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GAS ENGINE FOR USE ON RAILROADS.


The industrial world has reason to feel considerable interest in any
economical method of traction on railways, owing to the influence which
cost of transportation has upon the price of produce. We give a description
of the gas engine invented by Mr. Emmanuel Stevens. Many experiments have
been made both at Berlin and Liege during the past few years. They all
failed, owing to the impossibility the builders encountered in securing
sufficient speed.

The Stevens engine does not present this defect, as will be seen. It has
the appearance of an ordinary street car entirely inclosed, showing none of
the machinery from without. On the interior is a Koerting gas motor of six
horse power, which is a sufficiently well known type not to require a
description. In the experiment which we saw, the motor was supplied with a
mixture of gas and air, obtained by the evaporation of naphtha. On the
shaft of the motor are fixed two pulleys of different sizes, which give the
engine two rates of speed, one of three miles and the other of 8½ miles an
hour. Between these two pulleys is a friction socket, by which either rate
of speed may be secured.

The power is transmitted from one of the pulleys by a rubber belt to an
intermediate shaft, which carries a toothed wheel that transmits the power