Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1897 — ELECTRIC CARS IN THE SEWERS. [ARTICLE]

ELECTRIC CARS IN THE SEWERS.

.... 1 How Visitor* to the French Capital May Enjoy a Novel Trip. The main sewers of Paris are periodically cleared by means of scrapers carried on cars or boats. These conveyances are also used for conveying visitors through the large sewers under the Rue de Rivoli and Boulevards de Sebastopol and Malesharbes. These expeditions take place fourteen times a year, in spring aud autumn, and about 8,400 visitors are admitted yearly. Until 1804 these cars and boats were drawn by men, hut the labor and expense were found to he so excessive that now the traction is entirely done by electric motors, taking current from accumulator batteries ou the boats or cars. These main sewers are in section very similar to an ordinary tunnel, hut in the floor is formed the rectangular channel for the sewage, while round the roof are fixed the water and compressed air mains, the telegraph and telephone wires, etc. The sewer under the Boulevard des Malesherbes is the largest. It is 18 feet 414 inches wide, 10 feet high from floor to roof and the sewage channel in the floor is 3 feet 514 inches deep and 9 feet 10 inches wide. Boats are used in this channel. The other sewers are similar, the channels in them being only 3 feet 11 inches wide and from 3 feet 11 indies to 5 feet 7 Inches deep. In these cars are run, the flanged wheels of the cars running on the edges of the channel, which are protected by angle bars and form the rails. The approximate weight of a train of five cars, with 100 passengers on hoard, Is about 15,200 pounds, and this travels at the rate of three and three-fourths miles per hour. The accumulator battery consists of twenty-eight elements and thighs 1,400 pounds, and its capacity i*loo ampheres at fifty or sixty volts.' The motor, which is series wound, develops two-horse power and

runs at 1,600 revolutions per minute, this speed being reduced to eighty by means of a pinion and wheel and chain gearing to the driving axle, the wheel being fifteen and three-quarter inches In diameter on the tread. The boats are towed by means of a chain sunk in the sewage channel, which is brought to the surface and passes round a pulley driven by means of a double reduction gear from the motor. The chain, by means of guide pulleys, makes three-quarters of a turn round the driving pulley, this pulley being a magnetic one, magnetized by means of two coils, one on each side of it on the axle. Each passenger train consists of six boats, in the first of which is carried the accumulator battery and a towing apparatus, while in the last boat, which is smaller, there is another towing apparatus. The battery consists of sixty elements, giving an output of sixty amperes for two and a half hours, at from ninety-eight to 125 volts. It is divided into two parts, which can be connected in series or parallel as required. The motors run at 580 revolutions per minute, but this speed is reduced by means of the gearing, so that the boats travel at about one and one-half miles per hour. The power required for this Is from about two to five and a half horse power, according as the boats are traveling with or against the current. The total length of sewers open in this way to the public Is about two miles, and they are lighted partly by lamps on the foothpatlis or by oil lamps on the boats. —Scientific American.