ordinary staircase turns inward and the moving platform disappears under it. The moving hand rail continues along this balustrade so that a passenger who had not noticed that the top had been reached would be gently pushed off to continue on his way. An electric motor drives the mechanism running on rollers on an inclined plane, which supports the treads and risers at the proper angle. The Cleat type is a moving stairway without the steps. It is an endless moving platform formed of hardwood cleats located in longitudinal ridges and grooves. There is a handrail on either side moving at the same speed. The platform revolving over the lower sprocket glides through the prongs of a comb at the lower level and journeys upward at a moderate speed. At the upper landing it disappears through a comb and revolving over a sprocket travels downward. The passenger slides off upon the prongs of the comb at the top in safety and without jar or shock. Both types of Escalators can be made to operate either up or down, by employing a reversing switch. Such machines are known as Reversible Type Escalators. When traffic must be handled in both up and down directions simultaneously, two machines are used, one moving upwards and one downwards. Such an arrangement is known as a Duplex Escalator. The Escalator in the Railway Every railway terminal where the tracks are either elevated or depresed, or where passengers must be moved from level to level, needs Escalator service. The Pennsylvania Railroad has inaugurated this movement at the Thirty-fourth Street exit of its New York terminal, by an Escalator installation operating between the mezzanine floor in the station and the sidewalk level, a distance of about twenty-six feet. During the morning hours the service is taxed practically to its capacity, about 11,000 people per hour. That the Escalator is popular with the traveling public is evident. Ninety-eight per cent. of the people using this exit, travel on the Escalator. The old-time stairway adjoining has been practically abandoned. No one will sap his strength or waste his energy in climbing stairs when he can ride, and many people will walk considerable distances to ride one or two stories on an Escalator. The Escalator in the Mill and Factory There is no more interesting example of the large place that the Escalator has found for itself in commercial fields than the installation in a large worsted mill at Lawrence, Mass. To those who have been accustomed to look upon the Escalator as an unnecessary luxury, let them but study for a moment the practical foresight that led the largest worsted mill in this country to equip its plant with two batteries of four Escalators (step type), each. To serve the 6500 operators employed in the mills, the eight Escalators are run upward in the morning, down again at noon, upward after lunch hour and finally downward at night, carrying the employes between the second and sixth floors. The time of the trip for the individual pasenger to or from the sixth floor is about two minutes, and each of the machines will excarry ten to eleven thousand persons per hour. The watchful and progressive railroad companies have spared no pense to make travel pleasant and comfortable. They have provided safe and luxurious coaches, the speediest of electric and steam locomotives and the safest of signal systems; and now the time is ripe to furnish the public a quick, easy access to and exit from trains in the station. The machines are motor driven, and can be started, stopped or reversed at wil. As they operate a total of about only one hour per day, and as low power motors are used, the annual operating costs are very small. The profitable and practicable fea ture of the Escalator, from the viewpoint of the owner, is the increased efficiency of each operator due to the elimination of stair climbing. While it is almost impossible to figure the saving in dollars and cents, a careful study has convinced the directors of the mills that in the course of a year, a vast sum of money is saved through the use of the escalators. All of our big cities have their problems, and the greatest of these is transportation. Indeed, in the largest cities of the world the traffic question is one that demands the study of the keenest minds, and those cities that accept every method of improving their transportation conditions, are and should be proud of their enterprise. block The crowds must be kept moving; the slightest congestion or causes annoying delays to thousands of people. In New York, Philadelphia, Boston, London, and other large cities where the elevated and subway systems carry hundreds of thousands of people daily, the Escalator has been installed at many of the busiest centres, and other stations are now being equipped. Public sentiment is strong in demanding more Escalators. One never thinks of walking up a long, tedious flight of stairs in a building where there is an elevator, and no more should he submit to stair climbing in the subway or elevated station, where the Escalator is the only practicable means of ascent, for the great crowds that must be carried. The amusement parks have been quick to add Escalators to their equipment, using them as a means to circulate the crowds to their various attractions. They are very valuable for this purpose, and in addition are proving to be advertising factors of inestimable value. The hearty welcome that the Escalator received in England is worthy of special mention. In October, 1911, two Escalators of the Step type, one ascending and one reversible, were installed at the Earl's Court Station, to connect the Piccadilly Tube with the District Railway, London, England. With a carrying capacity of 10,800 people per hour in each direction, the Escalators proved to be so invaluable that soon two more were installed and ten others are now being: built; a battery of fourteen Escalators that will have a total capacity of over two million passengers a day.. The driving mechanism for each Escalator consists of one standard bronze sprocket wheel with a spur gear reduction to a double worm: geared elevator outfit, with a 50horsepower motor at each end of the worm. These motors are coupled to the worm shaft in such a way that either one or the other may be used at will, thus avoiding shut-downs due to minor motor troubles. Elevator Signaling Systems Accessory & Safety Norton Elevator Door Closers ELEVATOR SUPPLY & REPAIR COMPANY NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO Horse Power of Shafts We publish herewith a table which we have found in our experience to be a safe one to use in general practice for the transmission of power where shafts are properly supported. When shafts are used for conveying power from one point to another without any of the bending strains of pulleys, gears, etc., the next smaller size may be used. This table must not be confounded with tables of actual strength of shafts published by other authorities. It is well to say, in this connection, that no matter what general rules are adopted there are frequently special cases in which the engineer or designer must depart from his rules, and use his judgment in determining both the size of the shaft and the number and location of bearings. All key seats on clutch extended sleeves under 8 inches outside diameter are above widths, but only 4 inch deep, and on sleeves 8 inches diameter and larger 3% inch deep. To the Attention of Elevator Constructors Elevator Constructors are thoroughly aware that wire rope is a very important part of any elevator installation. Accidents can be reduced to a minimum; the factor of safety raised to a maximum if the right rope is a part of your equipment. It is therefore to the advantage of any elevator constructor or engineer to purchase or specify only that rope that is dependable and of long life. We therefore call to your attention the fact that Roebling elevator ropes are special ropes undergoing special processes of manufacture in heat treatments, tests, etc., and subject to most skilled workmanship. Roebling chemists, metallurgists and Engineering departments analyze most carefully our various standard types of elevator rope. Strength, uniformity of structure, flexibility, dependability, and long life are a few of the many qualities that make Roebling Elevator Ropes so universally used. Further information will be gladly furnished on request by The John A. Roebling's Sons Company Colorado Strike Won, Walsh Tells Miners Indianapolis, Feb. 5.-"The strike in the coal fields of Colorado was won, because you compelled John D. Rockefeller to accept the responsibility for everything that occurred in the State of Colorado," said Frank P. Walsh, in an address before the convention of the United Mine Workers of America. "The strike was won again, because you have compelled him to publicly acknowledge the essential scientific facts that underlie the right of collective bargaining on the part of workers. You won the fight because you compelled him to get up a bogus organization, but one that will teach the workers the first principle, at least, of getting together, and one that when you begin to get action in the intelligent way that you have heretofore done in other coal fields of the United States will establish real collective bargaining under the United Mine Workers of America in the field of Colorado. It has taught lessons, my friends, far beyond the narrow field in Colorado. It received the background of the testimony of hundreds of employers who have dealt with their employes collectively for more than a score of years." Collective Action Here is a story which vividly illustrates that which is very helpful to workingmen-organization: A planter down in Kentucky had just employed a strange negro as a mule driver. He handed him a brand new blacksnake, climbed up on a seat behind a pair of mules and asked the darkey if he could use the whip. Without a word the mule driver drew the black lash between his fingers, swung it over his head and flicked a butterfly from a clover blossom alongside the road over which they were traveling. "That isn't so bad," remarked the planter. "Can you hit that honey bee over there?" Again the negro swung the whip and the honey bee fell dead. Noting a pair of bumble bees on still another blossom, the darkey swished them out of existence with a crack of his whip and drew further admiration from his new employer. A little further along the planter spied a hornets' nest in a bush beside the highway. Two or three hornets were assembled at the entrance to the nest. "Can you hit them, Sam?" he inquired. "Yes, sah; I kin," replied the darkey, "but I ain't agoin' to; dey's organized."-Labor Clarion. SPECIAL NOTICE Local Union, No. 8, I. U. E. C., of San Francisco, has been reinstated to membership in the International Union, and is entitled to all rights and privileges in connection therewith. JOS. F. MURPHY, President. FRANK J. SCHNEIDER, Secretary-Treasurer. |