360 Popular Science Monthly 



Scrub Your Walls as Well as Your The Gasoline Automobile in the Role 



Floors by Machinery of Railroad Locomotive 



'ITH the mechanical floor-scrubber 

 already added to the long list of 

 newly-contrived devices for insuring ab- 

 solute cleanliness and saving the back 

 and disposition of 



w 



the modern house- 

 keeper, it is only 

 natural that the next 

 addition should be 

 the mechanical wall- 

 rubber. Let it not 

 be imagined, how- 

 ever, that the wall- 

 rubber is for use only 

 in the home. Un- 

 like the floor-scrub- 

 ber, it can be used 

 wherever there is 

 need of polishing. 

 Adapted for clean- 

 ing sunken panels, 

 bands, spots, slabs 

 and walls of marble, 

 granite and tile, it 

 can be used in the 

 home, in the office 

 building, in the cem- 

 etery and in the sub- 

 way with equal facility and good results. 



The machine is portable. It is driven by 

 an electric motor which receives its power 

 from an electric-light socket. The jointed 

 arm to which the polisher is attached has a 

 vertical reach of six and one half feet from 

 the floor and a horizontal reach of eight 

 feet. Two spiral springs counteract the 

 weight of the arm, so that the operator has 

 only to guide the polisher over the surface 

 to be cleaned. 



A compensating shaft attached to the 

 polisher keeps it pressed against irregular 

 surfaces. Water is forced through the 

 polisher by a small pump operated by the 

 motor. A reservoir in the 

 cabinet part of the machine 

 holds the water. It is sup- 

 plied to the brush in a con- 

 stant stream, which may be 

 regulated so that only a small 

 amount, enough to merely 

 moisten the brush, or a 

 copious flood for rinsing large 

 areas at a time, may be ob- 

 tained. No effort on the part 

 of the operator is required 

 except to guide the rubber. 



The wall-rubbing machine is portable and 

 is operated from any electric-light socket 



FOR long trunk lines, the steam locomo- 

 tive has proven itself to be the most 

 economical type of tractor. For short 

 lines, and for factor}- yards or railroad 

 terminals, however, 

 steam propulsion is 

 about the most ex- 

 pensive. Whether 

 the locomotive is 

 standing idle* or not, 

 steam must be kept 

 up, and coal must be 

 used continuously. 

 The gasoline loco- 

 motive which has 

 now entered the field 

 is doing all that the 

 steam locomotive 

 does, without the 

 former's waste when 

 inactive. 



This gasoline loco- 

 motive is virtually 

 the ordinary auto- 

 mobile mounted on a 

 locomotive frame. 

 The six cylinders of 

 the huge gasoline en- 



gine furnish one hundred and sixty horse- 

 power. Connecting the engine shaft with 

 the wheel driving-cranks on either side of 

 the locomotive are a rigid gear transmission 

 and an automobile friction clutch of ap- 

 propriate dimensions. The side-bars con- 

 necting the wheels with the cranks are 

 exactly similar to those on the regular 

 steam locomotive. 



When the gasoline, which is stored on the 

 top of the hood, is fed into the engine under 

 full load conditions, the locomotive can 

 haul seven modern freight cars filled to 

 their fifty- ton 

 capacity at 

 a speed of 

 six miles an 

 hour. 



This locomotive, hauling seven cars, is driven by a six-cyl- 

 inder gasoline engine giving one hundred and s'-Hy horsepower 



