p .sseu- in the space allowed for expansion, is not gers. We believe this is by far the greatest passenger traffic of any city in the world, better than fish or joint plates, spikes or although New York is not the largest city. bolts, which cannot be tightened enough FIG By way of comparison, the figures of 1885 to give strength and yet slack enough to are placed in a parallel column. cars to such an extent as to make the at- allow for expansion at one and the same road. 1885. 1S8R. mosphere detrimental to the health of the Broadway & (seventh Avenue 21.952,529 32,fifl8.899 time. Central cross Town 3,6fi6,fii7 4.044.913 passengers, but to make the car comfort- Central Park, North & East River 15.066,770 15.155,902 That a rail having a web member under Christopher & Tenth Streets 4,316,777 5,209,426 able. heater is from the very flange (the flange having a full bearing The made Drv Dock, East Broadway & Bat. 17.419,852 17,154.601 the best galvanized iron, about 30 inches in Eighth Avenue 13,664.391 1.3,S53.26l on the stringer), and the web member fas- Portv-second & Grand St. Perry.. 8.208,552 7.446.644 length, 7 inches in height, 8 inches in Harlem Bridge, M. & F 3,296.738 3,637.357 tened in and to the stringer with web shap- Houston. West St. & Pa. Ferry.. 4,352,704 4,592,634 width, having two sheet iron pans on the New York & Harlem 15,972,361 18,201,236 ed keys driven into the mortices through Ninth Avenue 4,175,580 4,459,089 iuside to receive the Aromatic Carbonic the web of the rail and stringer, has not Second Avenue 19,367,370 21.059,707 Composition Fuel. Each pan contains Sixth Avenue 16,998.137 16,788,059 more vertical stiffness than a spike driven South Ferry ( returns of 1884) 546,851 "550,000 about two quarts of the fuel, which strongly Third Avenue 32,000.000 27,750,000 down vertically through the tram rail and Twenty-third Street 10,311,145 12,697,914 coal; this resembles powdered amount will Manhattan Elevated 103,354.729 115,109.591 timber stringer. last from fifteen to eighteen hours without Forty-second St. & St. NIC 2,445,587 6.016,782 Finally, that a system composed of ma- replenishing, unless the weather is ex- Total passenger traffic .... 297, 110,690 325,427, 01 terials almost imperishable and of a simple 'Estimated. design so that there is no difficulty what- The Drunkard's Haven. ever in construction, and which can be The president of a street railway sent a brought accurately to gauge, is not better man to a town not very far away, with in- than one where the material is perishable structions to apply for a charter, in case and requires frequent repairs. the town looked as if it might support a It would be well for street railway railway.