One or more driving-wheels running on a single rail is the simplest of all means of transportation; so manifest is it that the U. S. Patent Examiner, in charge of the railroad department, writing to the Hon. E. M. Boynton, the inventor, calls it “a practical solution of the problem of increased rate of speed—simple, inexpensive, practical.”
A driving-wheel six feet in diameter can doubtless be made to run a Bicycle locomotive one hundred to one hundred and twenty miles an hour with short stroke engines, and double the number of revolutions they now make, its speed being limited only by friction and air pressure. Ninety miles an hour, however, would probably for the present satisfy all reasonable wants for express trains, and a proportionately lower rate of speed for local and freight trains.
The overhead guiding beam is set inward, on curves, tipping the train toward the center of the curve, thus counteracting the centrifugal force, like a bicycle.
Practice has demonstrated that the twenty-two ton Bicycle locomotive is so truly balanced, that when running on a tangent, the upper horizontal bearing-wheels seldom touch the overhead guide beam, an inch space being left between them; and it is found that even when running on curves, at high rates of speed, as the train is made to lean inward to balance the centrifugal force, the friction of the overhead or guiding-wheels is but trifling.
The Engineering News of March 2, 1889, says:
“That the motion of a train running on a single rail in this manner might be very much smoother and safer, seems to us reasonable, or at least a chance worth thorough investigation. It is a wholly different matter from narrowing the gauge. So long as the reliance for stability is on the support of a pair of rails (the center of gravity falling between them), all narrowing of gauge must be a disadvantage; and as it is impossible to maintain a pair of rails exactly horizontal, there must inevitably be a jerking of the train from side to side, which, at high speed, becomes exceedingly dangerous; because, whenever the level is not perfect, there is a tendency created to lateral impact against one rail or the other. In bicycle motion all this tendency is eliminated. There is nothing but the forward motion to maintain perpendicularity in the vehicles (except when the top guard-rail comes by accident into action), nor is anything more needed. Hence there is only the vertical irregularities of the rail to be taken into account; and even if they should cause considerable bouncing at points, it is directly up and down, without tendency to cause lateral motion, the center of gravity being directly over the point of support tending, unaided, to stay there.[1] Taking into account this great potential advantage and the smaller cross-section of the train, it appears reasonable that a much higher rate of speed may be safely maintained than is either possible or safe with double-rail vehicles.”
Cross Section of Bicycle Structure and Bicycle Electric Car.
Comparing weight to work done, about one ton of train weight is now required to convey a passenger, and the average freight train, empty, weighs more than the paying freight carried by it; whereas it is practicable for the Bicycle trains to be made to carry more than five times their own weight without five-fold loss of wasteful friction, thus affecting a saving of at least ten-fold in freight, and twenty-fold on passenger trains. The Bicycle cars already built, seat 108 passengers, and weigh complete only five tons.