Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/40

 26

��Popular Sclnirc Montlili/

���Driving spikes in railroad ties is accomplished with socket-wrenches run by motor

Driving Railway Spikes with a Motor- Car

THE latest thing in spike-driving apparatus for railroad use consists of an ordinary motor-truck mounted on railway car wheels. Attached to the

��engine-shaft is a generator

which operates five motor

tools for fastening the rail

to the ties with wooden

screws. Three of the tools

are attached to wood-boring

bits and two to sf)cket-

wrenches for screwing down

the spikes. All five tools are

operated at the same time.

The car has a capacity

for about five hundred and

fifty spikes an hour and one

thousand feet of cable are

provided so that the crew of

five men, three with the

wood-boring motors and two

with the screwing-machines, may work

on two thousand feet of track without

moving the car from its original position.

Should a train come along, the car can

be shifted to one side by means of a

portable turntable quickh' operated.

��uic\ital)le

��Portable Electric Tire-Inflator

AUTOMOBILE tire manufacturers always impress on their customers the necessity of inflating tires to the proper pressure. If this precaution is neglec- ted, the tire walls deflect more than they should, and the plies of which the tire carcass is composed tend to separate. This produces a weakening of the shoe and greatly diminishes the life of the tire; a blow-out i- under these conditions.

There is no excuse for this neglect i the motorist is provided with tiy compact air-compressor outfit shown in accompanying photograph. In the de- vice an electric motor ami pump are combined in such small compass as to be readily handled. The device weighs but thirteen i)unds and can be plugged into any light-socket where the potential is one huiidri'd and ten volts, the almost universal iigiil ing current. The current may be either alti-rnating or direct.

This small outfit furnishes only coi clean air. It will pumj) up to one hun- dred pounds per sfjuare inch pressure, wliiih is sufficienl for ordinarv use.

��Sufficient hose is pro- vided to make quick connections with any light -socket at hand

���Attach the air-compressor, which weighs only

thirteen pounds, to an ordinary liglit socket

and inflate your tires in a few minutes

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