Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1879 — A New Grain Car. [ARTICLE]

A New Grain Car.

[From the Chicago Xvenlng Journal.] Oar reporter, bearing that a new car was being constructed which claimed to revolutionize the present mode of transporting grain, vle'tetl the shop, No. 26 Henry atreet,Ohlcago, and saw the car, which Is partially completed. The Inventor claims It to he cheaper, lighter, more durable, occupying lees spare, easier draft, will not laminate the track, may be run at greater speed, lowering the center of gravity, reducing the windage of train, removing the weight of load from axle, requiring less oil, less attention, less parts, will dry wet grain In car and prevent it from heating, souring or molding while lu transportation. Richard P. Morgan, a railway engineer of great experience, seye of It in Western Rural: Recently, a very extraordinary Improvement has been patented by Treat T. Prosaar, Esq., one of the bunt mechanics In Chicago. It Is a railroad car for the transportation of grain, composed of two large cylinders of thick sheet Iron, capable of containing 335 bushels of grain each, or abont twelve ton* lu the aggregate, and, with the connecting frame, weighing only three tons, beside the load. These cylludor* are to be hoopudwith tires, having ftanges l corresponding to the gauge of the railroad upon which they may ran, and, when adjusted so an to mttet all practical requirements for cnlform motion, will roll forward with great facility. The force necessary to propel a common eight-wheel railroad car, loaded with twelve tons, on a level railroad, la 380% pounds, the car Itself usually weighing eleven tons, a total of twenty-three ton*. A forty-ton engine (which is twite the weight which true economy admits of, even on steel rails.) can haul forty-four such carton a level railroad. The resistance to a Prosser car being only thirty-four pounds, the same engine coaid haul 352 carg on a level track, containing more grain than tho largest propeller on the lakes. _ Bat the grades between Chicago and Now York and railroads generally In Illinois, averaging practically twenty-five feet in a mile, the actual load for a forty-ton engine may be estimated at twenty-six care, carrying twelve tons each, while the Proeeor trains could be 100 care, equally loaded.