No Engine Required

Otago Witness, Issue 2808, 8 January 1908, Page 91

No Engine Required

An English engineer has invented a new kind of railway, for which no locomotive engine or traction motor is required. It is called a # "gravitation railway," and the laws of gravitation govern its working. _ The first picture shows us the "twin cars" used. These are hung one on either side of a trolley that runs on wheels on a rail-

way track — that is, as the lower diagram explains, elevated on vertical supports rising from an embankment of masonry.

The upright supports on which the track is carried can, by powerful hydraulic machinery, be readily raised up and lowered down again. When the "twin cars" are to be started, the end support of the line ie» thus raised; the track, instead of remaining level, then becomes a decline ; and down this, from their own weight, the "twin cars" begin to travel. Directly the cars have passed over the next upright support they touch a spring, which causes that support, in turn, to be raised up; and so on all along the length of the line. j

In the second » illustration we see the "twin cars," which are travelling, in this case, from right to left; though, of course,

they can be made to run either way. They have just passed! ever one of the upright supports, which, _as we notice, has risen up, thus continuing to urge the cars forward. Behind the cars we observe how, as soon as the cars have left one section of the track, the first upright of that section automatically sinks back to its former position, the track being then ready to repeat the process It may jusb be added that when the rate of speed attained threatens to become too great, c. lever enables the driver of tbe cars to throw the hydraulic machinery out of action, and the track then remains level until nrore "downhill" is required.