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ROLLING STOCK The rolling stock of a railway comprises those vehicles by means of which it effects the transportation of persons and things over its lines. It may be divided into two classes, according as it is intended for passenger or for goods See also:traffic. Passenger See also:Train Stock.—In the See also:United See also:Kingdom, as in See also:Europe generally, the vehicles used on passenger trains include first-class carriages, second-class carriages, third-class carriages, composite. carriages containing compartments for two or more classes of passengers, dining or restaurant carriages, sleeping carriages, See also:mail carriages or travelling See also:post offices, luggage See also:brake vans, See also:horse-boxes and See also:carriage-trucks. Passenger carriages were originally modelled on the See also:stage-coaches which they superseded, and they are often still referred to as " coaching stock." See also:Early examples had bodies about 15 ft. See also:long, 62 ft. wide and 44 ft. high; they weighed 3 or 4 tons, and were divided into three compartments holding six persons each, or eighteen in all. The distinction into classes was made almost as soon as the See also:railways began to carry passengers. Those who paid the highest fares (22d. or 3d. a mile) were provided with covered vehicles, on the See also:roofs of which their luggage was carried, and from the circumstance that they could See also:book seats in advance came the See also:term " booking See also:office," still commonly applied to the office where tickets are issued. Those who travelled at the cheaper rates had at the beginning to be content with open carriages having little or no See also:protection from the See also:weather. Gradually, however, the See also:accommodation improved, and by the See also:middle of the 19th See also:century second-class passengers had begun to enjoy " See also:good See also:glass windows and cushions on the seat," the fares they paid being about 2d. a mile. But though by an See also:act of 1844 the railways were obliged to run at least one train a See also:day over their lines, by which the fares did not exceed the " See also:Parliamentary " See also:rate of rd. a mile, third-class passengers paying ri.d. or r'-zd. a mile had little See also:consideration bestowed on their comfort, and were excluded from the fast trains till 1872, when the Midland railway admitted them to all its trains. Three years later that railway did away with second-class compartments and improved the third class to their level. This See also:action had the effect, through the necessities of competition, of causing travellers in the cheaper classes to be better treated on other railways, and the See also:condition of the third-class passenger was still further improved when See also:Parliament, by the Cheap Trains Act of 1883, required the railways to provide " due and sufficient " train accommodation at fares not exceeding rd. a mile. In the United Kingdom it is now possible to travel by every train, with very few exceptions, and in many cases to have the use of restaurant cars, for rd. a mile or less, and the See also:money obtained from third-class travellers forms by far the most important See also:item in the See also:revenue from passenger traffic. Since the Midland railway's action in 1875 several other See also:English companies have abandoned second-class carriages either completely or in See also:part, and in See also:Scotland they are entirely unknown. On the See also:continent of Europe there are occasionally four classes, but though the See also:local fares are often appreciably See also:lower than in See also:Great See also:Britain, only first and second class, sometimes only first class, passengers are admitted to the fastest trains, for which in addition a considerable extra fare is often required. In See also:Hungary and See also:Russia a See also:zone-See also:tariff See also:system is in operation, whereby the See also:charge per mile decreases progressively with the length of the See also:journey, the traveller paying according to the number of zones he has passed through and not simply according to the distance traversed. In the United States there is in most cases nominally only one class, denominated first class, and the See also:average fare obtained by the railways is about rd. per mile per passenger. But the extra charges levied for the use of parlour, sleeping and other See also:special cars, of which some of the best trains are exclusively composed, in practice constitute a differentiation of class, besides making the real cost of travelling higher than the figures just given. In See also:America and other countries where distances are great and passengers have to spend several days continuously in a Resraur• train sleeping and restaurant cars are almost a See also:necessity, See also:ant and and accordingly are to be found on most important sleeping through trains. Such cars in the United States are cars. largely owned, not by the railway companies over whose lines they run, but by the See also:Pullman See also:Car See also:Company, which receives the extra fees paid by passengers for their use. Similarly in Europe they are often the See also:property of the Inter-See also:national Sleeping Car Company (Compagnie Internationale See also:des Wagons-Lits), and the supplementary fares required from those who travel in them add materially to the cost of a journey. Inthe United Kingdom, where the distances are comparatively small, sleeping and dining cars must be regarded rather as luxuries; still even so, they are to be met with very frequently. The first dining car in See also:England was run experimentally by the Great See also:Northern railway between See also:London and See also:Leeds in 1879, and now such vehicles See also:form a See also:common feature on See also:express trains, being available for all classes of passengers without extra charge beyond the amount payable for See also:food. The introduction of See also:corridor carriages, enabling passengers to walk right through the trains, greatly increased their usefulness. The first English sleeping cars made their See also:appearance in 1873, but they were very inferior to the vehicles now employed. In the most approved type at the See also:present See also:time a passage runs along one See also:side of the car, and off it open a number of transverse compartments or berths resembling See also:ships' cabins, mostly for one See also:person only, and each having a lavatory of its own with See also:cold, and sometimes hot, See also:water laid on. A charge of 7s. 6d. or See also:ros., according to distance, is made for each See also:bed, in addition to the first-class fare. In the United States the See also:standard sleeping car has a central See also:alley, and along the sides are two tiers of berths, arranged lengthwise with the car and screened off from the alley by curtains. To some extent cars divided into See also:separate compartments are also in use in that See also:country. On the continent of Europe the typical sleeping car has transverse compartments with two berths, one placed above the other. The first railway carriages in England had four wheels with two axles, and this construction is still largely employed, especially for See also:short-distance trains. Later, when increased length became desirable, six wheels with carriages, Passenger three axles came into use; vehicles of this See also:kind were made about 30 ft. long, and contained four compartments for first-class passengers or five for second or third class, carrying in the latter See also:case fifty persons. Their See also:weight was in the neighbourhood of ro tons. In both the four-wheeled and the six-wheeled types the axles were See also:free to rise and fall on springs through a limited range, but not to turn with respect to the See also:body of the carriage, though the middle See also:axle of the six-wheeled See also:coach was allowed a certain amount of lateral See also:play. Thus the length of the body was limited, for to increase it involved an increase in the length of the rigid See also:wheel See also:base, which was incompatible with smooth and safe See also:running on curves. (On the continent of Europe, however, six-wheeled vehicles are to be found much longer than those employed in Great Britain.) This difficulty is avoided by providing the vehicles with four axles (or six in the case of the largest and heaviest), mounted in pairs (or threes) at each end in a See also:bogie or swivel See also:truck, which being pivoted can move relatively to the body and adapt itself to the curvature of the See also:line. This construction was introduced into England from America about 1874, and has since been extensively adopted, being now indeed standard for See also:main line stock. It soon led to an increase in the length of the vehicles; thus in 1885 the Midland railway had four-wheeled bogie third-class carriages with bodies 43 ft. long, holding seventy persons in seven compartments and weighing nearly 18 tons, and six-wheeled bogie composite carriages, 54 ft. long and weighing 23 tons, which included 3 first-class and 4 third-class compartments, with a See also:cupboard for luggage, and held 58 passengers. The next advance, introduced on the Great Western railway in 1892, was the See also:adoption of corridor carriages having a passage along one side, off which the compartments open, and connected to each other by vestibules, so that it is possible to pass from one end of the train to the other. This arrangement involves a further increase of length and weight. For instance, four-wheeled bogie third-class corridor carriages employed on the Midland railway at the beginning of the 2oth century weighed nearly 25 tons, and had bodies measuring 50 ft.; yet they held only 36 passengers, because not only had the number of compartments been reduced to six, as compared with seven in the somewhat shorter carriage of 1885, by the introduction of a lavatory at each end, but each compartment held only 6 persons, instead of ro, owing to the narrowing of its width by the corridor. It will be seen from these particulars—which are typical of journeys, as it is an obstruction to the free See also:ingress and See also:egress what has happened not only on other See also:British railways, but also on those of other countries—that much more space has to be provided and more weight hauled for each passenger than was formerly the case. Thus, on the Midland railway in 1885, each third-class passenger, supposing the carriage to have its full See also:complement, was allowed o•6e It. of lineal length, and his proportion of the See also:total weight was 5.7 cwt. Less than 20 years later the lineal length allowed each had increased to nearly 1.4 ft., and the weight to nearly 14 cwt. Passengers in sleeping. cars appropriate still more space and weight; in Great Britain some of these cars, though 40 tons in weight and over 65 ft. in length, accommodate only 11 sleepers, each of whom thus occupies nearly 6 ft. of the length and requires over 31 tons of dead weight to be hauled. In America the long open See also:double-bogie passenger cars, as originally introduced by See also:Ross Winans 'on the See also:Baltimore & See also:Ohio railway, are universally in use. They are distinguished essentially from the British type of carriage by having in the centre of the body a See also:longitudinal passage, about 2 ft. wide, which runs their whole length, and each car having communication with those on either side of it, the conductor, and also vendors of books, papers and cigars, are enabled to pass right through the train. The cars are entered by steps at each end, and are provided with lavatories and a See also:supply of iced water. The length is ordinarily about 50 ft., but sometimes 8o or go ft. The seats, holding two persons, are placed transversely on each side of the central passage, and have reversible backs, so that passengers can always sit facing the direction in which the train is travelling. Cars of this See also:saloon type have been introduced into England for use on railways which have adopted electric See also:traction, but owing to the narrower loading See also:gauge of British railways it is not usually possible to seat four persons across the width of the car for its whole length, and at the ends the seats have to be placed along the sides of the vehicle. A considerable amount of See also:standing See also:room is then available, and those who have to occupy it have been nicknamed " strap-hangers," from the fact that they steady themselves against the See also:motion of the train by the aid of See also:leather straps fixed from the roof for that purpose. Cars built almost entirely of See also:steel, in which the proportion of See also:wood is reduced to a minimum, are used on some electric railways, in See also:order to diminish danger from See also:fire, and the same mode of construction is also being adopted for the rolling stock of See also:steam railways. End doors opening on end platforms have always been characteristic of See also:American passenger equipment. Their use secures a continuous passage-way through the train, vesti- but is attended with some discomfort and See also:risk when boles. the train is in motion. The opening of the doors was See also:apt to cause a disagreeable See also:draught through the car in cold weather, and passengers occasionally See also:fell from the open See also:platform, or were blown from it, when the train was moving. To remedy these defects vestibules were introduced, to enclose the plat-form with a See also:housing so arranged as to be continuous when the cars are made up into trains, and fitted with side doors for ingress and egress when the trains are standing. A second See also:advantage of the See also:vestibule See also:developed in use, for it was found that the lateral swaying of the cars was diminished by the See also:friction between the vestibule frames. The fundamental American vestibule patent, issued to H. H. Sessions of See also:Chicago in See also:November 1887, covered a housing in See also:combination with a See also:vertical metallic See also:plate See also:frame of the See also:general See also:contour of the central passage-way, which projected slightly beyond the line of the couplings and was held out by See also:horizontal springs See also:top and bottom, being connected with the platform housing by flexible connexions at the top and sides and by sliding plates below. A common form is illustrated in fig. 27. Subsequent improvements on the Sessions patent have resulted in a modified form of vestibule in which the housing is made the full width of the platform, though the contact plate and springs and the flexible connexions remain the same as before. The application of vestibules is practically limited to trains making long of passengers on local trains that make frequent stops. In the United States the danger of the stoves that used to be employed for See also:heating the interiors of the cars has been realized, and now the most common method is by Heating steam taken from the See also:locomotive See also:boiler and circulated and through the train in a line of piping, rendered See also:con- fighting tinuous between the cars by flexible coupling-See also:hose. The same method is finding increased favour in Great Britain, to the supersession of the old hot-water footwarmers. These in their simplest form are cans filled with water, which is heated by immersing them in a See also:vessel containing boiling water. In some cases, however, they are filled with fused acetate of soda; this See also:salt is solid when cold, but when the can containing it is heated by See also:immersion in hot water it liquefies, and in the See also:process absorbs See also:heat which is given out again on the See also:change of See also:state back to solid. Such cans remain warm longer than those containing only hot water. On electric railways the trains are heated by electric heaters. As to See also:lighting, the oil See also:lamp has been largely displaced by See also:gas and See also:electricity. The former is often a See also:rich oil-gas, stored in steel reservoirs under the coaches at a pressure of six or seven atmospheres, and passed through a reducing See also:valve to the burners; these used to be of the See also:ordinary See also:fish-tail type, but inverted incandescent mantles are coming into increasing use. Gas has the disadvantage that in case of a collision its inflammability may assist any fire that may be started. Electric See also:light is free from this See also:drawback. The current required for it is generated by dynamos driven from the axles of the coaches. With " set" or " See also:block" trains, that is, trains having their vehicles permanently coupled up, one See also:dynamo may serve for the whole train, but usually a dynamo is provided for each coach, which is then an See also:independent unit See also:complete in itself. It is necessary that the voltage of the current shall be See also:constant whatever be the in-crease of the See also:speed of the train, and therefore of the dynamo. In most of the systems that have been proposed this result is attained by See also:electrical regulation; in one, however, a See also:mechanical method is adopted, the dynamo being so hung that it allows the See also:driving See also:belt to slip when the speed of the axle exceeds a certain limit, the See also:armature thus being rotated at an approximately constant speed. In all the systems accumulators are required to maintain the light when the train is at See also:rest or is moving too slowly to generate current. In all countries passenger trains must vary in weight according to the different services they have to perform; suburban weight trains, for example, meant to hold as many pas- and sengers as possible, and travelling at See also:low speeds, do not See also:weed• weigh so much as long-distance expresses, which include dining and sleeping cars, and on which, from considerations of comfort, more space must be allowed each occupant. The speed at which the journey has to be completed is obviously another important See also:factor, though the increased See also:power of See also:modern loco-motives permits trains to be heavier and at the same time to run as fast, and often faster, than was formerly possible, and in consequence the general tendency is towards increased weight as well as increased speed. An ordinary slow suburban train may weigh about See also:loo tons exclusive of the See also:engine, and may be timed at an inclusive speed, from the beginning to the end of its journey, as low as 12 or 15 M. an See also:hour; while usually the fastest express trains maintaining inclusive speeds of say 45 M. an hour, and made up of the heaviest and strongest rolling stock, do not much exceed 300 tons in any country, and are often less. The inclusive speed over a long journey is of course a different thing from the average running speed, on See also:account of the time consumed in intermediate stops; the fewer the stops the more easily is the inclusive speed increased,—hence the advantage of the non-stop runs of 15o and 200 M. or more which are now performed by several railways in Great Britain, and on which average speeds of S4 or 55 M. per hour are attained between stopping-places. Over shorter distances still more rapid running is occasionally arranged, and in Great Britain, See also:France and the United States there are instances of trains scheduled to maintain an average speed of 6o m. an hour or more between stops. Still higher speeds, up to 75 or even 8o m. an hour, are reached, and sustained for shorter or longer distances every day by express trains whose average speed between any two stopping-places is very much less. But isolated examples of high speeds do not give the traveller much See also:information as to the train service at his disposal, for on the whole he is better off with a large number of trains all maintaining a good average of speed than with a service mostly consisting of poor trains, but leavened with one or two exceptionally fast ones. If both the number and the speed of the trains be taken into account, Great Britain is generally admitted still to remain well ahead of any other country. Goods Trains.—The vehicles used for the transportation of goods are known as goods wagons or trucks in Great Britain, and as See also:freight cars in America. The See also:principal types to be found in the- United Kingdom and on the continent of Europe are open wagons (the See also:lading often protected from the weather by See also:tarpaulin sheets), See also:mineral wagons, covered or See also:box wagons for See also:cotton, See also:grain, &c., See also:sheep and See also:cattle trucks, &c. The principal types of American freight cars are box cars, gondola cars, See also:coal cars, stock cars, tank cars and refrigerator cars, with, as in other countries, various special cars for special purposes. Most of these terms explain themselves. The gondola or See also:flat car corresponds to the See also:European open wagons and is used to carry goods not liable to be injured by the weather; but in the United States the practice of covering the load with tarpaulins is unknown, and therefore the proportion of box cars is much greater than in Europe. The long hauls in the United States make it specially important that the cars should carry a load in both directions, and so box cars which have carried grain or merchandise one way are filled with See also:wool,coal, See also:coke, ore, See also:timber and other coarse articles for the return journey. On this account it is common to put small end doors in American box cars, through which timber and rails may be loaded. The fundamental difference between American freight cars and the goods wagons of Europe and other lands is in carrying capacity. In Great Britain the mineral trucks can ordinarily hold from 8 to ro tons (long tons, 2240 lb), and the goods trucks rather less, though there are wagons in use holding 12 or 15 tons, and the specifications agreed to by the railway companies associated in the Railway Clearing See also:House permit private See also:wagon owners (who own about 45% of the wagon stock run on the railways of the United Kingdom) to build also wagons holding 20, 30, 40 and 56 tons. On the continent of Europe the average carrying capacity is rather higher; though wagons of less than ro tons capacity are in use, many of those originally rated at ro tons have been rebuilt to hold 15, and the tendency is towards wagons of 15–20 tons as a standard, with others for special purposes holding 40 or 45 tons. The See also:majority of the wagons referred to above are comparatively short, are carried on four wheels, and are often made of wood. American cars, on the other See also:hand, have long bodies mounted on two swivelling bogie-trucks of four wheels each, and are commonly constructed of steel. About 1875 their average capacity differed little from that of British wagons of the present day, but by 1885 it had grown to 20 or 22 short tons (2000 lb) and now it is probably at least three times that of European wagons. For years the standard freight cars have held 6o,000 lb and now many carry 8o,000 lb or 100,000 lb; a few coal cars have even been built to contain 200,000 lb. This high carrying capacity has worked in several ways to reduce the cost of transportation. An ordinary British 10-ton wagon often weighs about 6 tons empty, and rarely much less than 5 tons; that is, the ratio of its possible paying load to its tare weight is at the best about 2 to 1. But an American car with a capacity of 1oo,000 lb may weigh only 40,000 lb, and thus the ratio of its capacity to its tare weight is only about 5 to 2. • Hence less dead weight has to be hauled for each ton of paying load. In addition the increased See also:size of the American freight car has diminished the See also:interest on the first cost and the expenses of See also:maintenance relatively to the See also:work done; it has diminished to some extent the amount of track and yard room required to perform a unit of work; it has diminished See also:journal and rolling friction relatively to the tons hauled, since these elements of train resistance grow relatively less as the load per wheel rises; and finally, it has tended to reduce the labour See also:costs as the train loads have become greater, because no more men are required to handle a heavy train than a light one. It is sometimes argued that if these things are true for one country they must be true for another, and that in Great Britain, for example, the use of more capacious cars would bring down the cost of carriage. It may be pointed out, however, that the social and See also:geographical conditions are different in the United Kingdom and the United States, and in each country the methods of carrying goods and passengers have developed in accordance with the requirements of those conditions. In the one country the See also:population is dense, large towns are numerous and See also:close to one another, the greatest distances to be travelled are short, and relatively a large part of the freight to be carried is merchandise and manufactured material consigned in small quantities. In the other country precisely the opposite conditions exist. Under the first set of conditions quickness and flexibility of service are relatively more important than under the second set. Goods therefore are collected and despatched promptly, and, to secure rapid transit, are packed in numerous wagons, each of which goes right through to its destination, with the consequence that, so far as general merchandise is concerned, the weight carried in each is a See also:quarter or less of its capacity. But if full loads cannot be arranged for small wagons, there is obviously no See also:economy in introducing larger ones. On the other hand, where, as in America, the great See also:volume of freight is raw material and crude food-stuffs, and the distances are great, a low charge per unit of transportation is more important than any consideration such as quickness of delivery; therefore full car-loads of freight are massed into enormous trains, which run unbroken for distances of perhaps r000 m. to a seaport or distributing centre. The weight and speed of goods trains vary enormously according to local conditions, but the following figures, which Weight refer to traffic on the London & See also:North-Western and railway between London and See also:Rugby, may be taken speed. as representative of good English practice. Coal trains, excluding the engine, weigh up to 800 or 900 tons, and travel at from r8 to 22 M. an hour; ordinary goods or merchandise trains, weighing 430 tons, travel at from 25 to 30 M. an hour; and See also:quick merchandise trains with limited loads of 300 tons make 35 to 40 M. an hour. In the United States mineral and grain trains, running at perhaps 12 M. an hour, may weigh up to about 4000 tons, and loads of 2000 tons are common. Merchandise trains run faster and carry less. Their speed must obviously depend greatly on topographical conditions. In the great See also:continental See also:basin there are long lines with easy gradients and curves, while in the See also:Allegheny and Rocky Mountains the gradients are stiff, and the curves numerous and of short See also:radius. Such trains, therefore, range in weight from 600 to 'Soo tons or even more, and the journey speeds from See also:terminus to terminus, including stops, vary from 15 to 30 M. an hour, the rate of running rising in favourable circumstances to 40 or even 6o m. an hour. Couplers.—The means by which vehicles are joined together into trains are of two kinds—automatic and non-automatic, the difference between them being that with the former the impact of two vehicles one on the other is sufficient to couple them without any human intervention such as is required with the latter. The common form of non-automatic coupler, used in Great Britain for goods wagons, consists of a See also:chain and See also:hook; the chain hangs loosely from a slot in the draw-See also:bar, which terminates in a hook, and coupling is effected by slipping the chain of one vehicle over the hook of the next. For this operation, or its See also:reverse, a See also:man has to go in between the wagons, unless, as in Great Britain, he is provided with a coupling-stick —that is, a See also:pole having a peculiarly shaped hook at one end by which the chain can be caught and thrown on or off the draw-bar hook. This coupling See also:gear is placed centrally between a pair of buffers; formerly these were often See also:left " dead "—that is, consisted of solid prolongations of the frame of the vehicle, but now they are made to work against springs which take up the shocks that occur when the wagons are thrown violently against one another in shunting. In British practice the chains consist of three links, and are of such a length that when fully extended there is a space of a few inches between opposing buffers; this slack facilitates the starting of a heavy train, since the engine is able to start the wagons one by one and the weight of the train is not thrown on it all at once. For passenger trains and occasionally for fast goods trains See also:screw couplings are substituted for the See also:simple chains. In these the central bar which connects the two end links has screw threads cut upon it, and by means of a See also:lever can be turned so as either to shorten the coupling and bring the vehicles together till their buffers are firmly pressed together, or to lengthen it to permit the end See also:link to be lifted off the hook. Another form of coupler, which used to be universal in the United States, though it has now been almost entirely superseded by the automatic coupler, was the " link and See also:pin," which differed fundamentally from the couplers commonly used in Europe, in the fact that it was a buffer as well as a coupler, no side buffers being fitted. In it the draw-bar, connected through a See also:spring to the frame of the car, had at its outboard end a socket into which one end of a solid link was inserted and secured by a pin. The essential change from the link and pin to the automatic coupler is in the outboard end or See also:head of the draw-bar. The socket that received the link is replaced by a hook, shown at A in fig. 28, which is usually called the See also:knuckle. This hook C A e F1c. 28.-Automatic Coupling for Freight Cars (U.S.A.). in a cavity in the head, and engages with the locking-pin C. This locking-pin is lifted by a suitable lever which extends to one or both sides of the car; lifting it releases the knuckle, which is then free to See also:swing open, disconnecting the two cars. The knuckle stands open until the coupling is pushed against another coupling, when the two hooks turn on their pivots to the position shown in fig. 28, and, the locking-pin dropping into See also:place, the couplers are made fast. This arrangement is only partly automatic, since it often happens that when two cars are brought together to couple the knuckles are closed and must be opened by hand. There are various contrivances by which this may be done by a man standing clear of the cars, but often he must go in between their ends to reach the knuckle. This form of automatic coupler has now gained practically universal See also:acceptance in the United States. To effect this result required many years of discussion and experiment. The See also:Master Car Builders' Association, a great body of mechanical See also:officers organized especially to being about improvement and uniformity in details of construction and operation, expressed its sense of the importance of " self-coupling " so far back as 1874, but no See also:device of the kind that could be considered useful had then been invented. At that time a member of the Association referred to the disappearance of automatic couplers which had been introduced See also:thirty or See also:forty years before. This body pursued the subject with more or less See also:diligence, and in 1884 laid down the principle that the automatic coupler should be one acting in a vertical See also:plane—that is, the engaging faces should be free to move up and down within a considerable range, in order to provide for the See also:differences in the height of cars. By the fixing of this principle the task of the inventor was considerably simplified. In 1887 a See also:committee reported that the coupler question was the " knottiest mechanical problem that had ever been presented to the railroad," and over 4000 attempted solutions were on See also:record in the United States Patent Office. The committee had not found one that did not possess See also:grave disadvantages, but concluded that the " principle of contact of the surfaces of vertical surfaces embodied in the Janney coupler afforded the best connexion for cars on curves and tangents "; and in 1887 the Association recommended the adoption of a coupler of the Janney type, which, as developed later, is shown in fig. 28. The method of constructing the working faces of this coupler is shown in fig. 29. The principle was patented, but the company owning the patent undertook to permit its free use by railway companies which were members of the Master Car Builders' Association, and thus threw open the underlying principle to competition. From that time the numerous See also:patents have had reference merely to details. Many different couplers of the Janney type are patented and made by different firms, but the tendency is to equip new cars with one of only four or five standard makes. The adoption of automatic couplers was stimulated in some degree by See also:laws enacted by the various states and by the United States; and the Safety Appliance Act passed by See also:Congress in 1893 made it unlawful for railways to permit to be hauled on their lines after the 1st of See also:January 1898 any car used for interstate See also:commerce that was not equipped with couplers which coupled automatically by impact, and which could be uncoupled without the necessity for men going in between the ends of the cars. The limit was extended to the 1st of See also:August 1900 by the Interstate Commerce See also:Commission, which was given discretion in the See also:matter. swings on the See also:pivot B, and has an See also:arm which extends backwards, practically at right angles with the working See also:face of the hook, a e Automatic couplers resembling the Janney are adopted in a few special cases in Great Britain and other European countries, but the great majority of couplings remain non-automatic. It may be pointed out that the general employment of side buffers in Europe greatly complicates the problem of designing a satisfactory automatic coupling, while to do away with them and substitute the combined buffer-coupling, such as is used in the United States, would See also:entail enormous difficulties in carrying on the traffic during the transition stage. Brakes.—In the United States the Safety Appliance Act of 1893 also forbade the railways, after the 1st of January 1898, to run trains which did not contain a " sufficient number " of cars equipped with continuous brakes to enable the speed to be controlled from the engine. This See also:law, however, did not serve in practice to secure so general a use of power brakes on freight trains as was thought desirable, and another act was passed in 1903 to give the Interstate Commerce Commission authority to prescribe what should be the minimum number of power-braked cars in each train. This minimum was at first fixed at 50%, but on and after the 1st of August rgo6 it was raised to 75%, with the result that soon after that date practically all the rolling stock of American railways, whether passenger or freight, was provided with compressed See also:air brakes. In the United Kingdom the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 em-powered the See also:Board of See also:Trade to require all passenger trains, within a reasonable See also:period, to be fitted with automatic continuous brakes, and now all the passenger stock, with a few trifling exceptions, is provided with either compressed-air or vacuum brakes (see BRAKE), and sometimes with both. But goods and mineral trains so fitted are rare, and the same is the case on the continent of Europe, where, however, such brakes are generally employed on passenger trains. (H. M. R.)
See also:INTRA-See also:URBAN RAILWAYS
The great concentration of population in cities during the
19th century brought into existence a class of railways to
which the name of intra-urban may be applied. Such
Develop- lines are primarily intended to supply quick means See also:meat.
of passenger communication within the limits of cities, and are to be distinguished on the one hand from See also:surface tram-ways, and on the other from those portions of See also:trunk or other lines which See also:lie within See also:city boundaries, although the latter may incidentally do a local or intra-urban business. Intra-urban railways, as compared with ordinary railways, are characterized by shortness of length, great cost per mile, and by a traffic almost exclusively passenger, the See also:burden of which is enormously heavy. For the purpose of connecting the greatest possible number of points of concentrated travel, the firstrailways were laid See also:round the boundaries of areas approximately circular, the theory being that the short walk from the circumference of the circle to any point within it would be no serious detention. It has been found, however, in the case of such circular or belt railways, that the time lost in traversing the circle and in walking from the circumference to the centre is so great that the gain in journey speed over a See also:direct surface See also:tramway or See also:omnibus is entirely lost. Later intra-urban See also:rail-ways in nearly every case have been built, so far as possible, on straight lines, radiating from the business centre or point of maximum congestion of travel to the See also:outer limits of the city; and, while not attempting to serve all the population through the agency of the line, make an effort to serve a portion in the best possible manner—that is, with .direct transit.
The actual beginning of the construction of intra-urban railways was in 1853, when See also:powers were obtained to build- a line, 24 m. long, from Edgware Road to See also: Where the depth to rail-level was too great for cut-and-cover methods, ordinary tunnelling processes were used; and where the trench was too shallow for the arched roof, heavy girders, sometimes of See also:cast See also:iron, bridged it between the side walls, longitudinal See also:arches being turned between them (fig. 30). i e //i--- i- '~ '-~i'% .X yy '6!ii~%%/' QQ g5 1:O'l 0 I I 7 I T i i i, ~7 I i ,f F The next development in intra-urban railways was an elevated line in the city of New See also:York. Probably the first See also:suggestion for an elevated railway was made by See also:Colonel See also:Stevens, of See also:Hoboken, New See also:Jersey, as early as 1831, when the whole art of railway construction was in its See also:infancy. He proposed to build an elevated railway on a single line of posts, placed along the curb-line of the See also:street: a suggestion which embodies not only the general plan of an elevated structure, but the most striking feature of it as subsequently built—namely, a railway supported by a single See also:row of columns. The first actual work, however, was below the surface, with an See also:external See also:diameter of ro ft. 9 in.; not begun till 1870, when the construction of an iron structure on a single row of columns was undertaken. The superiority, so far as the convenience of passengers is concerned, of an elevated over an underground railway, when both are worked by steam loco-motives, and the great economy and rapidity of construction, led to the quick development and See also:extension of this general See also:design. By the See also:year 1878 there were four parallel lines in the city of New York, and constructions of the same See also:character had already been projected in See also:Brooklyn and Chicago and, with certain modifications of details, in See also:Berlin. In the year 1894 an elevated railway was built in See also:Liverpool, and in 1900 a similar railway was constructed in See also:Boston, U.S.A., and the construction of a new one undertaken in New York. These elevated railways as a See also:rule follow the lines of streets, and are of two general types. Gne (fig. 31), the earliest form, consisted of a single row of columns supporting two lines of longitudinal girders carrying the rails, the lateral stability of the structure being obtained by anchoring the feet of the columns to their See also:foundations. The other type (fig. 32) has two rows of columns connected at the top by transverse girders, which in turn carry the longitudinal girders that support the railway. In Berlin, on the Stadtbahn—which for a part of its length traverses private property—See also:masonry arches, or earthen embankments between retaining walls, were substituted for the metallic structure wherever possible. The next great develop- ment, marking the third step in the progress of intra-urban railway con- struction, took place in 1886, when J. H. See also:Greathead (q.v.) began the City & See also:South London railway, ex- tending under the See also:Thames from the See also:Monument to Stockwell, a distance of 31 m. Its promoters recog- nized the unsuitability of ordinary steam locomotives for underground railways, and intended to work it by means of a moving See also:cable; but before it was completed, electric traction had developed so far as to be available for use on such lines. Electricity, therefore, and not the cable, was installed (fig. 33). In the details of construction the See also:shield was the novelty. In principle it had been invented by See also:Sir Marc I. See also:Brunel for the con- struction of the See also:original Thames See also:tunnel, and it was afterwards improved by See also:Beach, of New York, and finally developed by Greathead. (For the details of the shield and method of its operation, see TUNNEL.) By means of the shield Great- head cut a circular hole at a depth ranging from 40 to 8o ft. Structure (See also:half-See also:section). this he lined with cast-iron segments bolted together, giving a AY .1 2 / 0 See also:RAM ,,ft f FIG. 33.-Section of Tunnel and Electric Locomotive, City & South London railway. clear diameter of ro ft. 2 in. Except at the shafts, which were sunk on proposed station sites, there was no interference with the surface of the streets or with street traffic during construction. Two tunnels were built approximately parallel, each taking a single track. The cross-section of the cars was made to conform approximately to the section of the tunnel, the See also:idea being that each train would act like a See also:piston in a See also:cylinder, expelling in front of it a See also:column of air, to be forced up the station See also:shaft next ahead of the train, and sucking down a similar column through the station shaft just behind. This arrangement was expected to ensure a sufficient change in air to keep such railways properly ventilated, but experience has proved it to be ineffective for the purpose. This method of construction has been used for building other railways in See also:Glasgow and London, and in the latter city alone the " See also:tube railways " of this character have a length of some 40 M. The later examples of these railways have a diameter ranging from 13 to 15 ft. The See also:fourth step in the development of intra-urban railways was to go to the other extreme from the deep tunnel which Greathead introduced. In 1893 the construction was completed in See also:Budapest of an underground railway with a thin, flat roof, consisting of steel beams set close together, with small longitudinal See also:jack arches between them, the street See also:pavement resting directly on the roof thus formed (fig. 34). The See also:object was to bring the level of the station platforms as close to the surface of the street as the height of the car itself would permit; in the case of Budapest the distance is about 9 ft. This principle of construction has since been followed in the construction of the Boston subway, of the Chemin de Fer Metropolitain in See also:Paris, and of the New York underground railway. The Paris line is built with the standard gauge of 4 ft 81 in., but its tunnels are designedly made of such a small cross-section that ordinary main line stock cannot pass through them. The New York underground railway (fig. 35) marks a still further step in advance, in that there are practically two different railways in the same structure. One pair of tracks is used for a local service with stations about one-quarter of a mile apart, following the general plan of operation in See also:vogue on all other intra-urban railways. The other, or central, pair of tracks is for trains making stops at longer distances. Thus there is a differentiation between the long-distance traveller who desires to be carried from one extreme of the city to the other and the short-distance traveller who is going between points at a much less distance. To sum up, there are of intra-urban railways two distinct classes: the elevated and the underground. The elevated is used where the traffic is so light as not to See also:warrant the expensive underground construction, or where the construction of an elevated line is of no serious detriment to the adjoining property. The underground is used where the congestion of traffic is so great as to demand a railway almost regardless of cost, and where the conditions of surface traffic or of adjoining property are such as to require that the rail-way shall not obstruct or occupy any ground above the surface.
Underground railways are of three general types: the one of extreme depth, built by tunnelling methods, usually with the shield and without regard to the surface See also:topography, where the stations are put at such depth as to require lifts to carry the passengers from the station platform to the street level. This type has the advantage of economy in first construction, there being the minimum amount of material to be excavated, and no interference during construction with street traffic or subsurface structures; it has, however, the disadvantage of the cost of operation of lifts at the stations. The other extreme type is the shallow construction, where the railway is brought to the minimum distance below the street level. This system has the advantage of the greatest convenience in operation, no lifts being required, since the distance from the street surface to the'station platform is about 12 to 15 ft.; it has the disadvantages, however, of necessitating the tearing up of the street surface during construction, and the readjustment of See also:sewer, water, gas and electric mains and other subsurface structures, and of having the gradients partially dependent on the surface topography. The third type is the intermediate one between those two, followed by the Metropolitan and Metropolitan District railways, in London, where the railway has an arched roof, built usually at a sufficient distance below the surface of the street to permit the other sub-surface structures to lie in the ground above the See also:crown of the arch, and where the station platforms are from 20 to 30 ft. beneath the surface of the street—a depth not sufficient to warrant the introduction of lifts, but enough to be inconvenient.
In the operation of intra-urban railways, steam locomotives, cables and electricity have severally been tried: the first having been used in the earlier examples of underground lines and in the various elevated systems in the United donr'-
States, The fouling of the air that results from the steam-engine, owing to the See also:production of carbonic See also:acid gas and of sulphurous fumes and aqueous vapour, is well known, and its use is now practically abandoned for underground working. The cable is slow; and unless development along new lines of compressed air or some sort of chemical engine takes place, electricity will monopolize the See also: On steam-worked lines the speed of trains is about 11 to 15 m. per hour, according to the distance between stations Later practice takes advantage of the great increase in power that can be temporarily developed by electric motors during the period of See also:acceleration; this, in proportion to the weight of the train to be hauled, gives results much in advance of those obtained on ordinary steam railways. Since high average speed on a line with frequent stops depends largely on rapidity of acceleration, the tendency in modern equipment is to secure as great an output of power as possible during the accelerating period, with corresponding increase in weight available for See also:adhesion. With a steam locomotive all the power is concentrated in one See also:machine, and therefore the weight on the drivers available for adhesion is limited. With electricity, power can be applied to as many axles in the train as desired, and so the whole weight of the train, with its load, may be utilized if necessary. Sometimes, as on the Central London railway, the acceleration of gravity is also utilized; the different stations stand, as it were, on the top of a See also: (W. B. P.) Fm. 35.-New York Rapid Transit railway, showing also the tracks and conduits of the electric surface tramway. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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