Background
KEARNEY, Elfric Wells Chalmers was born on February 3, 1881 in Geelong, Australia. Son of Reverend A. W. Kearney, Master of Arts.
KEARNEY, Elfric Wells Chalmers was born on February 3, 1881 in Geelong, Australia. Son of Reverend A. W. Kearney, Master of Arts.
Privately in Australia and England. Inventor of the Kearney High-Speed Railway. Has been deeply interested in questions of transit since childhood, and has specialised in the problem of evolving a practical railway system by which 100 miles an hour and over will be possible.
Exhibited a working model of his system to a company of engineers and others in June 1908. The model was subsequently tested and approved of by the Board of Trade when it attained a speed of over 20 miles an hour, a pace never before equalled with a model railway of similar size. Has patented a method by which the construction of tube railways will be reduced very materially in first cost.
Invented and exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1910 a working model of the mono-tube. Is the inventor and patentee of the gas switch. First came to public notice in connection with his personal petition to King Edward VII. in October 1901, when he obtained the release of three members of the 5th Victorian Contingent to South Africa sentenced to twelve years penal servitude for a trifling military offence. Engineer and Managing Director of the Kearney High-Speed Railway Company, Ltd.