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Motor Cars for Railroads

By M. A. R. Brunner

TRANGE in appearance is the latest model, gasoline-motor car put into service by the Union Pacific railroad company. For some time this company has been experimenting with gasoline cars for use over its regular lines. Its first model was completed in March, 1905, and was subjected to very thorough tests as to its dependability and speed. After it had made several long trips, covering in the aggregate more than four thousand miles, it was put in regular daily service in Nebraska, where its performance has been extremely satisfactory. Five more models, each differing slightly from its predecessor, have since been constructed and put into service. Model Number 7, turned out of the shops only a few weeks ago, is the latest type and the most radical departure from ordinary practice.

The car is equipped with side entrances, the door apertures being worked into the side of the car, by means of a patented steel framing, which includes an uninterrupted depressed side-sill. The

square design of window has been done away with, and air-, water- and dustproof round window-sash has been substituted. The new windows resemble the port-holes of a vessel. The car has built-up veneered wood seats, with a semi-circular seat at the rear. Its seating capacity is seventy-five. The interior is finished in English oak. The weight of the car is 58,000 lbs. and its length is fifty-five feet. The motor is a 100 horsepower, six-cylinder, gasoline engine with "make and brake" spark ignition, with battery and magneto for ignition. The metal clutch, operated by air-pressure, is controlled by a specially designed operating valve.

The new car has already made several successful trial runs, both on level track and on various grades, at speeds ranging from thirty-four to seventy-two miles an hour. The car is now at Denver and will make one round trip daily between Denver and Greeley, Colorado, a distance of 103 miles.

New Rival of Panama Canal

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By René Bache

HILE Congress and the Administration have been trying to find out what kind of a canal they are going to dig at Panama, the Mexican government has been quietly putting the finishing touches upon an enterprise for inter-oceanic traffic which bids fair to become a very formidable competitor of our own chosen route, even after the ditch has been dug which, in the opinion of many who know much about the subject, is not likely to be finally accomplished within less than forty years.

If you will look at a map of the western world, you will see that in the southern part of Mexico the American Continent shrinks in width to such a narrow neck that the distance from ocean to ocean is only 125 miles. Investigating the

matter further, you will find that at this point a great gap has, so to speak, been scooped by Nature out of the Sierra Madre Mountains-the lofty range which runs along the strip of terra firma uniting North and South America. From an elevation of about a mile, the range sinks suddenly to a few hundred feet. In other words, there is, across the narrow neck of land described, a pass most convenient for a road to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific.

The neck is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and it has been regarded as an inviting path for inter-oceanic transportation ever since the earliest times. In fact, as far back as 1520, when Hernando Cortez, through the hospitality of Montezuma, was installed in the Aztec national palace, his attention was called to the matter. The King, at his request, showed him charts of the coast, and immediately he sent a reconnoitering party to explore

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Since the time of Cortez repeated attempts have been made to utilize the opportunity in one way or another. In 1868 a trans-isthmian carriage road was actually opened. Ships, entering the Coatzacoalcos River from the Gulf, ran twenty-five miles up that stream, and passengers and freight were then disembarked, to accomplish the rest of the journey on horseback and muleback. Women were carried in chairs on the backs of peons. The traffic was very considerable, and even at the present day, though much of the road has been obliterated by the tropical forest growth, parts of it are still discernible.

thirds the route from Cadiz to Cathay." Cortez never abandoned the idea. Having explored the river above mentioned to its source, and finding no opening there, he was still so convinced that at some future time commerce would press across the low and narrow divide that he asked of the Crown and obtained a grant of land, through which he judged the route would lie. This land is held by This land is held by his descendants today, and through it runs the Tehuantepec Railroad, which is now on the point of completion.

At one time our own government seriously contemplated the digging of a ship canal across the neck-the idea being that neutrality of the strip which the ditch. passed should be secured by treaty with Mexico. Indeed, the project was strongly endorsed by the report of a surveying expedition which we sent out, headed by the late Admiral Shufeldt, who said: "A canal through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is practically an extension of the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. It converts the Gulf of Mexico into an American lake, and in time of war it would close that gulf to all comers. So to speak, it renders our own territory circumnavigable."

Not unnaturally, Mexico was suspicious of the intentions of the stronger republic to the north of her, and did not take kindly to the plan. Perhaps she was wise; for who can say that, if she had accepted, she might not find herself today in the situation of Panama-that is to say, practically a vassal of the United States? At all events, the project fell through, only to be superseded, later on, by the plan of James B. Eads, the famous engineer, to build across the isthmus a railroad which would carry ships. At each end of the route there was to be a terminal dock, with a sunken lifting pontoon, over which a vessel could be run. She could then be hoisted to the required level, placed upon a specially-constructed car, and transported, with passengers and freight, across the neck, the operation being reversed in order to deposit her in the ocean on the other side.

Unfortunately, at just about this time the project for a Nicaraguan canal was

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by way of Tehuantepec, culminating at length in the construction of a first-class modern railroad, which, it is expected, will be opened for business by next October.

As the crow flies, the distance from ocean to ocean across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is 125 miles, but, owing to necessary divagations, the railroad is 190 miles in length. Connecting the port of Coatzacoalcos, on the Gulf side, with Salina Cruz, the Pacific port, it rises quite gradually from the former point to Chivela Pass, the highest part of the divide, which is 730 feet above sea level. From Chivela Pass the descent is rather abrupt, the grade being in places as much

structure of this description 560 feet long. Eighty-pound rails are employed throughout, and the road-bed is as substantial as possible. The gauge is the standard 4 feet, 81⁄2 inches. Oil, fetched from Beaumont, Texas, in tank steamers by way of Port Arthur, is utilized, instead of coal, for the locomotives. It is delivered at Coatzacoalcos, where the company has a huge storage tank with a capacity of 1,500,000 gallons, and thence it is distributed to small supply tanks along the line.

A very important part of this great engineering problem was the construction of proper terminal ports, with the requisite protection for shipping, and

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