76 TEAR-BOOK OF FACTS. 



repairs, as the rails are laid on longitudinal sleepers whioh can be diverted in 

 case of need ; and as these cars, as well as the carts and carriages that take the 

 rail, move on a direct line, it is a self-constituted police system, saving con- 

 fusion without expense to the public. 



4. The cars move one-third faster than the omnibus, and so gentle is the 

 motion that the passenger can read his journal without difficulty. 



5. The rails are so constructed that no inconvenience arises at crossings from 

 wrenching off carriage wheels, and as the improved rail is nearly flat, even with 

 the surface, and some iivo inches wide, no grooves impede the general traffic, and 

 the gauge admits all vehicles that prefer the track to the pavement. 



6. The facility of getting in and out at each end of the car and on each side, 

 giving the passengers the choice of four places, together with the almost instan- 

 taneous stoppage by means of the patent brake, permits passengers to step in 

 or out when in motion without danger, instanced by the fact that nearly seventy 

 millions of passengers passed over the New York, Boston, and Philadelphia 

 roads last year with only twelve accidents. Seventy millions ! being more than 

 the population of the United States and Canada, Great Britain and Australia — 

 one-half the entire number of passengers carried on the railways of the United 

 Kingdom the same year ; or, to make it more striking, six times the number 

 carried in Scotland, and eight times as many as passed over all the Irish rail- 

 ways, and yet only twelve persons met with any accident. 



7. In case of necessity, troops can be transported from one part of the city to 

 the other at ten miles an hour. 



8. It is a special boon to the working man who, often in America, saves three- 

 pence becr-mouey to buy a ticket from his work in the city to his cottage in the 

 suburbs. 



Considerable discussion ensued, and several engineers and other 

 gentlemen present, bore testimony to the success of the street trains 

 in the United States. 



Dr. Carpenter remarked that one of the great objections to street 

 railways was that a stoppage in any part would inconvenience the 

 rest ; but a plan had been introduced by Mr. II. Main to obviate 

 that by having an eccentric flange. There was a plain wheel, and at 

 the side an eccentric ring or disc, and by turning a lever it con- 

 verted it into a railway carriage, and by turning it back, it got on 

 the common road. 



An engineer of high standing stated that, when he was at Bal- 

 timore, he was surprised at the ease with which the street railway 

 cars ascended steep hills, and the facility with which they were 

 checked in descending. From what he had seen in America, and the 

 system being in operation there so extensively, with a perfect freedom 

 from accident or inconvenience of any kind, there was no valid objec- 

 tion to it, either on account of steep ascents, sharp curves, or in- 

 terference with the general traffic. 



The President (.Mr. Macquorn Rankine) said that, before Mr. 

 Train replied, lie should venture to offer a few remarks. With re- 

 Bpecl to the system of street railways it would doubtless have been 

 introduced and adopted before now, had it not been that the public 

 attention, and the attention of engineers, had been directed mainly 

 towards perfecting the railway BysteiU, which comprehended a wider 

 range, and was not restricted to large towns or to a locality. At 

 tin- Bame time he was not insensible of the value of the system of 

 railways, advocated so ably and so successfully by Mr. 



Train, rV>r it so happened that he Was well acquainted with them, his 

 father and himself having constructed one, where they used to 



