Railway.—The idea of constructing a railway up Mount Rigi was conceived by the German engineer Riggenbach after an inspection of the Mount Washington Railway, above described. The Rigi road, which was built by the engineer just named, in association with Naeff and Tschokke, and WaS opened for traffic Nlay 23, 1873, starts from Vitznati, a village on the banks of the Lac des Ouatre-Cantons, ancl rises up the mountain-side to a station at Staffel-Holie, above the hotel and bath establishment called Rigi-Kaltbad, well known to tourists. The length of the line is 576o yards (about three and one-quarter miles), and the heig-lit of the npper terminus above the lower is 3937 feet, making the average gradient in 4;!, (the grades vary from 53 to in 4). The radius of all the curves is 600 feet. The superstructure is formed of cross-ties spaced, approxi mately, feet apart and resting on stringers, the whole being- united in such a manner as to form a very substantial structure. On the cross-ties are fastened a track of the ordinary pattern (of nearly normal gauge) and a central toothed rail or rack.
The locomotive with tender weighs about twelve tons, and is furnished with an upright boiler placed at such an angle that it maintains a vertical position on the average gradient of the road. In the ordinary locomotive traction is caused by the adhesion between the driving-wheels and the rails; in the engine just described the wheels serve merely as carriers. By a simple arrangement of gearing upon the axle of the locomotive, a cog- wheel is made to engage with the rack-rail and thus to advance the train. This peculiarity constitutes the essential novelty of the system. The speed of ascent is at the rate of three and one-fifth miles per hour.
The train is composed of a single carriage and the locomotive; in front of the boiler a platform, surrounded by a suitable railing, serves for the reception of the baggage. The cars are two-storied, seats being provided on the roof. In ascending the mountain the car is pushed by the locomo tive, while in descending it is retarded by the simple artifice of admitting 'lair to the cylinders in place of steam and permitting this to escape throngh a small but regulable orifice, causing the piston thereby to act the part of an air-brake. For stopping, the train, cog-wheels are adapted to the cars as well as to the locomotive. This provides greater security, as the car may be stopped independently of the engine. • /I Systenz.—In the system devised by We the locomotive is fur nished with a roller mounted upon an axle at right angles with the axis of the road. Around the periphery of this roller a series of ribs are arlanged spirally. These are clesig-ned to engag-e with corresponding- parts
of supplementary rails. The locomotive has the usual driving-Ns-heels run ning- upon smooth track-rails, and the supplementary driver is brought into service only upon those stretches of the line where the gradient is so steep as to require g-,reater adhesion.
Primitive Elevatea' are more or less primitive constructions designed for special service. In these, posts of wood or metal are substituted for the regular road-bed. To these posts, which are driven into the ground with more or less solidity according to the nature of the traffic the road is intended to carry, and which project a certain distance above the ground-surface, is secnred a heavy stringer, which serves at the same time for road-bed and ties, and to this the rails are secured. Such roads are well adapted for lumbering districts, where they are not required to be permanently located, since the entire plant may easily be removed from place to place as circumstances demand.
if situations where other means of transpor tation are not available, on account of local impediments, various forms of wire-rope transmission are employed with decided advantage for the trans fer of materials. The oldest and most primitive of these arrang-ements consists of a sing-le wire rope (or two parallel ropes) supported upon a sin gle post-line. The carriers (buckets and the like) for the material to be transported are suspended from this line, and are carried to and fro by means of a second wire rope attached to them. In the system devised by Hodp.-,son, which is an improvement upon that jnst named, the second, or traction, rope is dispensed with, and the carrying rope is set in motion by some suitable motive-power, and conveys the suspended loads along with it, discharging the contents of the carriers at one terminal and returning the empty vessels to the other to be reloaded. A number of modifications of the system of wire-rope transmission have been proposed, and to some extent adopted. On Plate 35 (fig. 6) is shown a system of this descrip tion in operation. It is of special service in transporting crude materials (coal, ores, etc.) short distances, down mountain-sides or across rivers and ravines, ancl to situations difficult of access where other means of transport would entail much loss of time and more expensive structures. In large industrial establishments, factories, mills, etc., the use of the travelling wire rope for transporting materials from one department to another is not uncommon.