Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/265

 Popular Science Monthly

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��lip the winding into numerous separately insulated coils, was first utilized by Ritchie, the famous instrument maker, in Boston, as early as 1846, and then copied in the well-known RuhmkorlT induction coils, and now a common affair with all builders of transformers, but the application of the principle in this million-volt winding demanded a refinement of details not heretofore calletl for. Of course the whole struc- ture refiuired that its windings be pro- tected from absorption of moisture.

��A Railroad Which Fights Its Own Fires

THE Transcontinental Railway of Canada is going to fight its own fires in the future. This is saying a great deal, since every other railroad in this country and Canada depends on available city firemen when railroad property catches fire, and when city firemen are not handy allows its property to burn up, helpless to save it because of lack of eciuipment.

When fires had destroyed valuable timber lines along its right of way and threatened to wipe out whole counties if something was not done to find an efficient means to combat it, the Trans-

��continental Railway placed an order with the Canadian Government Rail- ways' Shop at Moncton, New Bruns- wick, for a fire-fighting api)aratus. The car illustrated herewith is the result, and it is now in operation.

The apparatus consists of a large water tank of more than ten thousand gallons capacity mounted on a flat car in order that it may be transferred to any point on the system where fire may be threatening. A steam-dri\'en duplex fire i^unip which has a capacity of three hundred gallons a minute is mounted on the tank. The steam supply for operat- ing the pump is taken from the car heater of the locomotive to which the car may be attached, and by setting the car heater regulator of the locomotive at a pressure of one hundred and twenty pounds per square inch, a water pressure of about one hundred pounds is obtained at the nozzle tip.

Before the apparatus was sent to the Transcontinental Railway the device was tested and found to be capable of throwing two one-inch streams of water a distance of about two hundred feet to either side of the track. This will enable the fire-fighting railroad company to extinguish all fires which occur with- in its right of way.

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��The fire-fighting apparatus is Icept under steam so that it can be quickly transferred to any point on the railroad's system where fire may be threatening property worth millions

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