The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1901. LIVERPOOL-MANCHESTER MONORAIL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 120, 22 May 1901, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1901. LIVERPOOL-MANCHESTER MONORAIL.

For ths canae that ladta as3lstanoa, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in tho distance, .jud tho good that ws can do.

Some years ago. an ingenious Frenchman. M. Lartigne, stationed in Algeria, had difficulty in getting agri-

cultural produce to market. He hit upon the idea of erecting a line of iron rail, along which mules drew a train

of panniers, jointed together over a central wheel and hanging down on either side of the line. The experi-

ment was a great success, and attracted the attention of an engineer, Mr F. IT. Behr. who determined to adopt the principle to railway traction. The final result of his efforts is tho monorail train, which is guaranteed, to cover the ?A} miles between Liverpool and Manchester in 18 minutes.

The principle of construction, for the new train is extremely simple. The difficulty of maintaining high rates of speed on an ordinary double line is that at any sharp curve the train. when it exceeds a certain maximum rate, has an irresistible tendency to tly off into space. Mr Behr's train is

constructed specially to meet this danger. The engine and carriages are suspended like a pair of saddle bag's on a central rail, raised on trestles about 4 feet from the ground. By fixing- the centre of gravity of each of these double carriages well below the level of the rail on cither side. Mr Uehr has made it physically impossible for the train to leave the line, on any curve, or at any conceivable rate of speed. The plans for this novel railway system were first published about seven years ago. In ISSG Mr Behr constructed an experimental line at Westminster. This miniature railway

was in use about nine months, and fully demonstrated all that was claimed for it. Xot only did it negotiate curves that would have been impossibly sharp for an ordinary train, but it proved far superior in taction power to the two-rail engine. On the ordin-

ary railway an engine can climb a gradient of 1 in 12, but drawing only its own weight. The monorail engine mounted gradients of 1 in 10, dragging up a carriage of 11 ttnis weight behind it.

In 1888, as pei-niis.sion had been granted by a special Act, a mono-rail line was constructed between Listowel and Ballybuuion, in Ireland.

The line is eight miles long, and includes several very sharp curves; yet in the thirteen years for which it has

been running, no accident has ever occurred. Sir W. Preece reported upon the line a short time, ago in the following words: —"The maintenance of the structure has been effective; no rail has ever been turned. The mechanical structure has exhibited no defects." There are three locomotives, eleven passenger coaches, and two brake vans: and these have continued to run on the line uninterruptedly for twelve years without renewal of stock. The wonderful degree of security attained is borne out by the fact that though there are forty-two level crossings on this line, there has never been any semblance of an accident. Of course, no high rate of speed is attained on the Ballybunion line. The power used there is steam; but the Manchester-Liverpool train is to be run by electric power. In 1897, Mr Behr constructed a line for the Belgian Government at the Brussels Exhibition, to illustrate the possibilities of the' mono-rail system. The line I was raised 4 feet from the ground, on A-shaped steel trestles, rivetted to steel sleepers resting on ordinary ballast. Guide rails, acted on by horizontal wheels, on either side of the trestles, helped to prevent oscillation. The electric current was conveyed along a steel rail attached by porcelain insulators to the sleepers. The trains consisted ofg one car each; for at very high rates of speed carriages coupled together would be liable to snap apart. The resistance to the air was further decreased by finishing the car in front like a wedge. The motor mechanism was contained in that part of each car which falls below the central rail. Cars of precisely this type are to used on the Manches-ter-Liverpool line. Even at the rate of 120 mile? per hour, it is asserted that there is very little vibration; and even then, the cars can be brought to a dead stop with 500 yards.

About a year ago the proposal to construct a line on the mono-rail principle between Manchester and

Liverpool was brought before the

House of Commons. Objections were raised by Hie Salford Corporation, who refused to allow a viaduct to be built wjthiij their limits. The Mersey Dock Hoard also put difficulties in the way of the project. But these disputes seem now to have been happily settled, and as the Bill for the line has passed the committee of the House of Lords, the railway will probably soon be an accomplished fact. The two great cities of the Zsorth will be withiu 20 minutes of one another.

The advent of the monorail is one of the many indications that we are on the eve..of a great revolution in the means of traction and transit. There can he no reasonable doubt that from the scientific standpoint it is. already possible to attain rates of speed ineomromparably greater than any yel commonly employed. In America a monorail system has been devised in which the train is kept in its place on the central line by wheels running underneath lateral rails, and thus absolutely preventing the cars from leaving the line. On this railway a speed of two hundred miles an hour is said to have been reached. In England the samespeed has been attained on a double line, in which the lines in detached sections rest on the heads of hydraulic rams, which raise one end of each length of rail in succession, and the train constantly accumulates speeds by running down this inclined plane. Both these systems have been highly tested, and there seems to be no reason why at least 200 hundred miles an hour should not be practicable, so long as the train can be maintained in its place on the rails. In the meantime 120 miles an hour is a marvellous advance on previous records, and Manchester and Liverpool, by adopting The new system, have added the weight of their opinion to I he widely expressed conviction that the secret of success i" modern commerce is cheap and vapid transport.