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From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Description of the MONO-DRIVE automatic transmission system and its commercial application in a streamlined Rail-Plane.

Identifier  ExFiles\Box 136\4\  scan0087
Date  24th April 1934 guessed
  
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It is possible to go to 15 or 50 m.p.h. in second, as the driver desires. With the foot off the gas the car will drift to a stop or can be stopped with a jerk by using the regular brake but the motor cannot be stalled. At 5 m.p.h. in the slow drift of traffic, the device mechanically puts itself into first gear so that it offers the perfect service of an unseen robot doing his master's nerve-wracking tasks. There is nothing that any conventional gear system does that the device cannot do better. The one installation in use has been driven 67,000 miles. At 40,000 it was removed from the car and no perceptible wear was found. It is composed of standard materials.

The MONO-DRIVE will be announced to the public in a few months. It now has one commercial installation, not on an automobile, but this must remain a trade secret for a month or two. It was the choice of one of America's smartest engineers who had permission to go ahead and disregard all conventions in order to supply the most advanced product obtainable.

N.B. The commercial installation referred to above is on the STREAMLINED RAIL-PLANE developed for the Pullman Car and Manufacturing Company, by the Stout Engineering Laboratories of Detroit.

Sixty feet in length with a seating capacity for fifty persons, the "RAIL-PLANE" weighs about 25,000 pounds. It is streamlined, and has an indicated speed capacity of 90 miles an hour. Aerodynamic experience and wind tunnel tests determined its bullet shape. The engines, two in number are mounted on the forward truck, on the space between the outside of the wheels and outside of the car proper. Here they offer no impediment to the wind, and can easily be reached for repairs. One engine drives the front axle and the other drives that in the rear. All mechanism is controlled by one operator in the car's nose. Mono-Drive automatic transmission, recently described in these columns, is used. Axles are worm-drive, without differentials.

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