Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/406

 Cleaning New York Streets with Modern Mechanical Appliances

��COMMISSIONER J. T. FETHER- STON, of the Street Cleaning De- partment, of New York City, re- cently began the operation, in a so-called "model district," of machinery for col- lecting refuse and cleaning streets. There is nothing just like it in this or any other country. The ideal which the corn-

��economy and efficiency suggested that the tractor be designed to meet the needs of all these services, and be available for twenty-four hours a day, if required.

The tractor, therefore, is a power plant on wheels and provided with a heavily constructed fifth wheel by means of which the different kinds of trailers

���Huge tractors of this type have recently appeared in New York streets, and have aided

wonderfully in the refuse removal work of the Department of Street Cleaning. They are so

built that the driver has no control over the gasoline engine. He simply operates the

electric current, thus making the power machinery more nearly "fool-proof"

��missioner undertook to demonstrate in this district, which took in many phases of the city's life, Fifth Avenue stores, wealthy homes (such as that of J. P. Morgan), tenement houses and factories, was a dustless job, with refuse collec- tions made in a given locality day after day with the regularity of a train schedule, at a minimum of cost and a maximum of efficiency. For refuse col- lection, for instance, he replaced horse carts with motor trucks of great capacity, and capable of transporting every kind of refuse simultaneously.

Flis problem was solved by the com- bination of a gasoline-electric tractor and trailers designed to perform the dif- ferent functions required. As it is in- tended that the streets shall be cleaned by power, and that power plows shall be employed when snow is to be removed.

��can be attached. The tractor has a wheel base of only seventy-two inches, in order that the long trailer may be swung around in a thirty-foot street. The power plant consists of a four-cylinder, forty horse-power gasoline motor coupled to an electric generator on the same shaft. The generator supplies power for driving the tractor and the motors used in operating the flushing and sweeping machines. Such a type of tractor com- bines the simplicity of control of an elec- tric vehicle and the relatively large mile- age capacity of straight gasoline equip- ment. The motor is equipped with a governor and special devices which auto- matically regulate its speed according to the load. The motor may be started at the stable. It runs slowly until the driver moves the controller, turning the elec- tricity into the driving motors or into

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