414 



Popular Science Monthly 



A miniature electric railway by means of which half a million pounds of meat are handled daily. 

 Nine hundred cars, driven by seven electric locomotives are used in one packing establishment 



Meat Packing with the Aid of an 

 Electric Railway 



PREPARING and packing meat prod- 

 ucts on a large scale requires many 

 thousands of operations in many separate 

 buildings. Since meat is very perishable, 

 it must be carried from one building to 

 another in the least possible time and 

 should be subjected to as little actual 

 handling as possible during the processes 

 preceding refrigeration. 



It is in this capacity that the electric 

 railway system excels all other systems, 

 and as early as 1892 one large packing 

 house in Chicago installed a trolley. It 

 consisted of one modest electric locomotive 

 and a few cars, running on three-quarters 

 of a mile of elevated track. With the in- 

 crease in business, this miniature railroad 

 had to be enlarged. Now there are seven 

 locomotives, nine hundred cars, and double 

 the amount of track. The locomotives 

 have a capacity of twenty-five horsepower, 

 and the power to run them is generated in 

 the company's four thousand, one hundred 

 and fifty horsepower power-house. 



The rolling stock consists of small flat- 



cars, box-cars carrying five tons of beef, and 

 tank-cars for transporting blood, animal- 

 oils and the like. A half million pounds of 

 meat are carried about every day, and no 

 less than one hundred and seventy-five 

 refrigerating freight-cars leave the Chicago 

 yards fully loaded every night. 



Making the Aeroplane Tire A 

 Hundred Per Cent Efficient 



FIVE years ago, the ordinary large 

 automobile tire was used on aero- 

 planes. These were necessary to help the 

 machine start from rough ground, and also 

 for protecting the delicate mechanism from 

 the shocks of landing. But compared with 

 the developed aeroplane tire of to-day, 

 these tires seem almost absurd. They were 

 much heavier and they offered much more' 

 resistance to the wind. The invention of 

 the cord tire undoubtedly accelerated tire 

 refinement. The tires that are used in the 

 war in Europe, for instance, are as much 

 "alive" and as springy as older types, but 

 they are made smaller in cross-section and 

 lighter in weight. Hence they allow a corre- 

 sponding increase in weight to be carried. 



