AIR-DRIVEN TRAINS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1920, Page 5

AIR-DRIVEN TRAINS.

AN ITALIAN INVENTION. GREAT ADVANTAGES CLAIMED. POWER STORED IN TANKS. A new invention has been submitted to the Italian State Railways, which, if proved successful, is bound to revolutionise the whole modern conception of communication by rail, writes a correspondent from Rome. It is due to the brains of a young Italian engineer, and I believe that official studies and experiments are now going on, though naturally strict secrecy is kept. The invention, I understand, has been already patented in Italy and in many foreign countries. Its secret lies in a new system of compressing air, by which central tanks may store enormous power to be distributed to "fuel" stations along the railway lines by strong l pipes. At those minor tanks ("fuel stations") locomotives will stop at need to refill their own rolling tanks. Steam is superseded. Coal, waterpower, electricity, are no longer needed. Cleanliness, speed, and economy will add their advantages to that of the freeing the Italian railways from the need for foreign coal.

Thig new invention comes as an unexpected competitor to the electrical power enterprises, ■which were thought to be the only substitute to coal and steam.

The inventor claims his system to be cheaper, and its adaptability to the railway system quicker. First of all, existing steam locomotives can be used almost without changes, only the coal tender must be converted into an air tank.

Secondly, the electrification of 4000 miles of railways would require the addition of the third rati all along the lines for the transmission of the current and the reinforcement of long sections of the roads and the replacement of hundreds of miles of the tracks. Thus the expenditure in the scheme of electrification now before the Italian Government would be about £ 25,000,000,

In the new scheme the main expenditure is the building of the plants for compressing the air and the laying of pipes—and this is said to be vastly cheaper than electrical installation. "The age of the coal is about to pass," I was told to-day, "and when the British miners at last resolve to work hard and to dig greater quantities of coal out of their mines—they will find that coal in most, of its uses has been replaced!" We are not told where the power in to come from which will be needed for the process of compressing the air. It is important anyway, to note that this new invention, even if successful on land, cannot be applied to the ships, owing to the inability of vessels storing aaffloia.n.t SUBSteUld fiiti