Railroads

3913

Railroads

roof; hopper cars for carrying ore or coal,
having sloping floors with drop bottom doors
to permit their unloading by gravity; flat
cars; refrigerator cars; and tank cars. Re-
frigerator cars are used for transporting per-
ishable fruits and vegetables, meats, produce,
etc. They resemble an ordinary box car in
appearance, but are built with thick insu-
lated sides, floor, roof, and ends to retain a
low temperature inside, ordinarily about 40°
F. Ice boxes, which are filled through trap
doors in the roof, are built in each end. A
mixture of ice and salt is used, and par-
ticular attention is given to obtaining a
free and constant circulation of cold dry
air throughout the interior of the car. Ex-
periments are now being conducted with
chemical or mechanical freight car refrigera-
tion.

The Safety Appliance Act, passed by Con-
gress in 1893 and subsequently revised, re-
quires all cars used in interstate traffic to be
equipped with automatic couplers, standard
hand holds, grab irons, ladders, etc. The
movement of cars from one road to another
is further covered by the Code of Car Service
Rules of the American Railway Association,
administered by a Car Service Division with
headquarters at Washington.

Passenger Cars include all cars used in
trains carrying passengers, namely, day
coaches, parlor cars, sleeping cars, dining
cars, baggage cars, express cars, mail cars,
and combination cars carrying passengers
and baggage or mail. The modern day coach
is about 70 ft. long, and seats from 77 to 88
passengers. Such cars were formerly mounted
on two four-wheel trucks, but the tendency
on most roads to-day is to mount only cars
for suburban service on four-wheel trucks
and to use six-wheel trucks under the cars
for through service. The Pennsylvania Rail-
road is a notable exception. Six-wheel trucks
are almost exclusively used under parlor,
sleeping, and dining cars. The large portion
of passenger cars on through trains are now
of all-steel construction and practically no
new passenger cars of wooden construction
are being built. The all-aluminum car was
introduced in 1934*

Pidlnwn Cars.—Qn most American rail-
roads the parlor and sleeping cars attached
to the important through trains are owned
and operated not by the railroads, but by
the Pullman Company, and are commonly
known as Pullman cars. The only large
North American roads that now operate their
own parlor and sleeping car service are the

Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.
The Pullman Company has its own porters
and conductors and itself takes care of all
work inside the car, such as cleaning, disin-
fection, etc. The Pullman Company is also
obligated to furnish all the cars required,
and this constitutes one of the chief advan-
tages of the Pullman service from the rail-
road's point of view.

The ordinary passenger cars on European
railroads are usually much shorter than the
American cars. They are, as a general thing,
divided into a few compartments or coupe's,
each accommodating several passengers.
These compartments are entered directly
through a side door or from a corridor,
which extends along one side of the car. Cars
on the American plan are now coming into
use on the European railways.

Freight Yards and Terminals.—Freight
yards and terminals are roughly divided into
two classes: (i) those for classifying cars
en route, and (2) those related to the receiv-
ing and delivery of freight. A classificatior
yard is defined as a machine for separating
trains or drafts of cars in groups according
to destinations, routes, commodities, or
traffic requirements, so as to accomplish their
movement to tracks for these purposes. Such
yards are found at division points along the
line and on the outskirts of large communi-
ties, where land is not unduly expensive and
where there is room for expansion. Terminals
and yards for receiving and delivering freight
include inbound and outbound freight houses,
where the consignments are turned over to
or received from the shipper and loaded on
to or unloaded from the cars. Such terminals
are found nearer the center of the industrial
community, which adds greatly to their cost.

Passenger Stations range from the mere
shelter at a flag station to the enormous ter-
minals in the large cities. The 'city-gates,'
as these larger terminals are often called, are
sometimes exceedingly expensive. The ten-
dency, however, is not to economize in their
construction, and the larger proportion of
them are models of modern architecture.
The Grand Central and Pennsylvania Sta-
tions in New York City, the Union Stations
at Kansas City, Washington, and Chicago,
and the new stations at Buffalo, Cleveland
and Philadelphia may be named among
many especially notable in this regard.

Electric traction for railway trains, after
having made limited progress for a long
period of years, has recently taken a sudden
spurt. At the present time, the New York