Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 190, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1914 — NEW, HILLSIDE CABLE ROAD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NEW, HILLSIDE CABLE ROAD

It Has Counterweight Car, and Complete Control Is In Hands of ’ ‘ the Motorman. in Marin county, California, which presents features in construction differing from usual methods. A counterweight car, attached to the cables hauling the passenger car, passes beneath the latter as they meet on the hill. Complete control of all operating apparatus is in the hands of the motorman on the passenger car, who is the only employe required to operate the system, and safety devices for stopping the car, if for any reason an accident should occur either to the cable, to the car or to the electric power plant, are provided. The control mechanism is actuated by trolleys, four of

Operated by One Man. which, on the car, engage four wires supported by the railway trestle, terminating in the operating magnets on the control switchboard. The power house at the top of the hill contains an electric elevator engine of the traction type driven by a 30-horsepower alternating current motor, controlled from the motorman’s operating handle in the ear. The car and counterweight are carried by two %-inch plow-steel cables, each having six strands of 19 steel wires over a core of hemp and showing a tensile strength of 36.000 pounds. As the loaded car weighs but 6,000 pounds, the margin of safety is high. The railway is 1,350 feet long with a rise of 500 feet. —Popular Mechanics.