Railways That Run Under Water 



Visit the fishes in their homes as 

 you travel on the Aquarium Circuit 



/\ S tunneling is costly and often very 

 /A difficult, the idea of running rail- 

 way cars upon the bottom of a 

 waterway has its attractions. Air is more 

 easily supplied to the passengers of an 

 under-water car trip lasting, say, one 

 hour than for submarine boats. But the 

 bottom of water is rarely so smooth or 

 firm that rails can be laid on it. In most 

 cases a vast amount of grading and 

 ballasting would have to be done be- 

 fore the ends of the rails could be joined. 

 The under-water car, full of air as it is, 

 would naturally be lighter than water and 

 its buoyancy would cause an upward pull 

 on the rails, which must be shaped ac- 

 cordingly and anchored down securely. 

 Then, in water with ship traffic on the 

 surface, some precautions would have to 

 be taken to prevent ships with deep 

 draft from cutting the submarine car 

 from above, with disastrous results. 

 These and other difficulties have made 

 the counter-attractions of a good ferry 

 seem more powerful for practical trans- 

 portation purposes, and the submarine 

 car so far finds its existence limited to 

 amusement enterprises, where it may 

 combine entertainment with instruction. 



All that is wanted for this purpose is an 

 airtight car which can be hauled under 

 or partly under the water in an artificial 

 pond by means of a cable. Through the 

 windows the passengers can observe 

 realistic imitations of submarine life 

 and scenery staged in the pond. If the 

 movements of the car are made to suggest 

 the roughness of an ocean bed the illu- 

 sion is improved. 



One of the first schemes of this kind 

 was hatched by Alexander Davidson - 

 of Joliet, 111., far from the ocean. 



In.stead of hauling his car with an end- 

 less cable, as shown in the illustration, 

 Davidson suggests that the car could 

 simply be allowed to run into the water 

 by gravity and could be hauled back by a 

 cable attached to it, as indeed would be 

 necessary whenever, as in the case of a 

 river or a large lake being utilized, a 

 continuous cable is impracticable. 



Charles B. Stahl of Philadelphia dis- 

 covered that a little more illusion than 

 the Davidson car provides would be 

 desirable, and he fancied that it helps in 

 this respect to shape the car as a sub- 

 marine boat, a whale, a sea-serpent or a 

 fish, but his main idea is to supply a 

 track which rises and drops, so that the 

 car will appear to dive one or more times 

 to the bottom of the body of water. With 

 this in view he builds his track as tv/o 

 parallel rails secured to a trestle of 

 varying height, and the track rails are 

 engaged from belov/ as well as from above 

 by little wheels journaled in brackets 

 supporting the car at its sides. The claim 

 set forth in his patent is limited entirely 

 to this feature. 



More illusion and still more illusion is 

 the cry of the amusement resorts, and so 

 it is found that the submarine "amuse- 

 ment apparatus" devised by Jacob Gun- 

 zendorfer of San Francisco responds to 

 this demand with some new features "to 

 simulate the actual sensations, scenes and 

 experiences met in traveling in a sub- 

 marine boat." He dispenses with the car 

 effect in favor of the undulating and 

 swaying motions of a boat, the track 

 being made wavy and tipping laterally in 

 places for this purpose. His means for 

 holding on to the track are similar to 

 Stahl's, and also his traction cable which 

 pulls the car over a continuous circuit 

 of inclosures filled with water or water 

 marvels. But his car is never entirely 

 submerged. The "conning tower," where 

 the gripman is located, and some air 

 pipes project above the water-line for the 

 sake of safety and simplicity. As the 

 passengers enter by a hatch which is 

 afterwards closed above them by folding 

 doors, they see :; thing but the ceiling 

 when looking up, and their illusion does 

 not suffer. 



The genius of Gunzendorfer comes out 

 strongest in that he can get along with 

 very little water. As he explains: "The 

 trackway first passes into a tank a little 

 distance beyond the elevated loading 

 platform" where the start is made; "the 



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