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Show HEATING STREET CARS. A Brooklyn Company . Seenis to Have Solved the Problem. In order to test the question the Brooklyn Brook-lyn City Company, at the outset, placed stoves in the cars making the longest trips those running to east New. York. These . cars carried a large proportion of laborers and a class with whom the more refined element did not choose to ride. To accommodate ac-commodate the latter, living between the ferry and Bedford avenue, about, half way to east New York, a separate line has . been established, and Brooklyn ites ' would almost invariably wait for these cars rather 'than go over the same track as far' as Bedford avenue in the cars : carrying the more miscellaneous and untidy through passengers for east New . York. ; The stoves : were first placed in the east New York cars, . as it was felt that they would there more completely than elsewhere test their utility and prove the sincerity of the public clamor. A change was noted at once. Those .. .who never ...before would ride in east New York cars now used them . regularly. Traffic on the short-line cars in winters fell off greatly, and the former despised east New Yorkers York-ers wete almost unable to meet the demands de-mands upon them. The Brooklyn City company at once saw that warm cars was really ; wanted and appreciated, and the fact was emphasized by the patrons of their other routes when it was discovered : that one district alone was thus favored. From that time to the present Brooklyn-ites Brooklyn-ites who travel by these routes have had warm cars. : The cars are heated by means of a sheet-iron sheet-iron cylinder stove- set in the centre of the car. ' It occupies the space of one passenger. pas-senger. The outside of the boxing surrounding sur-rounding the stove is square, while inside its curve corresponds with the side and rear of the stove, and is lined with zinc, a space of two or three inches being left between the stove and the zinc. : This makes the boxing (which is of black walnut wal-nut and very.; tastily finished) hollow, there being three or four inch holes bored in the top piece to allow heated, air to escape. es-cape. . By thus doubling the partitions at the sides and leaving a small air space the seats near the stove are not rendered uncomfortable, as they might otherwise become, when the dampers are open, j There is generally a scramble for these seats at the starting station at the ferry, and long distance passengers like to make themselves comfortable there. ' ' ' Nut coal (anthracite) is. used. It costs the Brooklyn Citv ComDanv $4.40 ner ton at the dock. For kindling they use a refuse re-fuse oak which has undergone treatment for the purpose of extracting acid. This wood has a charred appearance, is not very smoky, and requires less than other kindling to ignite a coal fire. This wood costs 30 cents a bag, containing about two and a half bushels. The cars, 400 in number, being in constant use, are run about thirteen and a half hours a day, and it is estimated that the cost of heating, heat-ing, reckoning coal and kindling, is 12 cents per car per day. Conductors make and' attend to the fires, which is no trouble, and they cheerfully do it for the comfort they derive in being able to warm themselves frequently. Cor, Chicago Tribune. |