TRAVERSE CITY, the county-seat of Grand Traverse county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Grand Traverse bay (Lake Michi gan), 150 m. N. of Grand Rapids, at the mouth of the Board man river, which widens here into a lake. It is on Federal high ways 31 and 131, and is served by the Manistee and North-East ern, the Pennsylvania and the Pere Marquette railways, motor bus lines and lake steamers. The population was 10,925 in 1920 (85% native white) and was 12,539 in 1930 by the Federal cen sus. The city has various manufacturing industries, with an output in 1927 valued at $3,055,081. It is the seat of the Northern Michigan Hospital for the Insane (1885). It was settled in 1847, incorporated as a village in 1881, and chartered as a city in 1895. TRAVERSER. A long very shallow structure running on a number of wheels, and used to transfer locomotives, carriages, and wagons from one line of rails to another. The vehicle is hauled on to the rails which are fixed to the platform of the traverser, and the latter is then moved on its several sets of rails, by hand, steam, or electric power, until the vehicle comes into line with the desired position. There are two types, surface tra versers for carriages and wagons, and pit traversers for locomo tives, carriages and wagons. The surface type has the traverser tracks and the vehicle tracks at the same level, enabling through ways to be provided at any position across the traverser track.
The pit design has the traverser rails sunk at a lower level, and is used chiefly in or between shops manufacturing or repairing rolling-stock. The vehicle rails are level with those from which
the stock is taken and replaced, so that running on and off is simple. The surface machine must have a certain depth of con struction, hence the rails upon which it receives the carriage must be at some distance above the ground rails, and to enable the stock to mount the traverser, ramps (inclined rails) have to be provided at the ends.
The Stokes surface traverser is built up of steel plates and girders in such a manner that the distance between the respective heights of the rails can be as little as four inches. This is im portant on account of the large amount of bogie stock now used, the six or eight inches difference in ordinary surface traversers being too great to enable these to mount without seriously strain ing or damaging the bogie and its parts. Another style, the Bowtell, has the traverser vehicle rails ramped for a short dis tance from the ends. Thus when the back wheels of the bogie begin to mount the ordinary ramps not on the traverser, the front wheels are mounting those on the traverser. By this means a vehicle may mount a traverser which has deep construction, without injury, the angle of tilt being no greater than that which occurs when mounting the Stokes shallow type above mentioned.