Carroll Free Press

Miller's Steam Brake.—A steam car-brake, designed to supersede the one now operated by hand on our railroads, has been invented by Henry Miller, Esq., of Detroit, and it appears to be a very decided improvement. It was tried upon the Pontiac Railroad last fall, and since that time has been put to some pretty severe tests upon the Michigan Central Railroad. On the 7th inst. it was applied to a train of five cars, viz: one baggage, one second-class and three passenger cars, drawn by a locomotive weighing twenty-eight tons, with six feet two inch drivers—whole weight of train 104 tons—and brakes were applied to twenty pairs of wheels, under the cars only. The result was as follows: on the first trial, with the train moving at the velocity of thirty miles per hour, the train was brought to a perfect stop in seven hundred feet, taking twenty seconds of time. On the second trial, with train moving forty miles per hour, it was brought to a stand-still in nine hundred and forty-five feet, and twenty-six seconds of time. On the third trial the train was backed down two miles, and coming up, ran the last mile in one minute and twenty five seconds. It was brought to a full stop in one thousand and six feet, taking twenty-eight seconds of time, the train not running over three miles per hour for the last three hundred feet. The invention, if what it seems to be, is a very important one on a number of accounts: 1. A train can be stopped in one-third of the distance and one-third of the time usually required at stations. 2, The stoppage or control of the train in given to the engineer, the only person who can know the necessity of stopping and the danger to be avoided. 3. The steam operating simultaneously upon each brake of each car at the same instant, holds every car in its proper place, and steadies the engine and train.