From Our Berlin Correspondent.
Page 18
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The adjoining illustration shows a Bussing " gas engine " which was recently delivered to the Brunswick Corporation for the fire brigade. The water tank has a capacity of 113 gallons, and it is forced through the jet at a pressure of about 6o1b. per square inch, the pressure being supplied from two vertical steel containers of carbonic acid. The vehicle has rendered good service.
Relative Dangers of Trains and Motors.
Although the German title of professor is an honorary affair, accorded generally to high-school teachers on the completion of a given length of service, the utterances of a Teutonic professor carry almost oracular weight with the average German, whose highest ambition in life seems to be the attainment of a title or an order. Consequently, the lucubrations of a certain Professor Cauer, writing in the " Tag " on the relative dangers attached to motors and railway trains, are sure to have made a deep impression. The professor's aim is to create strong public opinion in favour of a severe Motor Liability Act, and as a basis for his calculations he selects precisely those classes of selfpropelled vehicles not contemplated at all by the framers of the recently-published Motor Liability Bill, namely, motorcabs and motorbuses, and these, as serving public traffic, he compares with railways. Striking an average, he shows that 1,331 of such vehicles are involved in 2,351 accidents yearly; in other words, each member of the class has 1.76 accident to its discredit. But, he reasons, as out of 4,S64 accidents connected with automobiles of all classes. 2,564 involve personal injuries, the ratio for the whole may be assumed to hold good for the part, that is, buses and cabs ; ergo, 4,864: 2,564: :1.76 : X = .93 personal injury falling to each cab or bus. A very fair and logical comparison, is it not? Had the eminent Professor made his calculation on the basis of all automobiles, his figures would have been materially lower. Now, in 1906, personal injuries on German railways, fatal or otherwise, work out at .15 per 1,000,000 wagon-axle-kito metres. And per axle, on an average, 4.53 passengers were carried. Assuming that every vehicle serving public
traffic carries mn average of 4.53 passengers, and, further, that such an automobile has covered 6o,000 kilometres in a year, then . i5 personal injury to 4.53 x r,000,000 passenger-kilometres of the railway stands against .93 personal injury to 4.53 x 6o,000 passenger-kilometres of the automobiles; hence, the danger of f-propelled road vehicles serving public traffic stands in relation to economic efficiency as .93 x 1,0C10,000 to .15 X 60,000 ; or. is 103.3 times as great as that of the railway !
Tractors for Towing Barges in France.
News conies from France that an attempt has been made to substitute tractors for mules or horses for towing barges over the canals, and that good results have been obtained. Such a mechanical tow-er is now being used along the banks of the Bourgogne Canal, which connects the Seine and Saone and which measures 15o miles in length. The old stile of haulage necessitated a team of four horses, and the journey, with 18o locks to pass through, occupied four days and nights. The Compagnie Generale the Navigation has been trying a metal-wheeled tractor with a oh. p. engine, which, however, proved hardly strong enough for the heavy barge, so that the company purposes fitting it with a hauling drum.
.Marienfelde Tractor and Trailer for German East Africa.
From the Marienfelde works there has just been shipped to German East Africa a special type of tractor with trailer for the transport of budding material in connection with the construction of the Morog,oro-Tabora Railway. Tractor and trailer conform, in their Main mechanical details, to the 5-ton and 4-ton types supplied by the firm to the German War Office and already described in your columns; but, as might be expected, the engineers, in designing the cooling arrangements, have reckoned with a tropical climate. This cooling contrivance is, however, identical in type with that fitted to the 4wheel-driven Colonial lorry recently described and illustrated, and hence only a few words need be devoted to it by way of a " refresher." In addition to the ordinary radiator, with its fan at the back, there is a radiator on the inner side of the dashboard, along its upper and lateral borders; and the arrangements are such that the water cannot be re-used for cooling purposes until it has gone through both radiators as well as a couple of laterally-disposed water-tanks. In addition to the transport vehicles, an automobile for the use of the railway engineers is being sent out by the firm.