MOTOR-CARS
THE MOTOR OMNIBUS--RAILWAY MOTOR-CARS
The development of the motor-car has been phenomenal. Early in 1896
the only mechanically moved vehicles to be seen on our roads were
the traction-engine, preceded by a man bearing a red flag, the
steam-roller, and, in the towns, a few trams. To-day the motor is
apparent everywhere, dodging through street traffic, or raising the
dust of the country roads and lanes, or lumbering along with its load
of merchandise at a steady gait.
As a purely speed machine the motor-car has practically reached its
limit. With 100 h.p. or more crowded into a vehicle scaling only a
ton, the record rate of travel has approached two miles in a minute on
specially prepared and peculiarly suitable tracks. Even up steep hills
such a monster will career at nearly eighty miles an hour.
Next to the racing car comes the touring car, engined to give sixty
miles an hour on the level in the more powerful types, or a much lower
speed in the car intended for quieter travel, and for people who are
not prepared to face a big bill for upkeep. The luxury of the age has
invaded the design of automobiles till the gorgeously decorated and
comfortably furnished Pullman of the railway has found a counterpart
in the motor caravan with its accommodation for sleeping and feeding.
While the town dweller rolls along in electric landaulet, screened
from wind and weather, the tourist may explore the roads of the world
well housed and lolling at ease behind the windows of his 2,000-guinea
machine, on which the engineer and carriage builder have lavished their
utmost skill.
The taunt of unreliability once levelled--and with justice--at the
motor-car, is fast losing its force, owing to the vast improvements in
design and details which manufacturers have been stimulated to make.
The motor-car industry has a great future before it, and the prizes
therein are such as to tempt both inventor and engineer. Every week
scores of patents are granted for devices which aim at the perfection
of some part of a car, its tyres, its wheels, or its engines. Until
standard types for all grades of motor vehicles have been established,
this restless flow of ideas will continue. Its volume is the most
striking proof of the vitality of the industry.
The uses to which the motor vehicle has been put are legion. On
railways the motor carriage is catering for local traffic. On the roads
the motor omnibus is steadily increasing its numbers. Tradesmen of all
sorts, and persons concerned with the distribution of commodities,
find that the petrol- or steam-moved car or lorry has very decided
advantages over horse traction. Our postal authorities have adopted the
motor mail van. The War Office looks to the motor to solve some of its
transportation difficulties. In short, the "motor age" has arrived,
which will, relatively to the "railway age," play much the same part
as that epoch did to the "horse age." At the ultimate effects of the
change we can only guess; but we see already, in the great acceleration
of travel wherever the motor is employed, that many social institutions
are about to be revolutionised. But for the determined opposition in
the 'thirties of last century to the steam omnibus we should doubtless
live to-day in a very different manner. Our population would be
scattered more broadcast over the country instead of being herded in
huge towns. Many railways would have remained unbuilt, but our roads
would be kept in much better condition, special tracks having been
built for the rapid travel of the motor. We have only to look to a
country now in course of development to see that the road, which leads
everywhere, will, in combination with the motor vehicle, eventually
supplant, or at any rate render unnecessary, the costly network of
railways which must be a network of very fine mesh to meet the needs of
a civilised community.
In the scope of a few pages it is impossible to cover even a tithe of
the field occupied by the ubiquitous motor-car, and we must, therefore,
restrict ourselves to a glance at the manufacture of its mechanism, and
a few short excursions into those developments which promise most to
alter our modes of life.
We will begin with a trip over one of the largest motor factories in
the world, selecting that of Messrs. Dion and Bouton, whose names are
inseparable from the history of the modern motor-car. They may justly
claim that to deal with the origin, rise, and progress of the huge
business which they have built up would be to give an account, in its
general lines, of all the phases through which the motor, especially
the petrol motor, has passed from its crudest shape to its present
state of comparative perfection.
The Count Albert de Dion was, in his earlier days, little concerned
with things mechanical. He turned rather to the fashionable pursuit of
duelling, in which he seems to have made a name. But he was not the man
to waste his life in such inanities, and when, one day, he was walking
down the Paris boulevards, his attention was riveted by a little
clockwork carriage exposed for sale among other New Year's gifts. That
moment was fraught with great consequences, for an inventive mind had
found a proper scope for its energy. Why, thought he, could not real
cars be made to run by some better form of motive power? On inquiring
he learnt that a workman named Bouton had produced the car. The Count,
therefore, sought the artisan; with whom he worked out the problem
which had now become his aim in life. Hence it is that the names
"Dion--Bouton" are found on thousands of engines all over the world.
The partners scored their first successes with steam- and petrol-driven
tricycles, built in a small workshop in the Avenue Malakoff in Paris.
The works were then transferred to Puteaux, which has since developed
into the great automobile centre of the world, and after two more
changes found a resting-place on the Quai National. Here close upon
3,000 hands are engaged in supplying the world's requirements in motors
and cars. Let us enter the huge block of buildings and watch them at
work.
The drawing-office is the brain of the factory. Within its walls new
ideas are being put into practical shape by skilled draughtsmen. The
drawings are sent to the model-making shop, where the parts are first
fashioned in wood. The shop contains dozens of big benches, circular
saws, and planing machines, one of them in the form of a revolving drum
carrying a number of planes, which turns thousands of times a minute,
and shapes off the rough surface of the blocks of hard wood as if it
were so much clay. These blocks are cut, planed, and turned, and then
put into the hands of a remarkably skilled class of workmen, who, with
rule, calliper, and chisel, shape out cylinders and other parts to the
drawings before them with wonderful patience and exactness.
After the model has been fashioned, the next step is to make a
clay mould from the same, with a hole in the top through which the
molten metal is poured. The foundry is most picturesque in a lurid,
Rembrandtesque fashion: "It is black everywhere. The floor, walls, and
roof are black, and the foundry hands look like unwashed penitents
in sackcloth and ashes. At the end of the building there is a raised
brickwork, and when the visitor is able to see in the darkness, he
distinguishes a number of raised lids along the top, while here and
there are strewn about huge iron ladles like buckets. On the foreman
giving the word, a man steps up on the brickwork and removes the lid,
when a column of intense white light strikes upwards. It gives one
the impression of coming from the bowels of the earth, like a hole
opening out in a volcano. The man bestrides the aperture, down which
he drops the ladle at the end of a long pole, and then pulling it up
again full of a straw-coloured, shining liquid, so close to him that we
shudder at the idea of its spilling over his legs and feet, he pours
the molten metal into a big ladle, which is seized by two men who pour
the liquid into the moulds. The work is more difficult than it looks,
for it requires a lot of practice to fill the moulds in such a way as
to avoid blow-holes and flaws that prove such a serious item in foundry
practice."
In the case-hardening department, next door, there are six huge ovens
with sliding fronts. Therein are set parts which have been forged or
machined, and are subjected to a high temperature while covered in
charcoal, so that the skin of the metal may absorb carbon at high
temperatures and become extremely tough. All shafts, gears, and other
moving parts of a car are subjected to this treatment, which permits
a considerable reduction in the weight of metal used, and greatly
increases its resistance to wear. After being "carbonised," the
material is tempered by immersion in water while of a certain heat,
judged by the colour of the hot metal.
We now pass to the turning-shop, where the cylinders are bored out
by a grinding disc rapidly rotating on an eccentric shaft, which is
gradually advanced through the cylinder as it revolves. The utmost
accuracy, to the 1/10,000 part of an inch, is necessary in this
operation, since the bore must be perfectly cylindrical, and also of a
standard size, so that any standard piston may exactly fit it. After
being bored, or rather ground, the walls of the cylinder are highly
polished, and the article is ready for testing. The workman entrusted
with this task hermetically closes the ends by inserting the cylinder
between the plates of an hydraulic press, and pumps in water to a
required pressure. If there be the slightest crack, crevice, or hole,
the water finds its way through, and the piece is condemned to the
rubbish heap.
In the "motor-room" are scores of cylinders, crank-cases, and gears
ready for finishing. Here the outside of bored cylinders is touched up
by files to remove any marks and rough projections left by the moulds.
The crank-cases of aluminium are taken in hand by men who chisel the
edges where the two halves fit, chipping off the metal with wonderful
skill and precision. The edges are then ground smooth, and after the
halves have been accurately fitted, the holes for the bolts connecting
them are drilled in a special machine, which presents a drill to each
hole in succession.
Having seen the various operations which a cylinder has to go through,
we pass into another shop given up to long lines of benches where
various motor parts are being completed. Each piece, however small,
is treated as of the utmost importance, since the failure of even
a tiny pin may bring the largest car to a standstill. We see a man
testing pump discs against a standard template to prove their absolute
accuracy. Close by, another man is finishing a fly-wheel, chipping
off specks of metal to make the balance true. We now understand
that machine tools cannot utterly displace the human hand and eye.
The fitters, with touches of the file, remove matter in such minute
quantities that its removal might seem of no consequence. But "matter
in the wrong place" is the cause of many breakdowns.
We should naturally expect that engines cast from the same pattern,
handled by the same machines, finished by the same men, would give
identical results. But as two bicycles of similar make will run
differently, so do engines of one type develop peculiarities. The
motors are therefore taken into a testing-room and bolted to two
rows of benches, forty at a time. Here they run under power for long
periods, creating a deafening uproar, until all parts work "sweetly."
The power of the engines is tested by harnessing them to dynamos and
noting the amount of current developed at a certain speed.
We might linger in the departments where accumulators, sparking plugs,
and other parts of the electrical apparatus of a car are made, or in
the laboratory where chemists pry into the results of a new alloy,
aided by powerful microscopes and marvellously delicate scales. But we
will stop only to note the powerful machine which is stretching and
crushing metal to ascertain its toughness. No care in experimenting is
spared. The chemist, poring over his test tubes, plays as important a
part in the construction of a car as the foundry man or the turner.
The machine-shop is an object-lesson among the tools noticed in
previous chapters of this book. "Here is a huge planing machine
travelling to and fro over a copper bar. A crank shaft has been cut out
of solid steel by boring holes close together through a thick plate,
and the two sides of the plate have been broken off, leaving the rough
shaft with its edges composed of a considerable number of semicircles.
The shaft is slowly rotated on a lathe, and tiny clouds of smoke arise
as the tool nicks off pieces of metal to reduce the shaft to a circular
shape. Other machines, with high-speed tool steel, are finishing gear
shafts. Fly-wheels are being turned and worm shafts cut. All these
laborious operations are carried out by the machines, each under the
control of one man whose mind is intent upon the work, ready to stop
the machine or adjust the material as may be required. As a contrast
to the heavy machines we will pass to the light automatic tools which
are grouped in a gallery.... The eye is bewildered by the moving mass,
but the whirling of the pulley shafts and the clicking of the capstan
lathes is soothing to the ear, while the mind is greatly impressed
by the ingenuity of man in suppressing labour by means of machines,
of which half a dozen can be easily looked after by one hand, who
has nothing to do but to see that they are fed with material. A rod
of steel is put into the machine, and the turret, with half a dozen
different tools, presents first one and then the other to the end of
the rod bathed in thick oil, so that it is rapidly turned, bored,
and shaped into caps, nuts, bolts, and the scores of other little
accessories required in fitting up a motor-car. On seeing how all this
work is done mechanically and methodically, with scarcely any other
expense but the capital required in the upkeep of the machines and in
driving them, one wonders how the automobile industry could be carried
on without this labour-saving mechanism. In any event, if all these
little pieces had to be turned out by hand, it is certain that the
cost of the motor-car would be considerably more than it is, even if
it did not reach to such a figure as to make it prohibitive to all but
wealthy buyers. Down one side of the gallery the machines are engaged
in cutting gears with so much precision that, when tested by turning
them together on pins on a bench at the end of the gallery, it is very
rare indeed that any one of them is found defective. This installation
of automatic tools is one of the largest of its kind in a motor-car
works, if not in any engineering shop, and each one has been carefully
selected in view of its efficiency for particular classes of work, so
that we see machines from America, England, France, and Germany."
In the fitting-shops the multitude of parts are assembled to form the
_chassis_ or mechanical carriage of the car, to which, in a separate
shop, is added the body for the accommodation of passengers. The whole
is painted and carefully varnished after it has been out on the road
for trials to discover any weak spot in its anatomy. Then the car is
ready for sale.
When one considers the racketing that a high-powered car has to stand,
and the high speed of its moving parts, one can understand why those
parts must be made so carefully and precisely, and also how this care
must conduce to the expense of the finished article. It has been said
that it is easy to make a good watch, but difficult to make a good
motor; for though they both require an equal amount of exactitude and
skill, the latter has to stand much more wear in proportion. When you
look at a first-grade car bearing a great maker's name, you have under
your eyes one of the most wonderful pieces of mechanism the world can
show.
We will not leave the de Dion-Bouton Works without a further glance
at the human element. The company never have a slack time, and
consequently can employ the same number of people all the year round.
They pride themselves on the fact that the great majority of the men
have been in their employ for several years, with the result that they
have around them a class of workmen who are steady, reliable and, above
all, skilful in the particular work they are engaged upon. There are
more than 2,600 men and about 100 women, these latter being employed
chiefly in the manufacture of sparking plugs and in other departments
where there is no night work. They are mostly the wives or widows of
old workmen, and in thus finding employment for them the firm provides
for those who would otherwise be left without resource, and at the same
time earns the gratitude of their employés.
NOTE.--The author gratefully acknowledges the help given by Messrs. de
Dion-Bouton, Ltd., in providing materials for this account of their
works.
THE MOTOR OMNIBUS
Prior to the emancipation of the road automobile in 1896, permission
had been granted to corporations to run trams driven by mechanical
power through towns. The steam tram, its engine protected by a case
which hid the machinery from the view of restive horses, panted up
and down our streets, drawing one or more vehicles behind it. The
electric tram presently came over from America and soon established
its superiority to the steamer with respect to speed, freedom from
smell and smoke, and noiselessness: the system generally adopted
was that invented in 1887 by Frank J. Sprague, in which an overhead
cable supported on posts or slung from wires spanning the track
carries current to a trolley arm projecting from the vehicle. The
return current passes through the rails, which are made electrically
continuous by having their individual lengths either welded together or
joined by metal strips.
In America, where wide streets and rapidly growing cities are the rule,
the electric tramway serves very useful ends; the best proof of its
utility being the total mileage of the tracks. Statistics for 1902
show that since 1890 the mileage had increased from 1,261 to 21,920
miles; and the number of passengers carried from 2,023,010,202 to
4,813,466,001, or an increase of 137·94 per cent. It is interesting to
note that electricity has in the United States almost completely ousted
steam and animal traction so far as street cars are concerned; since
the 5,661 miles once served by animal power have dwindled to 259, and
steam can claim only 169 miles of track.
Next to the United States comes Germany as a user of electricity
for tractive purposes; though she is a very bad second with only
about 6,000 miles of track; and England takes third place with about
3,000 miles. That the British Isles, so well provided with railways,
should be so poorly equipped with tramways is comprehensible when we
consider the narrowness of the streets of her largest towns, where
a good service of public vehicles is most needed. The installation
of a tram-line necessitates the tearing up of a street, and in many
cases the closing of that street to traffic. We can hardly imagine the
dislocation of business that would result from such a blockage of, say,
the Strand and High Holborn; but since it has been calculated that
no less than five millions of pounds sterling are lost to our great
metropolis yearly by the obstructions of gas, water, telegraph, and
telephone operations, which only partially close a thoroughfare, or by
the relaying of the road surface, which is not a very lengthy matter if
properly conducted, we might reckon the financial loss resulting from
the laying of tram-rails at many millions.
Even were they laid, the trouble would not cease, for a tram is
confined to its track, and cannot make way for other traffic. This
inadaptability has been the cause of the great outcry lately raised
against the way in which tram-line companies have monopolised the main
streets and approaches to many of our largest towns. While the electric
tram is beneficial to a large class of people, as a cheap method of
locomotion between home and business, it sadly handicaps all owners
of vehicles vexatiously delayed by the tram. At Brentford, to take a
notorious example, the double tram-line so completely fills the High
Street that it is at places impossible for a cart or carriage to remain
at the kerbstone.
Another charge levelled with justice at the tram-line is that the rails
and their setting are dangerous to cyclists, motorists, and even heavy
vehicles, especially in wet weather, when the "side-slip" demon becomes
a real terror.
English municipalities are therefore faced by a serious problem.
Improved locomotion is necessary; how can it best be provided? By
smooth-running, luxurious, well-lighted electric trams, travelling
over a track laid at great expense, and a continual nuisance to a
large section of the community; or by vehicles independent of a
central source of power, and free to move in any direction according
to the needs of the traffic? Where tramways exist, those responsible
for laying them at the rate of several thousand pounds per mile are
naturally reluctant to abandon them. But where the fixed track has
not yet arrived an alternative method of transport is open, viz. the
automobile omnibus. Quite recently we have seen in London and other
towns a great increase in the number of motor buses, which often
ply far out into the country. From the point of speed they are very
superior to the horsed vehicle, and statistics show that they are also
less costly to run in proportion to the fares carried, while passengers
will unanimously acknowledge their greater comfort. To change from
the ancient, rattling two-horse conveyance, which jolts us on rough
roads, and occasionally sends a thrill up the spine when the brakes are
applied, to the roomy steam- or petrol-driven bus, which overtakes and
threads its way through the slower traffic, is a pleasant experience.
So the motor buses are crowded, while the horsed rivals on the same
route trundle along half empty. Since the one class of vehicles can
travel at an average pace of ten miles an hour, as against the four
miles an hour of the other, no wonder that this should be so. Even if
the running costs of a motor bus for a given distance exceed that of
an electric tram, we must remember that, whereas a bus runs on already
existing roads, an immense amount of capital must be sunk in laying the
track for the tram, and the interest on this sum has to be added to the
total running costs.
The next decade will probably decide whether automobiles or trams are
to serve the needs of the community in districts where at present no
efficient service of any kind exists. In London motor buses are being
placed on the roads by scores, and the day cannot be far distant when
the horse will disappear from the bus as it is already fast vanishing
from the front of the tram.
Both petrol and steam, and in some cases a combination of petrol and
electricity, are used to propel the motor bus. It has not yet been
decided which form of power yields the best results. Petrol is probably
the cheaper fuel, but steam gives the quieter running; and could
electric storage batteries be made sufficiently light and durable they
would have a strong claim to precedence. There has lately appeared a
new form of accumulator--the von Rothmund--which promises well, since
weight for weight it far exceeds in capacity any other type, and is so
constructed that it will stand a lot of rough usage. A car fitted with
a von Rothmund battery scaling about 1,500 lbs. has run 200 miles on
one charge, and it is anticipated that with improvements in motors a
1,100-lb. battery will readily be run 150 miles as against the 50 miles
in the case of a lead battery of equal weight.
There is a large sphere open to the motor bus outside districts where
the electric tram would enter into serious competition with it. We
have before us a sketch-map of the Great Western Railway, one of the
most enterprising systems with regard to its use of motors to feed its
rails. No less than thirty road services are in operation, and their
number is being steadily augmented. In fact, it looks as if in the near
future the motor service will largely supplant the branch railway,
blessed with very few trains a day. A motor bus service plying every
half-hour between a town and the nearest important main-line station
would be more valuable to the inhabitants than half a dozen trains a
day, especially if the passenger vehicles were supplemented by lorries
for the carriage of luggage and heavy goods.
In this connection we may notice an invention of M. Renard--a motor
train of several vehicles towed by a single engine. We have all seen
the traction-engine puffing along with its tail of trucks, and been
impressed by the weight of the locomotive, and also by the manner in
which the train occupies a road when passing a corner. The weight is
necessary to give sufficient grip to move the whole train, while the
spreading of the vehicles across the thoroughfare on a curve arises
from the fact that each vehicle does not follow the path of that
preceding it, but describes part of a smaller circle.
M. Renard has, in his motor train, evaded the need for a heavy tractor
by providing _every_ vehicle with a pair of driving wheels, and
transmitting the power to those wheels by a special flexible propeller
shaft which passes from the powerful motor on the leading vehicle under
all the other vehicles, engaging in succession with mechanism attached
to all the driving axles. In this manner each car yields its quotum of
adhesion for its own propulsion, and the necessity for great weight is
obviated. Special couplings ensure that the path taken by the tractor
shall be faithfully followed by all its followers. A motor train of
this description has travelled from Paris to Berlin and drawn to itself
a great deal of attention.
"Will it," asks a writer in _The World's Work_, "ultimately displace
the conventional traction-engine and its heavy trailing waggons? Every
municipality and County Council is only too painfully cognisant of the
dire effects upon the roads exercised by the cumbrous wheels of these
unwieldy locomotives and trains. With the Renard train, however, the
trailing coaches can be of light construction, carried on ordinary
wheels which do not cut up or otherwise damage the roadway surface.
Many other advantages inherent in such a train might be enumerated.
The most important, however, are the flexibility of the whole train;
its complete control; faster speed without any attendant danger; its
remarkable braking arrangements as afforded by the continuous propeller
shaft gearing directly with the driving-wheels of each carriage; its
low cost of maintenance, serviceability, and instant use; and the
reduction in the number of men requisite for the attention of the train
while on a journey."
Were the system a success, it would find plenty of scope to convey
passengers and commodities through districts too sparsely populated
to render a railway profitable. People would talk about travelling or
sending goods by the "ten-thirty motor train," just as now we speak of
the "eleven-fifteen to town."
As a carrier and distributer of mails, the motor van has already
established a position. To quote but a couple of instances, there are
the services between London and Brighton, and Liverpool and Manchester.
In the Isle of Wight motor omnibuses connect all the principal towns
and villages. Each bus is a travelling post-office in which, by an
arrangement with the Postmaster-General, anybody may post letters at
the recognised stopping-places or whenever the vehicle has halted for
any purpose.
In Paris, London, Berlin, the motor mail van is a common sight. It has
even penetrated the interior of India, where the Maharajah of Gwalior
uses a specially fitted steam car for the delivery of his private
mails. And, as though to show that man alone shall not profit by the
new mode of locomotion, Paris owns a motor-car which conveys lost dogs
from the different police-stations to the Dogs' Home! In fact, there
seems to be no purpose to which a horse-drawn vehicle can be put, which
either has not been, or shortly will be, invaded by the motor.
RAILWAY MOTOR-CARS
In the early days of railway construction vehicles were used which
combined a steam locomotive with an ordinary passenger carriage. After
being abandoned for many years, the "steam carriage" was revived, in
1902, by the London and South Western and Great Western railways for
local service and the handling of passenger traffic on branch lines.
Since that year rail motor-cars have multiplied; some being run by
steam, others by petrol engines, and others, again, by electricity
generated by petrol engines. The first class we need not describe in
any detail, as it presents no features of peculiar interest.
The North Eastern has had in use two rail-motors, each fifty-two feet
long, with a compartment at each end for the driver, and a central
saloon to carry fifty-two passengers. An 80 h.p. four-cylindered
Wolseley petrol motor drives a Westinghouse electric generator, which
sends current into a couple of 55 h.p. electric motors geared to the
running-wheels. An air compressor fitted to the rear bogie supplies the
Westinghouse air brakes, while in addition a powerful electric brake
is fitted, acting on the rails as well as the wheels. The coach scales
thirty-five tons.
The chief advantage of this "composite" system of power transmission is
that the engine is kept running at a constant speed, while the power
it develops at the electric motors is regulated by switches which
control the action of the armature and field magnets. When heavy work
must be done the engine is supplied with more gaseous mixture, and the
generators are so operated as to develop full power. In this manner all
the variable speed gears and clutches necessary when the petrol motor
is connected to the driving-wheels are done away with.
The latter system gives, however, greater economy of fuel, and
the Great Northern Railway has adopted it in preference to the
petrol-electric. This railway has many small branch lines running
through thinly populated districts, which, though important as feeders
of the main tracks, are often worked at a loss. A satisfactory type of
automobile carriage would not only avoid this loss, but also largely
prevent the competition of road motors.
The car should be powerful enough to draw an extra van or two on
occasion, since horses and heavy luggage may sometimes accompany the
passengers. Messrs. Dick, Kerr, and Company have built a car, which,
when loaded with its complement of passengers, weighs about sixteen
tons. The motive power is supplied by two four-cylinder petrol engines
of the Daimler type, each giving 36 h.p. These are suspended on a
special frame, independent of that which carries the coach body, so
that the passengers are not troubled by the vibration of the engines,
even when the vehicle is at rest. The great feature of the car is the
lightness of the machinery--only two tons in weight--though it develops
sufficient power to move the carriage at fifty miles per hour. After
travelling 2,000 miles the machinery showed no appreciable signs of
wear; so that the company considers that it has found a reliable
type of motor for the working of the short line between Hatfield and
Hertford.
Since one man can drive a petrol car, while two--a driver and a
stoker--are necessary on a steam car, a considerable reduction in wages
will result from the employment of these vehicles.
Engineers find motor-trolleys very convenient for inspecting the lines
under their care. On the London and South Western Railway a trolley
driven by a 6-8 h.p. engine, and provided with a change-gear
giving six, fifteen, and thirty miles per hour in either direction,
is at work. It seats four persons. In the colonies, notably in
South Africa, where coal and wood fuel is scarce or expensive, the
motor-trolley, capable of carrying petrol for 300 miles' travel, is
rapidly gaining ground among railway inspectors.
Makers are turning their attention to petrol shunting engines, useful
in goods yards, mines, sewerage works. Firms such as Messrs. Maudslay
and Company, of Coventry; the Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company;
Messrs. Panhard and Levassor; Messrs. Kerr, Stuart, and Company have
brought out locomotives of this kind which will draw loads up to sixty
tons. The fact that a petrol engine is ready for work at a moment's
notice, and when idle is not "eating its head off," and has no furnace
or boiler to require attention, is very much in its favour where
comparatively light loads have to be hauled.