PNEUMATIC TRAIN TYRES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20967, 2 September 1931, Page 11

PNEUMATIC TRAIN TYRES.

FRENCHMEN'S INVENTION. SUCCESSFUL TEST MADE. Trains with pneumatic tyres is tho latest invention—that of FYench engineers—that has been successfully tested. Mr. 11. J. Grcenwall, writing to the Daily Express from St. Arnoult on July 22, said:— "I have been travelling this afternoon at a speed of eighty miles an hour in a train fitted with pneumatic tyres. The peasants in the cornfields staggered back with surprise to see our curious-looking train, like an airplane on wheels, dashing along the single track railway line. The experiment was a consummation of two years' hard work in secret by a group of French engineers in tho Michelin works. "Actually I rode in two trains, one of which was driven by M. Marcel Michelin, son of tho famous inventor. Tho first train rode at a speed of fifty miles an hour and carried twenty-four passengers, while the second—tho faster of the two—reached a speed of eighty miles an hour and carried fourteen passengers. Both trains rode as smoothly as could be; there was practically no noise, and we could carry on conversations in modulated tones. The slower train had ten wheels and the faster six. Both are perfectly comfortable. "The wheels are mounted with ordinary pneumatic tyres. Both had a steel flange on tho inner side. Insido the pneumatic tyre thero is a wooden hoop which prevents the tyre falling out when a puncture occurs. When the train was travelling at a speed of fifty miles an hour a tyre was purposely punctured, but nothing happened, and the train kept on. This revolution in railway travelling took place on a very bad stretch of track. We ran over a small piece of rock, but it did not bother tho train at all. "The pneumatic-tyicd train was invented for several reasons, but principally because about two years ago the French railways faced a serious deficit caused chiefly by the exploitation of branch lines on which trains are slow and infrequent. "The new invention enables a railway to run more trains at a much lower cost. The trains in which I rode to-day consume a gallon of petrol for fourteen and a-half miles. ' Several French lines are now negotiating for the pneumatic tyre system. "The general idea, apart from employing tho system on branch lines, is to instal them on the de luxe trains such as run from Paris to Deauville, where, instead of running only three trains a day, it will be possible to run a train carrying twenty-four passengers every ten minutes."