MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS. 75 



which it could be put. — From the Report of the Meeting in the Oxford 

 -University Herald. 



STREET RAILWAYS. 



Mr. G. F. Train (of Boston, U.S.A.) has read to the Mechanical 

 Section of the British Association a paper descriptive of "Street 

 Railways as used in the United States," illustrated by a model of a 

 tramway and car, or omnibus capable of conveying sixty persons. In 

 America such a car is drawn by a pair of horses. The tramway is 

 laid in the centre of the street, and the rail is so shallow that it offers 

 no obstruction whatever to carriages crossing it. In wide streets two 

 such tracks are laid down, one for the going and the other for the 

 returning traffic. 



In America, in the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 

 Baltimore, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, railways cars are displacing 

 omnibuses in all the large streets. " They have already become a 

 public utility ; and Americans would miss their railway car as much 

 as the English would their penny-postage system. The horse railway 

 is a fixed fact. It has had a fair trial and has met with striking 

 success," says Mr. Train. Mr. Alexander Easton, C.E., of Phila- 

 delphia, in a work on the same subject, speaks of the effects already 

 produced by the horse-railway system. "Time is economized by re- 

 gularity of transit ; the cars being quickly stopped by the application 

 of the brake, the most refractory horses are immediately arrested : 

 while the whole operation becomes so mechanical that the horses, 

 when accustomed to the signals of the bell, stop or start without any 

 action on the part of the driver, by which means a time-table can be 

 effectively used, and businessmen are not subjected to delays incident 

 to the old — and we trust soon to say obsolete — omnibus system. 

 Space is economized because omnibuses (the most numerous and 

 dangerous portion of the travel), surging from side to side of the 

 streets, are abolished ; while the work heretofore inadequately per- 

 formed by three of those vehicles is easily accomplished by one car, 

 in half the time, notwithstanding it is concentrated and confined to 

 one channel. By the convenience afforded the public by the cars, the 

 side-walks are relieved from pedestrians, and the centre of the sti'eets 

 from vehicles ; a seat can be obtained and vacated without trouble 

 or danger to the occupants of the car, whether invalid or infirm, and 

 the rails present such an even and smooth surface for the wheels of 

 ordinary vehicles, that the drivers avail themselves of their continued 

 use." In addition to all this, the scarcely tolerable nuisance occa- 

 sioned by omnibuses rattling over rough stones is abolished. 



Mr. Train appears to have greatly amused, if not invariably con- 

 vinced, the savans met at Oxford in July last, with the details of 

 his " invention," the advantages of which he thus summed up : — 



1. Each railway car displaces two omnibuses and four horses, thus relieving 

 the street ol'one of the main causes of the oft recurring lock-ups. 



2. The wear and tear from these omnibuses being transferred to the rail, as 

 well as that of many other vehicles that prefer the smooth surface of the iron to 

 the uneven stone pavement, the ratepayers save a largo per centage in taxes. 



3. The Gas and Water Commissioners are not inconvenienced when making 



