| Show I I ffl RAILWAY CIRCLES 5m Electric Car Line Being Laid Through Eagle Gate R G WS BROAD GAUGE TRAINS Track Building in the United States This Year MrResseguie Detained Notes The Salt Lake city railroad company yesterday showed that the repeated discouragements dis-couragements they have lately undergone have in no way dimmed their enterprise nor checked their spirit The early workers work-ers who passed the Eagle gate yesterday morning saw a tremendous force of laborers labor-ers tie layers and rail men strung along through the Eagle gate up First East to First street and along the last named thoroughfare reaching eastward By nightfall the ground was grubbed out ties in and a good deal of the iron down It was the most rapid piece of railroad work ever achieved in this city The road joins the companys South Temple street line at the Eagle gate and will run up First street to A street thence north to Third street and thence east till it joins the companys present track in the Twentieth Twen-tieth ward The Rapid Transit company also has a rightofway through the Eagle gate up First street so that that hitherto retired locality which has always been one of its chief recommendationswill take on as busy a hum as others of the cartraversed streets of the town Judging by the lightning speed with which the Salt Lake City railroad people are working it is only a question of days when the electric car will convey tourists within a few feet of President Youngs grave Track Building The total mileage of track laid on now railroads in the United States up to May 1 of this year is reported by the Itaflicay A qr at lOSi miles The early part of the year was unusually favorable for tracklaying owing to the absence of severe cold and snow over a great part of the country and this may possibly have had some effect upon the extent of the new mileage It is nevertheless never-theless true that the lirst part of the year is that in which the least tracklaying is done and an addition addi-tion of 1100 miles during onethird of the year may be taken to indicate that the railroad building of 1S90 will be atleast equal to that of last year when 5200 miles were built and may possibly exceed it As was the case last year a large proportion pro-portion of the new track was in the southern south-ern states Georgia leading with 170 miles and North Carolina coming second with 135 miles no other state reports over JOG miles In New England and the middle states the mileage was small and no large increase Is reported in tho west and northwest north-west whileon the Pacific coast railroad building seems to have come to a standstill stand-still for the present A New Hallway Motor Messrs J B Legg the architect and John Niles an engineer of St Louis have Just received letters patent for an electric cable railway a device for the purpose of carrying the subtle fluid through metallic metal-lic cables laid in a conduit instead of through overhead wires the system now in vogue The device consists of a hollow castiron cylinder seven inches in diameter arranged in sections about eight feet in length and tightly bolted together and with bottom lugs for the purpose of attaching attach-ing ties This cylindrical conduit is sunk so as to barely reach the surface while an ordinary open slot affords a receptacle for the grip Suspended on the inside of the conduit on either side of the slot are two hollow copper cylinders about three sixteenths six-teenths of an inch in thickness and five eighths of an inch interior diameter These cylinders are the conveyors of the positive and negative electric currents and are in lieu of the two overhead wires used in the present system The copper cylinders are arranged in sections co extensive with the sections of the conduitand hang suspended from it by means of countersunk screws let in from the top of the conduit and fitting fit-ting into short guttapercha plugs which are distributed along the interior diameter of the cable The cables are thus suspended sus-pended a distance of one and onefourth inches from the surface of the street and afford perfect insulation at the same time The sections of the cables are united by copper thimbles upon the interior surface affording a ready adjustment and leaving the Bottoms true for the uninterrupted passage of the traveler which conveys the electric current to the motor by means of a grip which has contact with the positive posi-tive and negative cables The mechanism of the motor is unchanged un-changed with the exception of the grip which is composed of a great many wires separately insulated and uniting on a common com-mon stem connecting with the positive and negative cables The inventor contended that on an ordinary ordin-ary horse road supplied with the approved flat rail now in use this conduit can bo laid atonefourth the cost and operated at one half the expense attending the overhead wire system A company will be formed at an early date for the purpose of giving the device a thorough trial but the patentees paten-tees are reticent as to their plans However How-ever Mr Legg intimated that at least 500000 capital would be employ A mile or so of the system will by permission be given an early trial on one of the roads employing em-ploying an overhead wire system Aside from the possible advantages accruing from placing the wires or their equivalent cables under ground the inventors think that the induction which has proved an almost al-most inseparable obstacle in projected conduits con-duits heretofore will be almost if not wholly overcoma by reason of the small dimensions of the conduit the conductive power of a generous copper surface and proximity of the entire device to the surface |
