Goal For The Green

Although seemingly hidden away from the eyes of the public, there are thousands of private railways in the U.S. Most of these private lines are industrial in nature. Some of the major groups with private rail lines include agriculture, chemical, mining, power production, and the steel industry.

They take no passengers and the public has no reason to ever see them. Additionally, even if someone does see such a !ine, in many cases, there is no reason it should be recognized as anything private. Most Americans simply assume rail lines are public and there is very little written about the topic of private rail lines. Thus, private lines often go unnoticed.

In spite of the fact that private rails are typically quite short, usually just a few miles, many private lines have more than one locomotove in use. Although there are still lines that use cables, winches and pulleys to move their cars, gravity operations have largely fallen out of use. Most companies need more direct control over their equipment than this method provides. Thus, most modern locomotives are ones with an internal power source, often a diesel engine.

Believe it or not, just like a car battery can die and need a jump start, so can the battery of a locomotive. With a locomotive, no, it is not practicable to pull another engine up to it and use jumper cables to connect them, then give new life to the dead battery via a still live engine. So what does happen when some enormous locomotive engine dies? One answer is that a railroad locomotive starter can be brought in. This is a portable power supply to get the battery jump started again.

Time is money and private rail lines consist of very expensive equipment. Businesses simply cannot afford to let their private rails be idle for long periods. Thus, this is no time to make a phone call and wait for someone to show up. This is a time to have the power on hand that the company needs. It is not very different from using a lithium twin pack to do the same thing for a dead plane engine, a practice that seems to be more widely known.

The next time you see track in an odd place, remember that this might be a private line. They very often hide in plain sight.

Great things happen when visionaries
direct their talent and passion towards the design of an automobile.
Inventor Buckminster Fuller did so in the 1930s, and the result was
the creative, unique Dymaxion Car. It first appeared at the Chicago
World’s Fair in 1933, and bravely defied the conventions of the day.

Today, only one Dymaxion Car remains,
which can be found at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.
Though you won’t find this rare machine among the ranks of

classics cars for sale, it still transfixes classic automotive enthusiasts.
Staff at the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, which uses the slogan
“Unique cars from A to Z,” have been so transfixed that they’ve
spent the past eight years creating an exact replica of the Dymaxion
Car. On Tuesday, they announced that the recreation was complete, and
will be displayed from Thursday, February 26th.

“The Dymaxion just makes sense for us
to have at the (Lane Motor Museum),” said Jeff Lane, director of
the Lane Motor Museum. “The design is well ahead of its time and
its looks definitely fit the uniquely different philosophy we build
our collection around.”

It’s no wonder that the restorers and
technicians found the Dymaxion Car fascinating enough to recreate.
The car had the distinct, aerodynamic shape of a raindrop, a shape
that contrasted with the boxy shape of most cars of the time. It also
featured a cantilevered chassis that supported two fixed wheels at
the front and one steerable wheel at the back. The back wheel
operated like a boat tiller.

The car’s V8 engine was mounted at the
back, but the Dymaxion had front wheel drive. It was designed so that
it could perform a U-turn on a dime. It carried up to 11 people,
could achieve 30 miles per gallon, and could reach a top speed of 90
miles per hour. It must have been a very strange, supremely unique
experience to behold and operate such a car.

Odd or not, the Dymaxion Car was
supremely efficient. In today’s age of fuel efficiency and resource
preservation, the Dymaxion is an ideal model to look to. One might
even say that the design was well ahead of its time.

The Dymaxion Car will make its maiden
voyage from Nashville to northern Florida for the Amelia Island
Concours d’Elegance on March 15th.

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