£06 Vol. X NEW YORK $ CHICAGO, AUGUST. 5. paten"? °W r A Model Car House. cars. An especially interestingre"aTuTe of this floor is a flush transfer table of special design which was built for In the engraving on this page is presented a view of the Union Railway Company by the White Manufactur- the capacious car house recently completed by the Union ing Company, of New York. With it the cars can be Railway Company, of New York. The engravings on quickly and easily moved to any part of the room by one the following page are from photographs of the first and man. second floors. This transfer table, which is shown in the engraving The house is located at the junction of Boston and and which was fully described in the May, 1894, number of Woodruff Avenues, and has a frontage of about 150 ft. on the Street Railway Journal, runs on rails laid on the floor Boston Avenue, and extends back on Woodruff Avenue a itself, and avoids the necessity of cutting the floor. The distance of about 260 ft. As shown in the exterior view, transverse rails upon which the car rests when on the table FIG. 1— EXTERIOR OF CAR HOUSE—UNION RAILWAY COMPANY, NEW YORK CITY. the building is of brick with stone trimmings, and pre- are slightly bent down at the ends, so as to make con- sents a very handsome appearance. The architectural nection with the floor rails. feature of the structure is the square tower of attractive The company will perform its own armature wind- design eighty-two feet in height and twenty-five feet ing, and a space of about 40 X 50 ft. in the Boston Ave- square, located over the central doorway. nue end of the second story is set apart for this purpose. Woodruff Avenue descends gradually from Boston Twelve large windows furnish abundant light for this Avenue, so that the building is one story higher in the work. rear than in the front. Adjoining the armature room, directly in the center On the ground floor are fourteen tracks, each with a of the front of the house and within easy call of the dis- storage capacity of nine closed or seven open cars. All patcher's office, is a large room for the use of conductors tracks are provided with pits for the inspection of motors, and motormen. It is well lighted and heated, and fur- running gear, etc. The trolley wires which lead into the nished with an ample number of comfortable seats. building are carried under wooden troughs, which are at- The machine and blacksmith shops are located in the tached to the floor beams. The floors here are laid with basement in the rear end of the building, and will be fully cement. An electric elevator carrying a platform, 11 X equipped with the most approved machinery for making 35 ft., and operated by the railway current, is provided all necessary repairs. Power will be supplied entirely by for quickly transferring cars to the basement or the upper electric motors operated by the railway current. The floor. This elevator is shown at the left of Fig. 3. paint shop of the company is also located in the base- On the second floor, shown in Fig. 2, there are thir- ment. teen tracks with a total storage capacity of seventy five The tracks are so arranged that a car can be taken 486 THE STREET RAILWAY JOURNAL. [Vol. X. No. 8. from the street or any part of the building to the elevator, Railway Lines in Detroit Sold. lowered to the basement and run directly to the repair shop, facilitating the work of repairs. A large stock room Thomas Nevins, of Orange, N. J., the contractor adjoins the machine and blacksmith shops. who has been mentioned on several previous occasions The house is well lighted by large windows on all as the purchaser of the Detroit Street Railway lines, con- sides. cluded the purchase July 3. It is said Mr. Nevins had an option on this scheme, which expired on July 9. It was The Indianapolis Franchise Case. coupled with a condition that the franchise be obtained from the Common Council of Detroit. A company of An interesting case involving the right of a city to capitalists, anxious to secure the roads, succeeded in de- transfer certain franchises, claimed to have expired, from laying the granting of the franchise beyond the time one corporation to another, was argued last month in named in the option, with the hope of defeating Mr. Indianapolis in the case of "The Citizens' Street Railroad Company vs. The City Railway Company." The final arguments for the former, the one now in the field, was pre- sented by Hon. Benjamin Harrison who claimed, among other points, that an extension of an existing fran- chise did not require any special con- sideration, the consideration for the original grant being sufficient to cover the extension, also that the termination of the right to operate cars over certain streets was tanta- mount to a confiscation of the tracks of the company in those streets when no provision had been made originally to cover this point. Also that a grant from the legislature could not be terminated by a city, VIEW OF GROUND FLOOR OF CAR HOUSE- -UNION RAILWAY COMPANY, NEW YORK CITY. Nevins. The latter went to Detroit, however, and closed the deal, paying, it is said, par for the $1,250,000 of stock and $3,000,000 bonds. Mr. Nevins will at once go to work and organize a stock company, in which he will hold a controlling interest, and equip the remaining fifty miles of track- age with the trolley system. He will take possession of the newly acquired property in a few weeks. Mr. Nevins in a recent interview said: " I was treated in a very fair man- ner by the municipal authorities of Detroit. My company will be exempt from taxes, and free from any expense for street paving or improvements of any kind. For these considerations I FIG. 2.—VIEW OF SECOND FLOOR OF CAR HOUSE- -UNION RAILWAY COMPANY, agreed to give the city a workingman's NEW YORK CITY. rate of fare, which is three cents, between the hours of 5:30 and 7 a. m., even though it had been provided in the act of the legis- and 5:15 and 6:15 p. M." lature that it should not take away the "exclusive power exercised by the city over the streets," the term "exclus- ive power" merely identifying the powers then exercised An Electric Railway Between Columbus over location, survey and construction. Mr. Harrison and Cincinnati. claimed that under the State charter the franchises were perpetual. The case was presented before Judges Woods The prediction that Cincinnati and Columbus are to be and Baker of the United States Circuit Court. No de- connected by an electric railroad has become a very strong cision will probably be given for some time. probability. Application has been made to the Franklin County Commissioners for a right of way for an electric Fenders in Washington. railway on the national pike from Columbus to the Madi- son County line, and a franchise has been granted on con- A bill has been introduced in Congress to compel all dition that the road is begun by September 1, 1895, and the street railway companies in the District of Columbia completed by September 1, 1896. The applicants are L. to equip all electric and cable cars with fenders. The D. Hagerty, H. B. Morehead, Dennis Dwyer, of Dayton, District Commissioners are examining different types. i and Orin Brown. — August, 1894] THE STREET RAILWAY JOURNAL. 487 The Hobart Electric Street Railway. at the lower end of Macquarie Street, near the Hobart rivulet, and so much difficulty was experienced in finding The second electrical street railway in Australasia, suitable foundations for the house itself and the engines, and, perhaps, the finest in the Southern Hemisphere, is boilers, stack, etc., that piles were driven and a firm con- that opened for traffic September 1, 1893, at Hobart, the crete foundation laid upon them. Upon this structure chief city of Tasmania, that island which lies due south the house was erected. It was designed in England, and of the great continent of Australia, and which is looked sent out all ready to be set up. It consists of a galvanized upon by its inhabitants as the gem of the Southern seas. iron shell with wrought iron principals and girders, the A feeling of discontent with antiquated methods of trac- various portions being separated by wooden and brick tion had been rising ever since the success of electric trac- partitions. , tion in America had been reported there. And this feel- The boilers (Fig. 2) are four in number, and are of ing speedily impelled them to investigate and be more the Marshall locomotive, multitubular type. They have a forward with the times. From the beginning the cars capacity of sixty horse power each, and generate steam have been great favorites, and not a stop or a hitch has at a working pressure of 160 lbs to the square inch. The occurred since the line was opened. The system adopted mountings are complete and include double gauge is the overhead, and is similar in most respects to those glasses, steam gauge, patent draughts, etc. The boilers installed here and in Europe. are covered with Bell's asbestos composition, as are the ~7\ IF*" FIG. 1. — INTERIOR OF POWER STATION—HOBART ELECTRIC STREET RAILWAY, TASMANIA.