Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1895 — TROLLEY IS DOOMED. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TROLLEY IS DOOMED.

New Underground Plan of Propelling Electric Cara. The new wheelless underground system of electrical propulsion, as applied to street railways and hauling for terminal freight, which has been introduced by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, is being watched with Interest by the mechanical world. A perfect storage battery car has been the dream of electricians for years, and that Is just what the Westinghouse Company professes to Lave made. The Westinghouse system is certainly a novel one, but at a test which was made at the company’s works, at Pittsburg, Pa., it was considered highly satisfactory in every way. There were a number of practical men present at the time the test was made, and -they expressed the opinion that the system was a good one. No unsightly stringing of

wires overhead is required, and that is certainly something in its favor. Another is the comparatively small expense connected with the laying of tracks on any road on which it may be worked. Instead of a deep excavation requiring to be made, as in the case of a road worked by cable or an underground electric road, a number of “studs" are inserted in the ground at certain distances along the track. Each car is fitted with a “shoe" extending the entire length of the car bottom, and also with a small but powerful storage battery. The battery supplies the electricity to the shoe, the shoe to the studs as it passes over them, and by this means the car is propelled forward or backward, as the motorman wishes. The studs are placed two abreast in the road or street, and no two sets of studs are further apart than the length of a car. These studs are perfectly harmless until the shoe touches them; then they receive the full force of the generator from the shoe.

CAR AS IN MOTION.