NEW RAIL CAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 344, 3 May 1928, Page 7

NEW RAIL CAR

AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENT PETROL-ELECTRIC. SYSTEM The new petrol-electric rail car built at Newport —the first of its kind in Australia —and now undergoing its trials, says the Melbourne "Herald,” is capable of a speed of 30 miles an hour with a trailer attached, and is more economical than steam — it can run for 3s a mile against as 3d a mile with a steam passenger train of its own class. The petrol-electric car is the outcome of a growing demand for heavier services which could be more cheaply run than by steam, and also of the success of self-propelled motor vehicles on the railways. The new car is 57ft 4 in long, 9ft 9in wide, and Bft llin high, and is allsteel. The body panels are of steel l-Bin thick. These were sand-blasted and sprayed with red-lead before erection—an innovation to Victoria—to obviate corrosion. Centre Aisle Car The body panels and pillars are lined with an insulating material one inch thick, the interior being finished with Queensland maple. The car is in four compartments—-

engine-room, smoking and non-smok-ing passenger saloons and an end vestibule. There are two lavatories. The car has a seating capacity of €1 sec-ond-class passengers, and is divided by a centre aisle, with seating on either side, and two cross passages. The car has a six-cylinder 220 li.p. petrol engine, provided with air, hand and electric starting systems. Controls are fitted at each end of the car and regulate the supply of power to two traction motors, each of which drives one axle of the bogie at the engine end of the car. One petrol engine drives a 700-volt d.c. generator and exciter, which geu erates the power for the traction motors and for the lighting ar:d starting batteries. The driving motors are each 110 h.p.. 700 volts, and are air cooled by fans in the motor casings. Other attachments are dead man's, throttle and brake control, and a distinctive air whistle. The approximate weight of the car without load is 43 tons, but a trailer weighing 14 tons, to seat 40, and with a goods section, is now being built. On the level and with this trailer tbe car can travel at 30 miles on hour. Until the trailer is built, however, an ordinary passenger car will be utilised. To provide a goods compartment, seats have been removed from •hree end compartments of this car. This improvised trailer can seat 68 | passengers—weight 25 tons. I First-class accommodation is pr.> \ vided only in the trailer, which is comparatively free from vibration. Feeding Expresses On certain lines, stopping passenger i trains, followed by expresses, are I being operated with the idea of clear- ! ing roadside stations and of placing I passengers at the larger or depot i stations for transference to the express trains. | At times the earlier train is a mixed, 1 which must necessarily run a considj erable time ahead of the express concerned and at relatively slow speed. 1 A suitable subsitute for the earlier ! trains, both from the point of view of economy and of reducing overall times of passengers’ journeys, will, in some cases, be a unit of the petrol electric type. There is scope for economy on a number of lines by a gradual intro duction of self-propelled vehicles of [ this category.