RAILWAY SICKNESS.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 174, 29 December 1874, Page 3

RAILWAY SICKNESS.

[From Iron.] It is well known that many persons cannot ride with their backs to the engine without “feeling sick.” Now, howeve'-, by a new arrangement of the carriage, true nausea has been added to the pains, penalties, and perils of railway travelling. M. Gilford, the inventor of the injector, has taken up the oftmooted subject of doing away with the effect of shocks and lateral motion in railway carriages, and a specimen carriage has been tried on the Lille and Valenciennes Railway. Instead of placing the body of the carriage directly on the frame, in the ordinary manner, M. Gilford suspends it on the latter by means of springs. At each end of the frame is a sort of bracket with two branches, and between these two brackets the body is suspended by means of two springs, placed horizontally, and having the attaching points at their extremities. In order to render the action of these springs as easy as possible, small cylinders of bronze are introduced near the points of suspension, so that the steel plates of the spring may roll, as it were, one upon the other. A scientilic journalist, who has tried the new carriage, says that the trepidation is entirely prevented, as well as the zig-zag motion, but that in place of them there is a kind of pitching and rolling; in fact, as he describes it, the carriage has been turned into a ship. He believes, however, that with some modification, all fatiguing motion may certainly be got rid of in railway carriages without introducing the new malady of railway sickness.