low these pipes are suspended a series of small troughs arranged to catch and carry off condensation from the pipes, thus keeping the lading dry.

The condenser is of the air cooled type and consists of a series of pipes mounted on the roof of the car and protected from the direct rays of the sun by a covering, which at the same time permits free circulation of air over the condenser.

The two sections of the absorber are placed at one end of the car and outside the insulated car body. The groups of vertical tubes containing the silica gel are placed in insulated fireproof casings provided at the top with ventilators to give a rapid upward movement of air, or products of combustion, from the gas burn

Bottom Ends Doors to the Refrigerating Compartment Opened to Show the Thermostat and Control Equipment

ers.

The burners which furnish the heat for activating the silica gel are placed below the tubes. The float valve is mounted in front of the absorber and the two manifolds containing the check valves are just above the float valve. The fuel used for heating is carried in tanks suspended under the car body, and is fed to the burners at reduced pressure through a pressure regulator.

This arrrangement is based on 40 years experience with the Pintsch compressed gas system for lighting passenger coaches.

The operation of the system is effected entirely by lighting and extinguishing the burners alternately and at the proper intervals. This is accomplished by a device operated by pressure obtained from the fuel, and is indicated in the drawing showing the arrangement of the apparatus, as mounted below the float valve. This device operates at a slow but definite speed and admits gas to the burners for fixed periods and at

definite intervals. The gas is ignited at the burners from a small pilot flame which burns continuously.

The period of heating is of about 30 min. duration and the interval between successive heating periods is about 22 hr. for normal operation. Each absorber section is, therefore, heated for 30 min. every 5 hr. and is absorbing sulphur dioxide vapor and producing refrigeration for about 41⁄2 hr.

Thermostat Control

For purposes of controlling the temperature in the car, a thermostat is used with its temperature-responsive bulb placed within the car. The power element is shown beside the timing device and operates a valve controlling the flow of gas to the timing device. When the car temperature falls to the point for which the thermostat has been set, the thermostat interrupts the flow of gas to the timing device, stopping the latter, and thus suspending the operation of the apparatus. When the car temperature rises above the thermostat setting, gas is permitted to flow again to the timing device, and operation is thus resumed. In this manner the car is kept at any desired temperature, and the refrigerating effect is produced automatically varying with changing atmospheric temperature.

The relative compactness of the silica gel apparatus permits increasing the lading space about 10 per cent. The absorber occupies a space equivalent to that occupied by an ice bunker at only one end of the car. All of the space at the opposite end is available for lading. As the evaporator is placed above the lading and spans the entire length of the car, cooling is not dependent on the longitudinal circulation of the air and the height of the load may thus be materially increased.

In the case of the iced refrigerator car, no control of the temperature is possible, aside from adding salt to the ice, when a somewhat lower temperature is obtained.

Setting the thermostat of the silica gel system to the desired temperature, automatically holds the car to within a few degrees of this temperature. Thus, whether 20 deg. is desired for a shipment of frozen fish, or 40 deg. for cantaloup, a simple adjustment, guided by a pointer on a temperature scale, is all that is required.

Tests have shown that the temperature variation throughout the length of the car is not more than two or three degrees. In the case of an iced car with end bunkers, the temperature at the center of the car is always several degrees higher than that at the ends, and the length of the car is limited by the temperature that can be maintained at the center. The overhead arrangement of the evaporator in this new car makes possible an increase in the length of cars without affecting the uniformity of temperature.

The fuel tanks with which the car is equipped have storage capacity for sufficient fuel to maintain operation for seven or eight days under summer conditions and ten or twelve days with moderate outside temperatures. The car can be precooled in eight to ten hours.

A BILL, approved by the governor, has been introduced in the legislature of New York to change the basis of assessment for the cost of eliminating grade crossings. It is proposed that the state and the city or town, which under the present law, must pay one-fourth each, shall hereafter pay in the proportion of 40 per cent of the whole cost by the state and ten per cent by the municipality. This leaves the assessment on the railroad, 50 per cent, unchanged.

the Pennsylvania. Six trains of the Norfolk & Western also use the Pennsylvania station, but two other trains of the Norfolk & Western enter and leave at the Court Street station.

Of the Chesapeake & Ohio trains, 10 use the Central Union station and 6 use a small terminal located nearby and owned by that road, which is known as the Fourth Street station. The Louisville & Nashville divides its patronage among three passenger stations, having 13 trains which use the Pennsylvania station, 8 which enter the Union Station, as stated above, and 2 which make use of the Fourth Street station.

Three Baltimore & Ohio local trains use the old Sixth and Baymiller streets station where the major portion of Baltimore & Ohio express business is also handled.

Stations Are of the Stub Type

All stations in Cincinnati are of the stub type and, considered superficially, this would seem to meet the local requirements to the best advantage because Cincinnati is the terminal for the trains of all roads entering it with the exception of those moving over the main line of the Baltimore & Ohio between St. Louis and the East. However, the growth of through passenger business between points on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio and the Big Four, and points on the three southern roads and beyond, has resulted in a considerable through-car and through-train movement between the northern and southern roads, and convenience in handling this character of traffic is not readily obtained in the stub type of passenger station.

Another difficulty attending the operations of the existing stations, arises from the lack of convenient access for the trains approaching the stations over the Ohio river bridges. For example, the north end of the Chesapeake & Ohio bridge is located so close to the Central Union station that it was necessary to extend the approach to the west away from the station, thereby making it necessary for trains to go through a reverse movement in order to get from the bridge to the station tracks or vice versa. Exactly the same conditions obtain in the case of the Louisville & Nashville bridge and the Pennsylvania station at Pearl street, whereas in the case of the Southern bridge, trains leaving the bridge must make a complete loop, approximately a mile long, in order to obtain access to the Central Union station approach tracks. Through trains of the Baltimore & Ohio are also compelled to make a detour of more than a mile in order to reach the Central Union station and must be carried around a wye in order to be headed in the right direction when continuing the journey.

Difficult to Select a New Site

By reason of these conditions the need for new station facilities has long been realized, but the physical obstacles imposed in the way of any project for a new station are such that it has taken protracted study to develop any plan that would be practical and which would also be acceptable to all the railroads. Because of the traffic interchange between the northern and southern railroads, it was highly desirable that the roads be served by a single station, but it was impossible to find any site that would be conveniently accessible to all of the lines, because of the many different directions from which they approach the city. Another difficulty was a lack of any suitable location that was not already occupied by railway or industrial improvements.

The location finally adopted and agreed upon is in the Mill Creek valley, somewhat less than a mile north of the Ohio river and about a mile and one-half west of

the business center in an area occupied by local facilities of the Southern. This site affords direct access for the Big Four, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Southern and the Chicago line of the Chesapeake & Ohio. It can be reached readily by the Louisville & Nashville and the Chesapeake & Ohio from the Chesapeake & Ohio bridge. However, for the Norfolk & Western and the Pennsylvania access must be had from the north and east over the lines of the Baltimore & Ohio.

As all the trains from the eastern lines of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Big Four, as well as all the trains of the Pennsylvania, the Norfolk & Western and the Chicago line of the Chesapeake & Ohio, will approach the new station from the north, while all other trains will approach from the south, it has been decided to construct a through station with its main axis north and south. Tentative plans for this station provide for 24 tracks having capacities ranging from 9 to 20 cars each. This layout will provide a capacity 50 per cent in excess of the present requirements. The station will be of the two-level type, having a transverse train concourse on a level below the tracks with access to the platforms by means of stairways or ramps. The exact character of the head-house, which will be located east of the track layout, has not yet been determined. The project will also include provision for the necessary mail, baggage and express facilities, as well as an engine terminal and coach yard to take care of equipment of all roads using the station, with the exception of the Southern which will continue to use its own facilities.

As the site comprises low bottom lands subject to inundation during succeeding periods of high water in the Ohio river one of the most important problems of the development will be a careful study to insure that the terminal will be free from interruptions of service during floors. Besides the extensive filling that will be necessary to place the tracks at a safe elevation, the project imposes the requirement of a channel change in Mill creek.

The terminal improvements will be made by The Cincinnati Union Terminal Company, a corporation organized for this purpose, the stock of which will be owned by the participating railroads. Henry M. Waite, formerly city engineer of Cincinnati and city manager of Dayton, Ohio, has been appointed chief engineer for the project with C. A. Wilson, formerly chief engineer of the Wheeling & Lake Erie and the Cincinnati Ħamilton & Dayton as consulting engineer. The new passenger station facilities are estimated to cost approximately $35,000,000.

T

HERE is always an interesting question as to

whether the growth of railway facilities is currently keeping pace with the expansion of railway traffic and with the public's demands for satisfactory and efficient service. There are several factors that would lead the observer to believe that progress in this direction has in general been quite satisfactory. We know, for example, that the carriers have been expending in recent years about three-quarters of a billion dollars an

generally satisfactory than ever before in railroad his

torv.

Á peculiar feature of the capital expenditure programs has been a gradual change during more recent years whereby a progressively smaller proportion of the total of additions and betterments has been devoted to equipment and a correspondingly larger proportion to fixed property, such as yards and terminals, grade revisions, stronger bridges, signals and interlockings, grade cross

nually for additions and betterments to their physical plant. We also know that these large capital expenditures have enabled the carriers to effect substantial improvement in their efficiency of operation, although it is a matter for some concern that the money return on the new capital expenditure has not proved as great as seems desirable or necessary. As concerns the service to the shipper, there is general agreement that railroad performance has now become more expeditious and

ing eliminations, etc. The general impression is that the spending of the proportionately smaller sums for new cars and locomotives has been made possible by increased utilization of the equipment supply.

The various factors mentioned have been made the subject of much discussion and analysis, but thus far the tendency has been to discuss each of the topics more or less separately. This article is intended as an attempt to relate the several factors that the varying trends and

1920 to 1926 in the form of ratios or percentages of the year 1920. In addition, there are also projected the tenmonths figures for 1927, the latest at present available, the projection being in the form of the ratios that the figures for the first 10 months of 1926 and 1927 bear to those of the first 10 months of 1920.

Investment Maintains Parity with Traffic Growth

Chart 1 gives the comparison of the growth of traffic and facilities, from 1911 to 1926. The basic curve on this chart is that of revenue ton-miles. Since the purpose of railway facilities is to move the current volume

Per Cent

110

roads presented in Statistical Summaries Nos. 3 and 7 of the Bureau of Railway Economics. The figures cover the years from 1911 to 1926 and are charted as ratios or percentages of the figures for the year ended June 30, 1913.

The charts of the second series present the operating statistics which are reported to the Interstate Commerce Commission on its monthly operating statistics forms. These figures, originated in the work of the Operating Statistics Section of the United States Railroad Administration, were later prescribed by the I.C.C., and are available in their present form only as far back as 1920. The annual totals or averages are presented for the years

of ton-miles and since the degree of utilization of these facilities varies from year to year with the traffic, this freight traffic curve also appears on each of the other charts. It thereby supplements the scale in facilitating the comparison of the curves on one chart with those on the other charts.

The curve of revenue ton-miles shows the expansion of freight traffic during the War and in the peak years since, which include 1920, 1923 and 1925. It also makes evident the substantial increase in ton-miles in 1926 which enabled that year to break all previous records of freight traffic volume. In 1926, as compared with the base year 1911, the ton-miles had shown an increase of