ELECTRIC RAILWAYS 



pensive and highly satisfactory system is the one invent- 

 ed by Mr. Howard Hansel Tunis and used at the James- 

 town Exhibition in 1907. 



In this system the wheels, arranged in tandem, have 

 double flanges which keep them on the single-rail track, 

 and the cars are prevented from toppling over by over- 

 head guides. These guides must be supported on a 

 frame-work, but as there is little tendency to sway on 

 a single-rail track, they can be relatively light structures. 

 It is the cost of these frames, however, that practically 

 offsets the low cost of road-bed construction, so that, 

 everything considered, the mere matter of initial cost 

 has no very great advantage over the ordinary double- 

 rail road. But the cost of operating is considerably 

 less than the older type, and this road would undoubt- 

 edly come rapidly into popularity but for the fact that 

 such gyrocars as the ones invented in England and 

 Germany are self-sustaining on the rail, doing away 

 with the expensive overhead frame-work construction, 

 and are likely to become practical factors in the problem 

 of transportation. 



In 1909 an electric aerial monorail up the Wetterhom 

 in the Alps was put into operation. On this line a car 

 suspended on two cables, one above the other and with- 

 out supports except at the upper and lower terminals, 

 rises at an angle of forty-five degrees through a distance 

 of 1,250 feet. There are two sets of these cables, each 

 carrying a car so arranged as to work in alternate direc- 

 tions simultaneously, this counter-balancing effecting a 

 great saving in power. The power-plant is located at 

 the upper end of the ascent, and consists of winding 

 VOL. VI X.— 13 [193] 



