Mine car

“ The miners do the cutting and blasting, the laborers break up the coal and load it into the mine wagons, and the scraper is kept busy cleaning the cuttings away from the channels and attending to the lamps.
The mine car track that is extended up into the room is of wooden rails, and the empty wagon is pushed in to the face by the laborers, and loaded and run out by them to the entry. Each wagon will hold a little more than a ton, and a mule will draw four wagons to the mouth of the drift. ”

“ At the mining-camp the station is in darkness save for the goggle eyes of an automobile drawn up beside the platform, and deep silence reigns but for the muffled, irregular thud of the auto-car's motor. But the beam of the 1010's headlight shows the small station building massed by men, a score of them poising for a spring to the platforms of the private car when the slackening speed shall permit. ”

“ That the operator receiving foreign railway fuel cars, private cars, or company fuel cars is enabled to increase the number of working places in the mine, is enabled to develop his mine more rapidly, is enabled to increase his capacity rating, and in future reratings of such mine by complainant, for the purposes of car distribution, the mine would receive a higher rating, and consequently a larger number of cars in complainant's general distribution of cars. ”

“ Railroad fuel cars are further classified according to the ownership, use, and character of the mine to which they are assigned; that is, whether the cars are used wholly in connection with a mine owned by the carrier which owns the cars, whether they are used in connection with a mine not owned by such carrier, but whose whole output is contracted for by it, or whether the mine at which the cars are to be placed is a 'commercial' one-that is, a mine which supplies coal also to the general public. About 28 per cent. of all bituminous coal mined is consumed by railroads. ”

“ It shall also be the duty of every carrier by railroad to make just and reasonable distribution of cars for transportation of coal among the coal mines served by it, whether located upon its line or lines or customarily dependent upon it for car supply. During any period when the supply of cars available for such service does not equal the requirements of such mines it shall be the duty of the carrier to maintain and apply just and reasonable ratings of such mines and to count each and every car furnished to or used by any such mine for transportation of coal against the mine. ”

“ Have you ever stood on the front car platform of a train nearest to the engine and watched the jiggling draw-bar? It is apparently loose; its hold on the engine seems to be no more than that of the touch of clasped hands in a gipsy dance. Yet it never lets go, and the drag of it is always there. By and by, when the coal is all burned, and the fire is out, and the water is drained from the tank, those gentle little multiplied jerks will pull the big engine down—kill it—make it a mere mass of inert metal blocking the way of progress. ”

“ To trace the ramifications of the industry back through the mills, mines and factories that produce the iron, steel, copper, brass, zinc, aluminum, lead, leather, lumber, glass, celluloid, etc., would make a long and interesting story, but this chapter deals with the motor vehicle as a commercial car or truck and the part it is playing in transportation of the world’s goods. ”

“ The duties of a driver boy are more laborious than those of a door-tender, but less monotonous and tiresome than those of a slate picker or breaker-boy. When the mules are kept in the mines night and day, as they frequently are in deep workings, the driver must go down the shaft before seven o’clock, get his mule from the mine stable, bring him to the foot of the shaft, and hitch him to a trip of empty cars. ”

“ It will be seen, therefore, that thousands of mechanically propelled vehicles, from motor-cycles to huge tractors, are employed in this vast undertaking. This necessitates supply depots, where are kept stocks of tyres, spare parts, tools, and reserves of all kinds of stores, such as oil, petrol, etc., essential to the maintenance of this huge system in the desired state of efficiency, so that it is capable of promptly satisfying the many and constant demands which are made daily by officers commanding mechanical transport units in the field. ”

“ People had been talking about carriages without horses for many years back—in fact, ever since the steam engine was invented—but the idea of the carriage at first did not seem so practical to me as the idea of an engine to do the harder farm work, and of all the work on the farm ploughing was the hardest. Our roads were poor and we had not the habit of getting around. One of the most remarkable features of the automobile on the farm is the way that it has broadened the farmer's life. ”

“ The more you go into the study of the automobile on the farm, the bigger becomes its significance. In the United States, four hundred and twenty-five million acres of land are uncultivated, largely on account of their inaccessibility. The motor-car will make them more accessible. Through the wide use of automobiles by the farmer we shall get, in time, that most valuable agency for prosperity, the good road.
One emerges from an investigation of the automobile industry in wonder over its expansion, and with admiration for the men behind it. ”

“ Coal cars of railroad ownership, other than those assigned to the loading of railroad fuel coal, are known and will be referred to as 'system cars.' Car distribution rules assume importance only in times of car shortage; that is to say, when car orders exceed car supply. To provide for such periods the capacity of such mine is rated in cars per day. A mine may order cars each day up to but not exceeding its rated capacity and in time of a car shortage generally does so (even though it might not actually have equivalent orders for coal) in order that it may get as many cars as possible. ”

“ You have plenty of waste dirt and rock in the mine. It is being taken out every day. Why not utilize some of it in raising the tracks at the 'rises'? That would give the cars a good start and the electric motor would not have to wear itself out getting the cars started. Continue doing this, even if you have to begin cutting the level lower down by the chutes. I am sure that that feature could easily be overcome by your engineers. In the sub-levels and new drifts you could do the same thing. ”

“ For automobile enterprises that took the wrong road and got mired in the mud of mechanical and management difficulties and financial complications were, most of them, lifted out of the slough by men who knew the right road and were better drivers. Had the automobile developed mechanically to near-perfection a score of years before it did, not only would the people as a mass not have been ready for it, but it is doubtful if business at that period had developed to the point of efficiency where it could recognize the possibilities latent in the motor car as a money-making machine. ”

“ The results in benefit to the agriculture of the country in a general system of good roads, will be most felt through the facility it will give the farmer in marketing his products. With the aid of the motor truck, the farmer may be able to meet, in many cases, the congestion-of-freight-by-railroad problem.
Adding to its other benefits, the automobile promises to be an element in the reduction of the high cost of living, and if it does aid in this it will be in two directions, first, as a freight carrier, and, second, by displacing the horse. ”

“ A trolley-car moved around a circular track and stopped regularly at all stations; an engine and train of cars moved jerkily up and down a steep grade and through a tunnel; a windmill was busily pumping water from the dishpan into the copper skillet; a sawmill was in full operation and a host of mechanical blacksmiths, scissors-grinders, carpenters, wood-choppers and millers were connected with a motor which kept them working away at their trades in awkward but persevering fashion.
The room was crossed and recrossed with wires. ”

“ Assigned cars of the other class are called railroad fuel cars. These consist wholly of cars owned (or leased) by some carrier, which, instead of being left, like system cars for use indiscriminately in carrying coal from any mine for any consignor to any consignee, are assigned to a particular mine to carry coal to be used as fuel by a particular carrier. ”

“ Before the advent of the motor-car, Society, though tired of “biking” and craving for a novelty, could not tolerate the notion of being seen in any other than a well-horsed vehicle. Society now thinks differently, as evidenced by a stroll in the Park during the season. There, in the midst of graceful landaus and other equipages drawn by the most splendid horses in the world, may be seen endless electric and steam barouches, broughams, victorias, and cars, all perfectly noiseless, and magnificent petrol motor-cars (not noiseless!) ”

“ The cargoes of all these barges are snatched up by giant unloader-cranes and put into storehouses, out of which, like chicks from a brooder, run intelligent little electric cars that need no motormen, but climb of themselves up into the top story of the dusty mixing-house. Here, eight huge rotary mixers churn the three elements, cement, sand, and stone, into concrete, and drop it wetly into great skips or buckets, two of which sit on each car of a somewhat larger-sized system of electric trains, whose tracks run along one side of the lock-pits. ”

“ After arriving at petitioner's mines by foot or vehicle, the miners first obtain their lamps from the lamp house near the main portal. They then enter the man trips at the portal and are transported down to the underground man trip stations-a journey varying in distance from 4,250 feet to 25,460 feet. Each man trip is composed of a train of small empty coal cars drawn by an electric motor or locomotive. From seven to eight men sit on a bench or on the floor of each car, which is only a few feet high. ”

“ It was possible to go round all the likely positions for a searchlight in one day at every station, which frequently meant considerably over fifty miles of most indifferent roads—more than a single horse could have been expected to do—and the car generally carried two persons on these occasions. The car was also used as a tender to a searchlight plant, on a gun-carriage and limber, being utilised to fetch gasolene, carbons, water, &c., &c., and also to run the dynamo for charging the accumulators used for sparking, thus saving running the gasolene motor for this purpose. ”

“ In factories and warehouses, where the buildings are scattered, it has been installed with excellent results. Being essentially an overhead system, there is a saving of floor space, the ground not being obstructed by trucks or trolleys. The same reasons which render ropeways an economical means of handling such material as coal, ore, stone, slate, &c., between the mine or quarry and the rail or barge, may be adduced in favour of telpherage. For the unloading of railway trucks in a crowded goods-yard it is undoubtedly applicable. ”

“ When mining was resumed in August, an acute car shortage developed. Coal is usually shipped in open top cars; and tipple mines, which are the largest producers of coal, can use only cars of that type. The supply of these being inadequate, the Midland, like other carriers, distributed the available open top cars among the tipple mines and its box cars among the wagon mines. ”

“ This engine is a special type known as a ‘Garratt’, and it can haul a train of anything up to a hundred wagons filled with coal. This particular loco-motive is two engines in one. It has four cylinders fed with steam from the boiler in the middle, which is in turn fed with water from the tanks at front and rear. Such engines, which are the most powerful we have, are used for mineral traffic – coal and iron ore. Coal class traffic – of which we carried nearly a hundred and sixty-five million tons in 1949 – is obviously of vital importance to the country. ”

“ Five great plants, built new at a cost of many millions, were engaged in building recuperators of French design, and other producers were manufacturing American- and British-type recoil mechanisms. The carriages, limbers, and caissons, being, after all, wheeled vehicles, offered no particular manufacturing problem, and it was therefore unnecessary to create a new industry to produce them. Nevertheless, the carriage contracts engaged a large section of the car- and truck-building industries of the United States. ”

“ There a miner in a drive five feet high, with a lighted candle end stuck in his cap, welcomes the visitor, gives him a candle end, and guides him, both crouching, to a place where the drive opens out a little, several men sitting there, and working with pick and shovel. They show you the wash-dirt, composed of gravel, small quartz pebbles, bits of granite, little morsels of ironstone, with occasional tiny garnets. The dirt is wheeled to the shaft in very small trucks on a wooden tram-line, about two barrow loads to a truck. ”

“ A big factory houses the parents which send out their children to careers of usefulness throughout the world. We often forget, in our admiration of the offspring, the source from which they originated. Our bicycles, so admirably adapted to easy locomotion, owe their existence to a hundred delicate machines. The express engine, hurrying forward over the iron way, is but an assemblage of parts which have been beaten, cut, twisted, planed, and [61] otherwise handled by mighty machines, each as wonderful as the locomotive itself. ”