As president Mendes Cohen well observed in his address before the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1892, the first important mod ifications in car-building were called forth by the speed developed in the locomotive. Nat urally the wheels first demanded attention. The names of four men are connected with early wheel improvement. Mr. Knight improved the shape of the tread and flange; John Edgar and Ross Winans developed the chilled features; and Phineas Davis further improved and per fected the wheel by altering the disposition of the metal in the tread and the angle of the flange, and by introducing within the cast-iron wheel a wrought-iron ring of five-eighths or three-quarters of an inch round iron both per mitted the chill and added strength to the wheel. Mr. Winans' shops turned out thousands of these wheels for use not only in this country, but also in Germany and Switzerland. From 30,000 to 50,000 miles represented the capabili ties of a Winans wheel.
With increased speed came the need for in creased steadiness, and it occurred to Ross Winans that by adopting the device of the bogie, or swiveling truck used in the trans portation of freight, he could build an easy riding passenger-car. A bogie-truck is a 'pair of wheels, or more commonly two pairs of wheels, connected by a framework, and having a very strong vertical central king-pin, on which one end of a locomotive or railway car is supported. The device facilitates rounding the curves of a railway track. In 1833 Mr. Winans constructed three long houses on wheels, each capable of seating 60 passengers. Having patented his invention, he was con fronted by the fact that the principle he had used was one that had been utilized frequently on tramways, and finally the courts annulled the patent.
We now konw that prior to 1830 England had three bogie-engines at work; that in 1831 Stephenson's John Bull, built for the Camden & Amboy road, was made into a bogie after it reached this country; that Horatio Allen used a bogie-engine on the South Carolina Railroad in 1832, the same year in which the bogie-locomotive Experiment was built for the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad. Moreover, the bogie principle was patented in England in 1812. Yet it is certain that the American pas senger-car of to-day originated with the three passenger-coaches built in Ross Winans' shops in 1833. England discarded the bogie principle for engines in 1830, and did not return to it until 1876; and that country to this day has not adopted the bogie for passenger- or freight cars. In 1889, the Paris, Lyons & Mediter ranean Railway adopted the bogie for certain passenger-cars; and in 1895 the Great Western Railway of England began to experiment with the bogie-truck. In America the Winans pas
senger-coach almost immediately supplanted everywhere the stage-coach form, which Eng land still retains in a modified shape, excepting only on the Pullman cars, introduced into that country in 1874. With us not only the passenger-cars, but the baggage, marl and freight-cars, all were placed on swiveling trucks.
That the early railroads of this country were designed to carry passengers rather than freight is to be seen by their reports. The Baltimore & Ohio road, from 1 Jan. 1831 to 1 October carried over its 13 miles of track 5,931 tons of freight and 81,905 passengers; and so late as 1839 the Camden & Amboy carried only 13,520 tons of merchandise as against 181,479 passengers. In fact, the railways as freight carriers could not compete with the canals, which in those days were the traffic routes. In 1831 the Tuscarora & Port Carbon Railroad could not meet canal rates by 39% cents per ton, the railway charges being 40 cents, plus a toll of 15 cents per ton, while the canal rates were 103A cents, plus 5 cents toll.
Mr. John Kirby, describing from memory the freight-car of 1848, says that it was the same square box it is to-day; its capacity was from 6 to 10 tons; the roof was covered with cotton duck painted and sanded. The hot sun cracked this covering and let the water in on the freight, an annoyance common also to pas senger-coaches of that day. Few freight-cars were used in New York State at that date, the Erie Canal being sufficient for summer freight. Wood was the universal fuel, so there was no coal transportation. Wooden brakeheads were used, and it required three men• to turn the screw that pressed the wheels on and off the axles. The ripping of planks was done by hand, as was also the dressing up; and when one man had tools to grind, a fellow-workman turned the stone. Carpenters and car builders of six years' experience commanded $1.12% a day wages.
Viewed from the standpoint of to-day, the passenger-car of the early fifties, built at a cost of about $2,000, was a combination of in conveniences. The cast-iron stove in the centre of the car broiled those who sat immediately around it, while the unfortunates one seat re moved from its satanic glare shivered and froze. In summer the dust was intolerable, and, notwithstanding elaborate devices for ven tilation, the dust problem did not begin to be solved before the appearance of the monitor roof or clearstory in 1860. Hot-water heating and the abolition of the deadly car-stove came with the Pullmans.