The Trolley Wagon

1898

A New Thing Which Makes Fifteen Miles an Hour

The very latest vehicle to transport people around is called the trolley wagon. This interesting contrivance is really a happy medium between the trolley car and the ordinary vehicle. We have had auto-cars and motor-cars, but the trolley wagon is neither. It is an invention all by itself, and its source of power is the one thing that enables the trolley car to call it a first cousin.

The motor of the wagon is connected to the rear wheel by suitable gearing. It is about 15-horsepower. It is a powerful affair, for its two rear wheels are eight feet in diameter. The two front wheels are four feet in diameter. The frame supporting the motor is suspended from the wagon frame.

The width of the wheels is considerable, and as the front wheels are much nearer together than the rear wheels the wagon acts to quite a degree as a road roller. One of the advantages of the trolley wagon is that the worst road in the country has no terrors for it. The width of its wheels and the way they are adjusted make it possible for it to even ride over plowed ground in safety, and without that disagreeable jar that a rough road generally causes.

The trolley itself is adapted to run either on two or three wires. Everyone who has seen a trolley car must have noticed the little wheel that runs along on the wire. This is called the locking wheel, and its movement, which has heretofore been on a vertical plane, is arranged in this instance to operate on a horizontal plane, thus changing complication to simplicity and reducing the cost and weight of the wheel.

The inventor of the vehicle believes there are wonderful prospects in store for it. He sees no reason why it may not be utilized in many sections of the country, particularly where street cars do not run, and the building of a street car line would involve tremendous expense. He thinks the trolley wires could be erected, and then all that is needful will have been accomplished, as the trolley wagon can run over any kind of a road.

The wagon referred to has made a speed on a road of not over good construction of 15 miles an hour without great jar or accident. The invention certainly possesses the merit of being unique, and in attracting no little interest among those who are interested in the future of the trolley. — Philadelphia Press.