Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1901 — UNIQUE RAILWAY IN SAXONY. [ARTICLE]

UNIQUE RAILWAY IN SAXONY.

Suspended from Iron Piers, It Runs to the Top of h Mountain. Consul-General Charles L. Cole, of Dresden, writes that the suspension railway at Loschwitz, Saxony, was opened to traffic this year and is the first mountain railway of its kind for the convenience of passengers in the world. It runs from Loschwitz, a village on the banks of the River Elbe, about five miles from Dresden, to the top of the Rochwitz heights, which command a most beautiful view of the Saxon capital. The railway is 820 feet long, with a gradient of 22 per cent and is constructed according to the “Laugen” system. Thirty-three iron piers of different hight, weighing about 300 tons, the highest being 49.2 feet, carry the rails on which the ears are hung. Each car holds 50 passengers and weighs, when occupied, 12.8 tons. Their shape and construction differs entirely from all other railway cars, and even from those used by the Barmen-Elber-feld suspension railway. A steel cable 1.7 inches in diameter connects the two trains and looks them firmly together. It i& operated by two powerful machines of 80 horsepower each, stationed at the top terminus of the road. The cable lias a strength of flexure of 209,437 pounds. Particular attention and care has been given to devices to Insure the safety of the passengers and to regulate the running of the ears. Each car is provided with three brakes—system Bucher-Durer—two of which work automatically at the least slackening of the tension of the cable and stop the car. The third brake can be operated by hand from the platform of the car. From a hand attached to the disk upon which the cable Is rolled the engineer can always determine the exact position of the cars on the road,

and an automatic bell warns him if the train is running too fast. The greatest safety consists in an automatic brake, both at the lower and the top station, which is put into action by the arriving car and stops it, no matter how careless the engineer may be.