Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1913 — Electric Baggage Trucks. [ARTICLE]

Electric Baggage Trucks.

The use of the baggage truck hauled or pushed by human muscle Is no longer used by many progressive railroad and steamship companies. The new idea is a low deck, heavily built, four wheel, storage battery driven platform truck which moves the trunks and bags of travelers in a quantity and at a rate of speed which consists with the modern transportatation of the passengers themselves. One truck of the new type, operated by the baggageman standing on a small platform at the end, has a rated capacity of 4,000 pounds and is geared for three speeds, the maximum being eight miles per hour empty and six miles per hour loaded. These little giants of transportation are finding favor also in mail handling and in commercial warehouse work. The efficiency in handling mail bags, for example, is shown by the fact that an electric truck can make five trips with a load of two tons in the time required for a hand truck to make four trips with a one ton load; in other terms, a single electric truck does the work of two and one-half hand trucks.