Trolley car

“ Still, the fact that in a city like New York the truck and the trolley car are responsible for an annual death roll more than twice as large as that caused by the automobile, does not call for any particular mention. Horses and wagons, we have always had with us, and the trolley car long since became too commonplace an institution around which to build a sensation. ”

“ Courtland, standing on the corner in front of the trolley, saw, too late, the swift-coming automobile bearing down upon the child, its head-lights flaring on the golden hair. With a cry the young man sprang to the rescue, but the child was already crumpled up like a lily and the relentless car speeding onward, its chauffeur darting frightened, cowardly glances behind him as he plunged his machine forward over the track, almost in the teeth of the up-trolley. When the trolley was passed there was no sign of the car, even if any one had had time to look for it. ”

“ Most of the students were very sober as they walked around the trolley car. The rear truck was still on the tracks, but the forward wheels were a foot and a half from the rails.
"I don't see how we are to get those wheels back on the track," came from Ben. "A trolley car weighs a good deal, and we have no tools to work with." ”

“ The two machines were running almost neck and neck now. The trolley cried, hissed, and spat fire in her mad effort to pass the locomotive. A few stray sparks went out of the engine-stack, and fell upon the roof of the racing car. At intervals of half a minute the fireman opened the furnace door; and by the flare of light from the white-hot fire-box the engine-driver could see the men on the teetering trolley,—the motor-man, the conductor, the sheriff, and his deputy. ”

“ The rest of the fabrication was cut short and drowned out by the shriek of a trolley-car, grinding noisily round a curve of the track at that instant. 126 It was the five-o'clock car, and I had grown to watch for its shriek as fearfully as ever Cinderella listened for the stroke of twelve from the castle clock. For me there was never a garden party without its trolley-car back to the city—its hateful, five-o'clock car—its hurried, businesslike, hungry summons—while ice in tea glasses tinkled to the echo. ”

“ The future historian of American society will probably attribute enormous influence to the trolley car in linking urban community with urban community, in extending the radius of the modern city, in freeing urban workers from the demoralizing influences of the tenement, in offering the poorer classes comfortable homes in the surrounding country, and in extending general enlightenment by bringing about a closer human intercourse. Indeed, there is probably no single influence that has contributed so much to the pleasure and comfort of the masses as the trolley car. ”

“ Of course, as Lorraine says, “Stopping, that's art; and what are we artists like, my dear, but those drivers of trolley-cars, in New York, who, by some divine instinct, recognize in the forest of pillars and posts the white-striped columns at which they may pull up? Yes, we're drivers of trolley-cars charged with electric force and prepared to go any distance from which the consideration of a probable smash ahead doesn't deter us.” ”

“ The patrol wagon turned into Franklin Street and disappeared in the confusion of vehicles. The street was crowded; enormous trucks clung obstinately to the car tracks and only wrenched themselves away when the clamor of the gongs became desperate, their drivers swearing at the motormen, flinging angry glances at them. The trolley-cars swept by, filled with shop-girls, clerks, working-men, business men hanging to straps, reading evening papers in the brilliant electric lights; men clung to the broad rear platforms ”

“ In some electric locomotives that have been made the armature of the motor is wound on the axle itself, but for ordinary street cars it is found best to keep the motor separate from the axle, and to transmit the power by geared wheels.
THE TROLLEY-CAR.
The current reaches the motor under the car by means of the trolley-wheel and pole. The trolley-wheel is a solid copper wheel, deeply grooved, which is pressed upward against the bare copper wire stretched over the middle of the track ”

“ There is the clear mellow clang of the trolley gongs, the musical trill of fast wagon wheels running along the trolley rails, and the rattle of hoofs on the cobbled strip between the metals. Particularly easy to identify is the sound every citizen knows, the rasping, sliding clatter of a wagon turning off the car track so that a trolley can pass it. ”

“ The fare charged by the bus is either the same or in many cases a little higher than that by the trolley car, but the bus has the advantage in that it can travel over streets where the trolley is not allowed, can usually make better time, and can load and unload at the curb, thus avoiding danger from passing vehicles, a matter of no little importance to timid passengers. ”

“ Perhaps the most thrilling and exciting moment on my various travels was that spent on a trolley-car in Southern Mexico. Along those distant tracks barely two or three trains pass in a day, and hundreds, aye, thousands, of miles of railway have to be kept in repair. It is usual for the engineers to run along the line in a little open wagon, known as a trolley-car, which is worked by hand by four or six men, and covers the ground at a good pace. It can stop at any moment, and be lifted bodily off the line should a train require to pass. ”

“ The end of the century sees thousands of these electric roads in existence; a comparatively new industry involving over $100,000,000; a passenger traffic running into the billions of people; a prospect that the trolley will succeed the steam-car for all utilizable purposes within the gradually extending influence of cities and towns upon their rural surroundings.
In speaking of the passing of the horse-car and its substitution by the trolley, a distinguished writer has well said: “Humanity in an electric-car differs widely from that in the horse-car, propelled at the expense of animal life. ”

“ We ask the thousands of citizens who have been compelled to wait for overhead trolley cars, and to stand up in those overhead vehicles, whether or not the overhead trolley has thus afforded them satisfactory service? If we may judge the future by the experience with the overhead trolley of the past, it means fewer cars (hence less expense to the United Railroads) , overcrowding and discomfort of passengers. The only advantage which thus far has come from the system seems to be to the company itself. ”

“ Trolley cars are a convenience in the cities, and often take one to quite remote places in the country as well. The rates are lower than in the West, and special cars can be hired for a moderate amount. ”

“ Once safely out of the cable car, however, at the upper terminus, we smile, and think the worst is over. It is true, we see awaiting us another innocent looking electric car by which we are to go still higher; but we are confident that nothing very terrible can be experienced in a trolley. This confidence is quickly shattered. I doubt if there is anything in the world more "hair lifting" than the road over which that car conveys its startled occupants. ”

“ Upon starting your engine, water-motor, or whatever motive-power you have, the car will run from one end of the track to the other. When it has reached the support of the trolley-line, it will stop long enough for the cord trolley to pass around the wooden wheel, and then run in the opposite direction until the other support is reached. It will thus be seen that the trolley hangs to the upper part of the cable, or trolley-line, in running one way, and to the lower part on the return run. ”

“ By the time the engineer got the water worked out of his cylinders, the trolley was creeping up beside his tank. He saw the flash from the wire above as the car, nodding and dipping like a light boat in the wake of a ferry, shot beneath the cross-wires, and knew instantly that she was after him.
An electric car would not be ploughing through the gloom at that rate, without a ray of light, merely for the fun of the thing. A smile of contempt curled the lip of the driver as he cut the reverse-lever back to the first notch, put on the injector, and opened the throttle yet a little wider. ”

“ Their application in this direction must, therefore, go to swell the debt our civilization owes to the labors of this great investigator.
In the system of electric street-car propulsion very generally employed to-day, a single trolley wheel is employed for taking the driving current from an overhead conductor, suspended above the street. The trolley wheel is supported by a trolley pole, and is maintained in good electric contact with the trolley wire, or overhead conductor. ”

“ Warneford had made for him, and it will bear the weight of a boy. All the castings for the wheels and machinery of the engine and cars are perfect in their way.
The readers of the Round Table will remember that last fall we published a photograph of the perfect model of a trolley-car which not only ran by electricity, just as an ordinary car does, but had all the details, even to advertisements, that the trolley has. This trolley-car was an extraordinary piece of work; but whereas the Warneford engine is not more than eight inches long, the trolley was between two and three feet long. ”

“ It is purposely laid out with many an unnecessary curve, to accentuate the conditions of actual travel, and demonstrate the ability of electric traction to do its work satisfactorily under extreme conditions. The trains are made up of a motor car and three trailers, all four cars being arranged to seat passengers, the space occupied by the motorman at the extreme front end of the motor car being no greater than that of the ordinary trolley car. The cars are open, with the seats extending clear across the car body, each pair facing upon the entrance aisles. ”

“ A good fender for trolley cars should be made so that it could be projected in front of the car, or drawn in within the line of the car, bow-shaped in front and governed by springs, so that it would yield when striking a person.
A mechanism might be arranged to show the next station or street on a sign in the car. It could be operated by power taken from the axle, though the slipping of the wheels would be bothersome.
The flying machine is a little too much of a wild fancy for me; it would do for some fellow who wants to get off the earth. "It's me for the simple life." ”

“ The trolley car is able to haul large numbers at a less expense. In such cases no passenger transportation is cheaper. But the field for the auto bus is wide and no doubt it will come more and more into competition with the street car and steam railroad lines. The former, whose single and primary business is transporting passengers, are already complaining bitterly of the inroads made upon their business by the privately owned automobile and motor bus. The automobile is the larger factor because there are more automobiles than buses. ”

“ Damon, getting up and tramping about the room in his excitement. "I thought the trolley cars that run between Shopton and Waterfield were about the fastest things on rails."
"Not much. The trolley car is a narrow and prescribed manner of using electricity for motive power. The motor runs but one car—or one and a trailer, at most," said Tom. "As I have pointed out, the problem is to build a machine that will transmit power enough to draw the enormous weight of a loaded freight train, and that over steep grades.
"A motor for each car is a costly matter. ”

“ Equally important are the crossings of trolley lines, in these days of high-speed trains and cars, and quite as many accidents occur at street intersections where two main lines of travel cross, even though there be no trolley lines. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many persons have been run over by trolley cars, but this is no fault of the overhead trolley; it is due to the fact that street railroads are permitted to run cars through crowded streets at a speed that is too great for safety. Underground conduit cars running at the same speed would run over just as many people. In accusing the trolley of being dangerous it is sought to prove that the current flowing in the wire can do harm ”

“ It is a noisy, dirty, mechanical contrivance, capable of great speed; it is the only vehicle in which one could approach that distant smudge on the landscape with any sense of the eternal fitness of things. A coach and four would be as far behind the times on this highway as a birch-bark canoe on yonder lake. In America an automobile is beautiful because it is in perfect harmony with the spirit of the age and country; it is twin brother to the trolley; train, trolley, and automobile may travel side by side as members of one family, late offsprings of man's ingenuity. ”

“ It is easily comprehended, and can be played by any number of players, old and young. It requires no other apparatus than a trolley car of the ordinary type, a mile or two of track, and a few thousand volts of electricity. ”

“ When there is only one pair of wires, two trolley omnibuses may pass each other (whether going in the same or opposite directions) by the simple process of pulling down the trolley poles of one car and swinging them out of the way for a few seconds. ”