Roadtown will be proof against the “cyclones” that are the evil genius of country life in the South and West. As for earthquakes, San Francisco’s experience proves that reinforced concrete is the best earthquake resister known.
Any building material may be used, but we will here consider cement, poured into moulds, as a standard.
Thomas A. Edison, whose efforts at perfecting a method of molding complete houses by pouring cement into molds, has attracted world-wide attention, has donated to the Roadtown the use of his cement house patents.
The Roadtown, like the railroad, will get much of its building material, such as sand and stone, along the right of way, and haul it to its place in the structure on the railroad which will be the first part of a Roadtown to be constructed. Thus the expense will be greatly reduced.
Wagon hauling and hand mixing, the heaviest items of expense in cement construction, are entirely eliminated in Roadtown where the concrete is mixed and poured from a machine located on a work train.
The Railroad will be Noiseless.
The essential of the Roadtown being the combination of transportation and house construction, the Roadtown if invented in any age before the present one would have been worthless. The horse-pulled vehicle or the steam or gasoline engine would be a nuisance in any part of a building used for a dwelling. Electrical transportation, on the other hand, is a perfectly refined method of locomotion and well suited for indoor uses.
Of the various systems of transportation devised and now available, I believe the Boyes Monorail to be the most applicable to the needs of a continuous house, and I have prevailed upon Mr. Boyes to donate the use of his patents to Roadtown.
This wonderful invention was perfected after many years of intense application by a thorough mechanic and electrician. It has been demonstrated and found to be thoroughly practical and is far in advance of either the present two-railed electric railroads, or the Gyroscopic types of Monorail cars which have lately attracted considerable attention because of their seeming disregard of the law of gravity.
The Gyroscopic Monorail, at a great expense and complication, eliminates one rail, but there is no particular gain in so doing, in fact there is a distinct loss for the thing that limits the speed of the ordinary electric car, is the loss of grip on the rail, and in the Gyroscopic Monorail the bearing surface of the steel wheels is reduced to just one-half that of the ordinary car.