1034 Traxsactioxs of the American Institute. 



warning of any danger. The charge is only twenty -five cents for the 

 twenty-five miles, that is, for excursion cars, much the same as our 

 Third avenue excursion open cars. The ride is a very pleasant one, 

 and those desirous of an excursion during the summer, could not 

 select a more picturesque route than this road. It would well repay 

 the trouble of a trip there. All the distance is run without a loco- 

 motive. The trouble with the Greenwich street elevated railroad is 

 the spreading of the track. It is objectionable on account of the 

 manner in which the columns are constructed. A deviation of one 

 inch of a pillar at the foundation would make twelve inches at the 

 top. The three beams or pillars in Mr. Chesebrough's plan are much 

 preferable. In order to obtain the best results in speed, the cycloid 

 should be adopted to measure the decline. A straight line is not 

 always the shortest way in point of time between two points. The 

 speed of the Honesdale railway is twenty miles an hour with the 

 brakes continually applied. 



Mr. John B. Koot stated that a twelve-horse power engine at the 

 end of the incline would lift the car, at its estimated weight of some 

 8,000 or 10,000 pounds, forty feet high every minute, if necessary, 

 and that after deducting all friction. This plan is a tremendous 

 saving, both in point of construction and running expenses. 



The Chair remarked that the plan shown in the model before the 

 meeting, embodied in the main, features identical with those pro- 

 posed and tested many years ago with indifferent and unprofitable 

 results. Even before the locomotive became an assured success, it 

 was tried to operatejrailway lines by running the cars down inclines 

 and raising them from the foot of one to the top of another by lifts, 

 on a principle similar to that by which boats are raised in canal locks- 

 Tlie lift, however, was frequently regarded as an equivalent of the 

 inclined plane in connecting sections of road at difierent levels;, the 

 grade of railways and the tractive power of locomotives upon differ- 

 ent gradients being then not well understood. One proposed appa- 

 ratus, relating to the combined use of inclined planes for the cars to 

 run on, and lifting machinery to raise them from one incline to the 

 next, consisted of two large cogged wheels placed upon the same shaft 

 and gearing into a pitch chain connected with a vertically moving 

 elevator or platform, upon Mdiich the cars could be brought previous 

 to being raised. Although this arrangement was clumsy in design, 

 and inanifestly objectionable in many respects, it performed the same 

 function as the hydnuilic lift, to which latter the no less serious draw- 



