AUTOMOBILES POR CANALS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7765, 24 July 1903, Page 2

AUTOMOBILES POR CANALS.

THEIR USE IN FRANCE.

The electric automobile is now in use as a canal traction engine in France, and apparently with considerable success. The French find that the cost of laying trackrails and overhead wires for their canal motors works out too high to admit of its general adoption. Accordingly, at Beauvine, near Lille, they ha;ve dispensed with rails altogether, and employ heavy automobiles, weighing about 2£ tons, with very wide rimmed wheels. One of these is capable of towing three canal boats, with loads totalling 750 tons, at an average speed of one and a half mile an hour. Coal can be hauled by these means at 4s 7d a ton for 200 miles. It is expected that speed will be increased and cost reduced as further advances are made.

The automobile requires a much wider towing path than is available in England, between twenty and thirty feet. This would probably-prevent its adoption there. The German track-rail and overhead wire haulage could, however, be installed on present English tracks. The French experi* ment at Beauvine has so satisfied the authorities there that "they are extending it rapidly. In England people still cling to the towing horse, and so far there is no sign of change. In nothing are we more obstinately clinging to (he old and obsolete than in canal traffic. For this the railway control of canal interests is probably to blame.