HART CEO Lori Kahikina&#x27;s annual evaluation was quite critical, citing a lack of progress in filling key positions and &quot;limited transparency&quot; with the rail board of directors.

Rail Chief's Lastest Evaluation Raises Questions About Whether She Has A Future With Rail - Honolulu Civil Beat

Brightline, the first new US private passenger railroad in more than a century, is betting it can lure more Floridians out of their cars — but first, it is refinancing roughly $4 billion in debt.

Fortress-Backed Brightline Asks Investors to Bet on Florida Rail

Questions mostly went unanswered at a public meeting last week. Rider-facing concerns like ticket prices, schedules, and start time are undetermined.

South Coast Rail service appears to be delayed, with a summer start 'unlikely'

Despite federal backing of bullet train infrastructure in the U.S., a truly high-speed future is unlikely while it remains a partisan issue.

High-Speed Rail Between U.S. Hubs May Be Closer Than It Appears – Commercial Observer

BEVERLY, MASS. (WHDH) - Authorities are investigating a crash between a car and a Commuter Rail train in Beverly on Wednesday that sent an elderlyRead More

MBTA: Elderly driver ignored barriers before crash with commuter rail train in Beverly - Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

Much has changed in Mecklenburg County since the Red Line, a commuter rail between Uptown and Lake Norman, was first envisioned at least a quarter century ago · Why it matters: Even though the train would run on existing tracks, Charlotte Area Transit System must consider all the new development ...

Red Line: Everything to know about north Mecklenburg County's future train - Axios Charlotte

Almost nothing stops Japan’s famous high-speed bullet trains from running exactly on time – but a tiny snake slithering through a passenger carriage will do the trick, albeit for just 17 minutes.

Snake on a bullet train causes rare railway delay in Japan | CNN

Raiil - We create a transparent and effective channel for managing orders, tracking, and payments, strengthening the relationships between restaurants and their suppliers, and ensuring a smoother supply chain.

Raiil

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Raiinmaker Closes $7.5M Funding To Advance Decentralized AI

For many years Nginx has been a default solution to serve as a reverse proxy for Rails applications. However, with the release of Kamal, the Rails community opened Traefik as a new reverse proxy solution. Within my 15 years of experience with Rails, I created an almost perfect configuration for Nginx that migrated through all my projects. With Traefik, I had to start from scratch. Traefik Intro Traefik is an Edge Router; it means that it’s the door to your platform and that it intercepts and routes every incoming request but does not process requests itself. When an incoming request comes to Traefik, it is getting served through the EntryPoint. Traefik can listen to multiple EntryPoints, and each EntryPoint is associated with a port and a protocol (HTTP/HTTPS, TCP, UDP). After the request is received, it is passed to the Router. Router is a rule that tells Traefik how to handle the request. It can be based on the path, the host, the headers, etc. The router will then forward the request to the appropriate service. But before a request is forwarded, it can be modified by the Middleware. Middleware is a piece of code that can modify the request or the response before it reaches the service. Middleware is the place where you can add authentication, rewrite the path, add headers, etc. To better understand how Traefik works, I provide an image from the official . Traefik documentation Compared to Nginx, the Traefik configuration is entirely different. Besides a traditional configuration file (which can be both in YAML and TOML formats), Traefik can be configured with dynamic configuration. It means that you can configure Traefik with a file, but also with a REST API, a Docker label, a Kubernetes annotation, etc. Since Kamal is a Docker orchestration tool, Traefik configuration is done with Docker labels. It means that you don’t need to write a configuration file; instead, you should provide labels to your Docker containers. Labels work dynamically, so you don’t need to reboot Traefik to apply them. At the same time, operating a Docker label can be pretty tricky, especially at the beginning. Traefik Dashboard The good news is that Traefik works pretty good with Kamal out of the box with Kamal (Kamal provides basic default configuration, which I will show later), and maybe you won’t need to change anything. However, if you want to take a look at how Traefik is configured, you may want to enable a . web dashboard To do this, open your Kamal config (usually ), and add the following lines. config/deploy.yml # config/deploy.yml

traefik:
  args:
    api.dashboard: true
  labels:
    traefik.http.routers.dashboard.servixce: api@internal
    traefik.http.routers.dashboard.rule: "Host(`traefik.onetribe.com`)"
    traefik.http.middlewares.auth.basicauth.users: user:$2y$05$us7dsDg56EJ/qojvhLvy9OEshrzoWjGSKXziBqeiFq3Ehf1pAiGSG
    traefik.http.routers.dashboard.middlewares: auth@docker If you have a separate configuration for production and staging environments, you probably will have the last two labels in your environment-specific configuration files. # config/deploy.production.yml

traefik:
  labels:
    traefik.http.routers.dashboard.rule: "Host(`traefik.onetribe.team`)"
    traefik.http.middlewares.auth.basicauth.users: user-production:$2y$05$us7dsDg56EJ/qojvhLvy9OEshrzoWjGSKXziBqeiFq3Ehf1pAiGSG

# config/deploy.staging.yml

traefik:
  labels:
    traefik.http.routers.dashboard.rule: "Host(`traefik.staging.onetribe.team`)"
    traefik.http.middlewares.auth.basicauth.users: user-staging:$2y$05$us7dsDg56EJ/qojvhLvy9OEshrzoWjGSKXziBqeiFq3Ehf1pAiGSG Let’s go line by line in file. config/deploy.yml On line enables Traefik Dashboard, as it is disabled by default. 5, api.dashboard: true On line I defined a router that will serve the dashboard. The internal Traefik API service is called ; I attached it to the router. 7, api@internal dashboard Then, on line I defined a rule that tells Traefik to serve the dashboard on the domain. Rule can be based . 9, traefik.onetribe.team on the path, the host, the headers, etc Since I don’t want to expose the dashboard to the public, I added a basic authentication middleware on lines and . Traefik supports different authentication methods: , , , etc. I used basic authentication, as it is the easiest to configure. 9 10 basic digest forward Password can be encrypted with the command, which is a , and this is really amazing how software, which is 20 years old, is still in use. To encrypt a password for a new user, run the following command. htpasswd part of the Apache toolkit htpasswd -nB user Traefik Logging Besides the visualization of the configuration, it is important to have good logging. Most of my Kamal projects use AWS CloudWatch for logging, so I configured Traefik to send logs to CloudWatch. To do this, I added the following lines to the file. config/deploy.yml logging:
  driver: awslogs
  options:
    awslogs-region: us-east-1
    awslogs-group: application
    awslogs-create-group: true
    tag: "-" This will configure logging for your application containers. In the example above, I used as a log group; you can use any name you want. The option is important; I used the container name and ID to distinguish logs from different containers. The picture below demonstrates how logs are organized in the CloudWatch. application tag As you see, besides application container logs, I also have a Traefik log stream, which includes both error and access logs (which is not the best, but it is how it is). Traefik logging can be configured by passing arguments to the Traefik container. I assume that my health check requests are pretty fast, so I set the minimum duration to 50ms to filter not important data. traefik:
  args:
    log.format: json
    accesslog: true
    accesslog.format: json
    accesslog.filters.minduration: 50ms Middlewares 101 I already talked about middlewares earlier in this article; let’s have a closer look at them. Middlewares are a piece of code that can modify the request or the response before it reaches the service. I used a basic authentication middleware to protect the Traefik dashboard. As we already know, each router has a set of settings and is also a setting that accepts a list of middlewares. Each middleware should be defined with it is own labels. middlewares traefik.http.middlewares.<middleware_1>.basicauth.users: username:<encrypted_password>
traefik.http.middlewares.<middleware_2>.ipwhitelist.sourcerange: 127.0.0.1/32
traefik.http.routers.<router_name>.middlewares: <middleware_1>, <middleware_2>, <middleware_3> : Traefik middlewares are not global. They are attached to the router, so you need to define them for each router separately. Important Kamal adds a to each service that uses Traefik. It is essential to know because if you add a middleware to a router, it will replace the default middleware. If you want to add a middleware to the default middleware, you must add it to the list of middlewares. default middleware WWW Redirect Redirecting from a www to a non-www domain is a common practice. It is important to have a single domain for SEO and security reasons. In Nginx, I used to do this with a simple directive. rewrite server {
  server_name www.onetribe.team;
  return 301 $scheme://onetribe.team$request_uri;
} To do this with Traefik, you need to configure on the router. RedirectRegex middleware servers:
  web:
    hosts:
      - <ip_address>
    labels:
      traefik.http.routers.onetribe-web.middlewares: onetribe-web-www-redirect@docker
      traefik.http.middlewares.onetribe-web-www-redirect.redirectregex.regex: ^http://www.(.*)
      traefik.http.middlewares.onetribe-web-www-redirect.redirectregex.replacement: https://$1 You probably noticed that I used schema in regex. Why not ? In all my configurations with Traefik, I do HTTPS termination on the load balancer before the request reaches Traefik. In Rails, 7.1 introduced to handle such configurations. http:// https:// config.assume_ssl option Compress Almost all Nginx configurations I saw had a directive. Compressing responses to save bandwidth and speed up the website is a good practice. Digital Ocean has an , explaining how HTTP compression works and how to configure it with Nginx. gzip excellent tutorial server {
  # ...
  gzip on;
  gzip_comp_level 2;
  gzip_min_length 1000;
  gzip_proxied any;
  gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
  gzip_vary on;
  # ...
} Traefik has a that can be used to achieve the same result. Compress middleware servers:
  web:
    hosts:
      - <ip_address>
    labels:
      traefik.http.routers.onetribe-web.middlewares: onetribe-web-compress@docker
      traefik.http.middlewares.onetribe-web-compress.compress: true Full Example The example below combines two middleware defined above and a middleware that is added by default by Kamal–Retry. The Retry middleware reissues requests a given number of times to a backend server if that server does not reply. servers:
  web:
    hosts:
      - <ip_address>
    labels:
      traefik.http.routers.onetribe-web.middlewares: onetribe-web-www-redirect@docker,onetribe-web-retry@docker,onetribe-web-compress@docker
      traefik.http.routers.onetribe-web.rule: PathPrefix(`/`)
      traefik.http.services.onetribe-web.loadbalancer.server.scheme: http

      traefik.http.middlewares.onetribe-web-www-redirect.redirectregex.regex: ^http://www.(.*)
      traefik.http.middlewares.onetribe-web-www-redirect.redirectregex.replacement: https://$1

      traefik.http.middlewares.onetribe-web-compress.compress: true

      traefik.http.middlewares.onetribe-web-retry.retry.attempts: 5
      traefik.http.middlewares.onetribe-web-retry.retry.initialinterval: 500ms Rails Assets Handling Last, it is not about the Traefik but about the Rails configuration. With Nginx, I usually didn’t care about how my CSS, JS, and other static assets were handled; Nginx did this for me. All required headers (like compression that we discussed above and cache control) were added by Nginx. Traefik is not a web server; it is an edge router, so it doesn’t handle static assets. It means that you need to configure Rails to handle static assets properly. Stop, Rails static file handling is slow and not efficient. And you are right, or at least you were right. Modern versions of Puma handle static assets well. Besides, in 2024, we usually use cloud storage like AWS S3 to handle user uploads, so Rails will only serve CSS and JS files, which is not a big deal for Puma. I ended with something like this in my file. config/environments/production.rb # config/environments/production.rb
  # ...

  config.public_file_server.enabled = true
  config.public_file_server.headers = {
    "Cache-Control" => "public, max-age=#{30.days.to_i}, must-revalidate"
  } header is important; it tells the browser how long it should cache the file. In this example, I set it to 30 days. Must-revalidate tells the browser to revalidate the file after the cache expires. Cache-Control With such settings, Rails will serve static files only once for each client. If you think this is not enough, you can use a CDN like Cloudflare or AWS CloudFront to cache responses from Rails and dramatically reduce the load on your server. Conclusion As it usually happens with new technologies, it takes time to get used to them. Traefik is not an exception. It took me a while to understand how it works and how to configure it. At the same time, I see the benefits of using Traefik over Nginx with Rails – the main one is, of course, support of Docker out of the box. I believe this was the main reason why Basecamp decided to go with Traefik. Almost a year has passed since I switched our first project to Traefik, and I’m happy with the result. I hope you will find this article useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments below.

A Beginner's Guide to Traefik Tuning for Rails Applications

Ruby on Rails app redesign challenges Redesigning a Ruby on Rails application is a well-known challenge for many projects. Any project UI gets outdated. It needs to get a fresh look that’s more appealing to the users. It may not be an issue for web apps without live users. But it’s a tricky task for already launched businesses serving thousands of users per day. While a team is redesigning, the application should continue functioning. At the development time, the new design gets validated and tested against the back-end. If the back-end is incompatible, it must be adapted to the new realm. These changes should not break the old functionality. Overcoming these issues is essential in a Ruby on Rails application redesign. development This article shares the approach we took to apply the new design in one of our projects. The changes we made increased the project revenue by 30%. As a bonus, the implemented changes unleashed many other opportunities, including: Building a modern mobile application. Making the code more fault-tolerant, performant, and stable. Adding new features, such as preventing account sharing, that can increase the app revenue. Making the tech stack upgrade easier. Implementing traffic control and advanced caching. Making SEO optimization easier. Why redesign a Ruby on Rails app? There are several reasons why an app may consider implementing a new . Regardless of the motive, the ultimate goal is always the same - . Note, that keeping users using the app and not going away is the same goal. Due to an old and unhandy design, an app can make the customers leave. In this case, redesign also can help. If it’s clear that a redesign won’t have a positive impact on revenue, it may be an unnecessary expense. Redesigning is usually an expensive change. So, learn from the users if the design is a problem before making this decision. UI/UX design to increase revenue What is the new design? A new design consists of screens (mockups) created by a designer using software like Figma or Adobe Photoshop. In our case, the client provided the mockups, and our task was to turn them into code and integrate them with the existing back-end. We aimed to minimize downtime during the transition and reduce development efforts. Different technical approaches to a Ruby on Rails app redesign Nowadays, web projects must be responsive and have a mobile application. Modern web app design features a rich UI with many elements on one page. The old-fashioned way of generating HTML on the back-end is going away. Instead, a separate web front-end or mobile app handles the front-end, while the back-end serves data via API. In pure , the front-end code lives alongside the back-end. That can fulfill modern web app requirements and is cheap in the beginning. However, it becomes hard to maintain due to the mix of different technologies in one place. It makes it difficult to find developers who can understand and maintain the system. We prefer separate back-end and front-end. The specialists can do their job quickly with high quality on their end. Ruby On Rails applications The risk-free approach of a Ruby on Rails app redesign The project we received was a Ruby On Rails application with a Rest API implemented on Grape. An iOS app used this API. The web version used ERB and Slim templates with a UI from the previous decade. Some dynamic features on the web used Knockout.js, which is no longer maintained. To update the UI, we used the Next.js framework with TypeScript and implemented GraphQL for the API. To avoid errors, we created a separate repository for the new UI and extracted functionality that could be reused in both the old app and the new UI. The project took almost a year, with two developers and one project manager working on it. To deploy the changes, we used CloudFront as a proxy on top of the old app and the new front-end app. We gradually switched web requests to the new UI using a feature flag to reduce the risk of failures or outages. The transition went smoothly without major issues. As a bonus, we got all requests geolocated since they pass through the AWS CloudFront. That allowed us to control the users’ network traffic and fight against sharing accounts. Our results of the Ruby on Rails app redesign Switching to the new design made the project more attractive to users, resulting in more signups and increased satisfaction among old users. This allowed us to increase charges by 20% and revenue by 30%. The redesign expenses were paid off within the first three months after release. See below for the paid user dynamics analysis. The release date was on the 1st of February 2021. Why our approach of Ruby on Rails app redesign is cheaper and less risky Redesigning apps can be painful and distracting. The Rails assets pipeline changes often, making sticking with it turn the code into legacy quickly. Finding specialists to maintain this code without sacrificing quality on both front-end and back-end is challenging. Separating the front-end and leaving only the Rails back-end for the API makes redesigning and maintenance smoother, allowing for a diversified team with good specialists on both ends. for the front-end, improving SEO with image optimization and cache facilities out of the box. Next.js was a wise choice Acknowledges I’m grateful and proud to have worked with the following people on this project at different times: Daniel Dauwe Vadzim Jakushau Illia Pruskyi Soltan Yangibayev Svetlana Zhuravitskaya Alexey Mikitsik Also published . here

Redesigning Apps Using Ruby On Rails: The Risks and The Risk-Free Approaches

Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . WARMING AND VENTILATION OF RAILROAD CARS. here WARMING AND VENTILATION OF RAILROAD CARS. There has been enough of denunciation against the present general method of warming and ventilating railway cars. It produces no effect on the corporations who could, if they would, adopt appliances that would not burn people to death in cases of accident, nor regularly and persistently poison them with bad air. There is no lack of ways and means; the problem is simple and easily solved; nay—a not very extensive search through the Patent Office records will show that it has been solved already; perhaps not in the most practical and perfect manner, but still solved so well, as, were it not for corporation cupidity, would greatly add to the comfort and safety of passengers. The real problem is how to compel corporations to recognize the fact that the public has rights they are bound to respect. It is the disregard of these rights that fills our cars with smoke, dust, and exhalations, and puts box stoves full of hot coals in the corners, ready to cook the human stew whenever a frisky car shall take a notion to turn a somersault. The invention needed is a conscience for corporations—an invention, by the way, scarcely less difficult than the one advertised for in our last issue, namely, a plan for preventing the sale of intoxicating liquors and tobacco in New Jersey. The , imitating the English ideal of prolixity in discussion, for which has recently patted it on the back approvingly, treats us, in its issue of February 11th, to a page article, to be continued, under the title of "Warming and Ventilation of Railroad Cars." In this article the writer takes the ground that people in general are ignorant of the effects of pure air, and not being able to "see the foulness," they "therefore do not believe it exists." It is quite possible they may not be able to see the foulness, but if in the majority of railroad cars run in this country, they are not able to feel it in gritty, grimy accumulations on skin and linen, and smell it in suffocating stenches which serve, with sneeze-provoking dust, to stifle anything like comfort, their skin must be thicker, their linen more neglected, and their noses less sensitive than those of the majority of fellow travellers it has been our fortune to be cooped up with for a day's railroad journey. Railroad Gazette Engineering The makes this wholesale charge of ignorance and insensibility the excuse for an essay on the physiology of respiration, mostly extracted from Huxley's "Elementary Lessons in Physiology," and therefore excellent in its way, though having a somewhat remote bearing upon the subject as announced in the title of the article. We trust that before this journal concludes its series of articles thus commenced, it will tell how to breathe into the breasts of the corporations which choke us in their human packing boxes, something resembling the soul which they are universally acknowledged to be destitute of. When this is done, carbonic acid, ammoniacal smells, organic exhalations, smoke, and dust, will be invited to shun the interiors of railway cars, and comparative comfort will descend upon the peregrinating public. Railroad Gazette About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2006). Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19180/pg19180-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

WARMING AND VENTILATION OF RAILROAD CARS

Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . The London Underground Railway. here The London Underground Railway. The opening recently of the extension of the Metropolitan Railway to Harrow, and the early commencement of another of the lines of the company, give especial prominence to it. The Metropolitan Underground Railway is emphatically the great passenger railway of the country, for its few miles of line carry more than the hundreds of miles of line of companies such as the London and North Western or Great Western. Seventeen years ago—in 1868—the Metropolitan carried less than 10,000,000 passengers, and in the full year's work of the following twelve months it carried less than 12,000,000. But year by year, almost without exception, the number of passengers has grown. In 1865, over 15,000,000 passengers were carried; in 1867, over 23,000,000; and in 1870, over 39,000,000 passengers traveled on the line. The years that have since passed have swollen that number. In 1872, over 44,300,000 were carried, but in the following year there was one of the few checks, and not till 1875 was the number of 1872 exceeded. In 1875 it rose to 48,302,000; in 1877 it had advanced to 56,175,000; in 1878 to 58,807,000; and in 1879 to 60,747,000. In the present year there has been a further advance, the number carried for the first six months of the present year being 31,592,429. When it is borne in mind that this is equal to 7,272 passengers every hour, and that the length of line worked by the company's engines, including that of the "foreign" line worked, is slightly less than 25 miles, the fecundity in traffic of the metropolitan district must be said to be marvelous. It is to be regretted that the official account from which these figures are given does not give any idea of the number of passengers in the different classes, for such a return would be of value. It is a marvelous fact in the history of locomotion that this great passenger traffic is worked with not more than 53 engines, while the total number of carriages, 195, is in comparison with the number of travelers in them a marvel in railway history. But it is tolerably clear that there is yet a vast amount of undeveloped metropolitan traffic, and it is also certain that as that traffic is developed the future of the Metropolitan as it attains more completeness will be brighter even than it has been in the past. The great city is more and more the mart of the world, and the traffic and travel to and in it must increase. That increase will be shared in considerable degree by the "underground" companies, and as they have shown that their capabilities of traffic are almost boundless, it may be expected that the oldest and the chief of these will in the early future know a growth as continuous if less rapid than in the past. We take the above from the , London. In this city there are now existing 27 miles of elevated steam railways for local passenger traffic. These roads have carried during the past year 61,000,000 of passengers. In this service they employ 175 locomotives and 500 passenger cars. It is a terrible nuisance to have these locomotives and cars constantly whizzing through the public streets; still the roads are a great accommodation. The only underground railway in this city is that of the New York Central and Hudson River, 4 miles in length, extending under Fourth avenue from Forty-second street to Harlem River. Over this road the enormous traffic of the Central, Harlem, and the New Haven roads, with their connections, passes. But so removed from public sight are the cars and locomotives that the existence of this underground railway is almost forgotten. Engineer About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2007). Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/21081/pg21081-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

The London Underground Railway

Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . APPARATUS FOR REMOVING ICE FROM RAILROADS. here APPARATUS FOR REMOVING ICE FROM RAILROADS. The engraving shows an improved apparatus for removing snow and ice from railroads and streets by means of heat. The invention consists of a double furnace mounted on wheels, which are incased in the fire boxes of the furnace, so that in use the entire apparatus, including the wheels, will become highly heated, so that the snow and ice will not only be melted by radiant heat, but by the actual contact of the hot surfaces of the furnace and wheels. This apparatus was recently patented by the late E. H. Angamar, of New Orleans, La. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2007). Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/21081/pg21081-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

APPARATUS FOR REMOVING ICE FROM RAILROADS

Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . THE ELECTRIC MOTOR TESTS ON THE NEW YORK ELEVATED RAILROAD. here THE ELECTRIC MOTOR TESTS ON THE NEW YORK ELEVATED RAILROAD. The American Institute of Electrical Engineers at its last meeting of the season, held June 25, again considered the subject of electrical traction, the paper presented by Mr. Leo Daft being based upon some recent electrical work on the elevated railroads and its bearing on the rapid transit problem. The gives the following abstract: Railroad Gazette He introduced the subject with a tribute to the efficiency of the elevated railroad system as it is now operated by steam, with special reference to that section of it known as the Ninth Avenue line, upon which his experiments with the electric motor have been conducted, over which passengers are now conveyed a distance of five miles in 26 minutes for five cents, which he considered the best and cheapest municipal rapid transit in the world, and which is operated with a higher degree of safety than any other railroad in the world making an equal number of stops per 100 miles. On a recent holiday, April 30 last, 835,720 passengers were carried upon the entire system without noticeable detention or accident. The rapidly increasing traffic makes the demand for better facilities a pressing one, and as the average half million now carried daily will soon become a million, it appears doubtful if any method can be devised of providing for the growth by the use of steam motors on the present structures, which are now taxed to their utmost. To the mind of the mechanical engineer, having in view the ordinary coefficients of tractive ability, there is no remedy for this. The speaker stated that these coefficients were not entirely trustworthy. He reiterated his previously expressed opinion, based on frequent experiments, that there is a decided increase in traction gained by the passage of the electric current from the wheels to the rails, giving the details of one test where a motor with a load making a total of 600 lb. climbed a gradient of 2,900 ft. per mile, starting from a state of rest. He stated that some of those people who had ridiculed his statements had finally admitted that they were true. The motor Ben Franklin, which had been used in making these tests on the elevated roads, weighed 10 tons, and performed service nearly equal to the steam motors weighing 18 tons. The object of these tests was the determination of coal economy. Tests with a Prony brake showed that the motor developed 128 H.P. The piece of track on which the experiments were conducted embraced 2,200 ft. of level track and 1-8/10 miles of gradients, varying from 11-3/10 to 98-7/10 ft. per mile, while at Thirtieth street the station is at the foot of the steepest grade, thus testing to the utmost the tractive capacity of the motor. The experiments were begun in October, 1888, and carried on between the hours of 9 P.M. and 4 A.M., beginning with one or two cars, the load being increased nightly until it was finally made up of eight coaches of 12 tons each, which were hauled up the 98 ft. grade at a speed of 7½ miles per hour, the entire distance being covered at the rate of 14-6/10 miles per hour. The maximum speed obtained on level with that train was 16.36 miles per hour. Seventy trips were subsequently made with a 70 ton train operated between the steam trains under 3 minutes headway, but the work was considered too critical on account of the absence of suitable brakes. A number of experiments made about this time showed that the mean speed with a three-car train running express on the up-town track was about 24 miles per hour, although the ability of the motor on a level with a similar train was nearly 28 miles per hour. This, however, was not the maximum speed, as the level track was not long enough to permit of its attaining the highest rate. It was the opinion of the speaker, however, that the speed attained could not be exceeded with prudence on the elevated structure. The measurements of speed were made by dividing the track into 19 sections of 500 ft., each section being provided with a circuit-closing plate connected with a chronograph which was carefully tested. The indicator cards were taken at the central station by Mr. Idell and his assistants, and the dynamometer used was of the liquid type made by Mr. Shaw, of Philadelphia. The diagrams prepared from the data obtained were then explained by the speaker, who stated that there was not a marked difference between the 10 ton motor and the 18 ton locomotive in the initial effort on the level, as will be seen by comparing a run observed by a railroad officer on March 9 with a steam motor and a load of about 57½ tons. The steam motor required 1 min. and 29 sec. to make the distance from 14th to 23d streets, while the electric motor with a train of 70 tons made the same trip in 1 min. and 50 sec.; the absence of power brakes compelled the current to be taken off at 19th street, while it was probable that the throttle of the steam locomotive was not closed until it reached 23d street, this being the usual practice. The data obtained in these experiments shows that 29,940 h.p. is required to operate the Ninth avenue railroad for the 16 hours' service, or an average of 1,871 h.p. per hour, or 2,181 h.p., adding station friction. The varying requirements of the traffic during the day shows that the service could be advantageously divided up between four stationary engines of 800 h.p. each, there being but five hours of the day when all of them would be required. The fuel consumption per day, allowing 22 lb. of coal per h.p. per hour at $2.25 per ton, would make a total of $92.25 per diem for fuel, the coal being a mixture deliverable at the dock for about $1.80 per ton. The weight of coal used for the present locomotives is about the same, viz., 40 tons per day, but practice has shown it to be most economical to use coal of the best quality, costing $5 per ton, making the cost of fuel about double that required for the electric system. Without entering into other economies which the speaker claimed were in favor of electricity, and ignoring the plan suggested by Sir William Siemens of braking the train by converting the motor into a dynamo and thus utilizing the energy of momentum, he believed that the economy in fuel alone was sufficient to prove that the application of power by electricity was preferable to direct steam propulsion for the elevated railroad service. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2004). Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16972/pg16972-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

THE ELECTRIC MOTOR TESTS ON THE NEW YORK ELEVATED RAILROAD

Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Improved Compound Spiral Car Spring for Railway Carriages. here Improved Compound Spiral Car Spring for Railway Carriages. Our engravings illustrate an improved compound car-spring, which appears to possess all the requisites of a first-class spring, combining in its construction extreme simplicity with great strength, and a feature whereby the power of the spring increases with increase of the load, and , so that its flexibility remains nearly constant for all loads. vice versâ Fig. 1 is a perspective view of this spring, with a portion of the side of the case broken out to show the interior arrangement of the spiral springs. Fig. 2 is a section of the compressing plate. Fig. 3 is a plan view, showing the arrangement of the tubes which enclose the springs. The case is cast in two pieces. Its vertical wall is cast in a single piece, and has at the top a flange or bead extending inwardly, against which the compressing plate abuts when the spring is not compressed, as shown in Fig. 2. A bottom plate completes the case. The spiral components of the spring are inclosed in tubes, as shown in Figs. 1 and 3. It is not deemed essential that these tubes should be seamless, or that their edges, brought together in bending, should be soldered, brazed, or welded. They act merely as guides to compel the component springs to expand or contract in vertical lines, and need only be strong enough for that purpose. The compressing plate is formed with concentric steps or ledges, as shown in Fig. 2, so that with light loads, only a portion of the component spirals act. With a heavier load a new series of spirals is brought into action, and so on, till the spring is loaded to its full capacity. This feature is novel, and as important as novel, as it gives the spring a far more easy and flexible carriage, with light loads, than would be the case if all the spirals were permitted to act. In putting the spring together, the vertical part of the case is inverted. The compressing plate is then placed within the case, resting upon the inner flange of the case above described. The tubes with their inclosed springs are then arranged in position, as shown in the plan view, Fig. 3. The bottom plate of the case is then placed in position, and held to its place by lugs and rivets, as shown in Fig. 1; the spring is then ready for use. The employment of tubes in the manner described, enables springs of the greatest practical length to be used, without the sectional or division plates met with in other spiral car springs. A greater and easier movement is therefore obtained. These springs can, it is claimed, compete in price with any spring in market, and are guaranteed by the manufacturers. Patented through the Scientific American Patent Agency, December 27, 1870, by Albert Potts, whom address for further information, No. 490 North Third street, Philadelphia, Pa. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2006). Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19180/pg19180-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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