Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 197, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1911 — ELECTRIC WAGONS FOR ROAD [ARTICLE]

ELECTRIC WAGONS FOR ROAD

Innovation Is of German Origin and Not at Present Thoroughly Understood Here. An electric train of six road wagons coupled with and preceded by its own self-propelled traveling power plant is illustrated and described in a German contemporary, although no information is given as to whether the system has actually been employed in practice by any flrm of carriers for the transport of .freight, by road. The power-generating wagon is equipped with two dynamos driven by gasoline engines, and an electric motor is provided for driving each of the two axles. The six trailing wagons have a capacity of from five to five and one-half tons each, or a total of from 80 to 38 tons,* and the speed of the train is given at from seven and one-half to nine and threequarters miles an hour. Each of these wagons has also two driving motors, one for each axle, so that all of the axles throughout the train are electrically operated. The tires of the vehicles are very broad so as to enable the train to travel over practically any kind of road, and the cost of operation is said to be very low. The train is steered from the driver’s wagon.—Popular Mechanics.