The Electrical review Volume 59 - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt: ...surveyors should not help us in this matter? Then two contributors favour irregular cold rolling by the car-wheels; one thinks that side rolling of cars on straight track may produce waves, one distinctly holds the Panton theory of a single ended drive doing the mischief, while two more attribute it to "the system of driving by gears." Whether that means particularly the single-gear arrangement, or that any gearing would do it, is not clear. One bold, bad man accuses " electric traction "; three consider braking sufficient; two suggest the differing oscillations of the rails and cars, and, lastly, three, including Glasgow and Lyons, have been driven to conclude that the concrete bed is too rigid for the rail, and the places named are trying the effect of padding with wood or lead between the base of the rail and the bed.' That statement shows clearly how little is known about the matter, and how much is wanted a systematic inquiry of a higher order than the limited questions and answers before us. The Grosse Berliner Tramways say emphatically that the corrugations have nothing to do with electric traction per se, for the Berlin Stadtbahn and other large steam railways are troubled in the same way. The Breslau Tramways find the waves as much on the straight as on curves, and on rails which have been supplied at various times, while, on the other hand, one of the Parisian companies find their corrugations on rails of one date, and attribute them to bad metal. The puzzling nature of the riddle is indicated by the Brussels Tramway Co., who say "they come where the service is very heavy, yet in other places where the service is just as heavy, they do not arise, and, moreover, they appear on sections where there are not more than 8 or 10 ...