Within the past few years experiments have been made with a system of train dispatching by telephone, now in successful operation upon some important lines, and growing in extent. Advantage lies in the ability to use trained railroad employes who cannot work under the telegraph system, not being telegraph operators. The telephone-dispatching system not only insures a rapid distribution of information, but by its greater capacity enables a more complete knowledge of the state of the line to be had in the controlling office, as well as in all the offices tributary to the dispatching system.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.
While it is not our intention to take up your time with the recital, even in condensed form, of the development of all the items which go to make up the parts of a railroad, we cannot forego the opportunity to speak briefly about the locomotive, the motive power, giving action and effect to transportation.
As early as 1680 Sir Isaac Newton predicted steam-propelled carriages, and even made suggestions bearing on their design. Through the eighteenth century various types of steam vehicles appeared, more as curiosities than anything else, some of them forerunners of the locomotive and others of the automobile. It was not until 1803 that anything really deserving the name "locomotive" was built. Richard Trevithick, a Cornish miner, constructed the locomotive bearing his name, curiously enough as the result of a wager. On trial this machine did convey ten tons of iron for nine miles on a cast-iron tramway by steam power, winning the wager. The desire of Christopher Blackett, a mine owner, to use steam motive power in place of animals led to the practical demonstration of adhesion. On this principle, Blackett's Superintendent, William Hedley, built his "Puffing Billy," a complicated affair of levers, beams and gears. On the completion of the Liverpool & Manchester Railroad, the directors, being undecided as to the motive power, offered a prize of five hundred pounds for a locomotive that would fulfill certain conditions. The test came off at Rainhill, in October, 1829, on a level piece of track about one and one-half miles long, between four competitors. Stephenson's "Rocket" won and gave the world the mechanical combination essentially represented in locomotive practice since that time. American locomotive practice followed the Stephenson model. Among the early builders were Phineas Davis, Ross Winans and Matthias Baldwin. The four-wheel engines of the English type proved injurious to the light rail and sharp curves on our early roads, and to overcome this Mr. John B. Jervis, Chief Engineer of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, introduced the four-wheel "Bogie" truck. For some twenty years this design remained, until in the '50s the demand for more tractive power brought about the addition of another pair of coupled drivers, thus evolving the well-known "American" type. Additional drivers were added with the demand for increased tractive power, leading in turn to the development of the "Mogul" and "Consolidated" types.
In the decade between 1880 and 1890 more drivers, such as in the ten-wheel type, began to be used in high-speed service, and the adaptation of wide fire-boxes to the American type necessitated the addition of a trailer truck to support the rear end of the locomotive frame, and brought about the "Atlantic" type, in 1895.
The "Pacific" type, or the most modern high-speed passenger locomotive, is a development of this. In 1888 Anatole Mallett designed the articulated locomotive. In 1904 the first one of this type was placed in operation on an American railroad, and since that time has gained favor where maximum tractive power on heavy grades is required.
There is perhaps no more striking illustration of the progress of the art than can be obtained from an examination of the illustrations of the various types of locomotives built and operated since 1829. It all bespeaks a tremendous growth, based on a tremendous necessity. We can point to the strengthening of all parts commensurate with the work to be done; to the perfection of detail in materials; manufacture, maintenance and inspection; and possibly observe with pride that the motive power of the railroads of the present contributes an almost negligible part of the difficulties of modern railroad operation, due to features of design or control.
CAR CONSTRUCTION.