Electric locomotive

“ On the other hand, an electric locomotive weighing 75 tons and having a tractive effort of 34,000 lb at 6 m. per hour will exert a pull of about 27,000 lb at 25 m. per hour. From this it is clear that an electric locomotive may pull a heavier train at a fair speed than can a larger steam locomotive. ”

“ With such a locomotive two men can distribute and gather up from one hundred to one hundred and twenty cars in an ordinary eight-hour working-day, hauling from three hundred to three hundred and fifty tons of coal.
In certain regions, a system of third-rail current-supply is used, this rail being also a tooth rail with which a cog on the locomotive works frictionally. For climbing steep grades this system of cogged rails has many advantages over other systems.
Another type of electric locomotive used in some mines is a self-propelling or automobile one equipped with storage batteries. ”

“ A 100-ton electric locomotive can haul a train of 800 tons under the same conditions. The total train weights are thus 580 and 900 tons and the electric locomotive weighs 100 tons less than the steam locomotive, resulting in the consequent saving in the ton mileage of dead weight.
The operating conditions and the reliability of service are improved in all classes of traffic by the substitution of electricity. The construction of the electric locomotive is far simpler. The steam locomotive comprises fire box, boiler, steam engine and facilities for handling coal and water. ”

“ By the use of electric locomotives in terminals for switching service great economies are effected. Since the electric locomotive operates in either direction and takes its entire power supply from the trolley or third rail, much useless mileage of locomotives in going to and from the turn-table, the water-tank and the coal-chute is avoided. ”

“ Electricity as a locomotive force is being presented to the public in various forms. There is the ordinary railway, like the Underground, that, cleansing itself, amending its ways, and becoming converted to the new order of traction, has been granted a new lease of life. Then there are new lines laid down, intended from the first to be electrical, with specially designed cars, diving beneath the Thames, and connecting the north and south of London. These are our metropolitan pioneer electric railways. ”

“ But in the recent inventions which have been in practical operation in many places, it is found quite easy to dispense with any current producer on the electric locomotive itself, for the electricity is supplied by a fixed dynamo and the current is transmitted along the line by a conductor from which a sliding contact conveys it to the electro-motor, which is attached to the framework of the carriage and acts on the driving axles of the wheels directly or by toothed gear. ”

“ In many ways the electric locomotive has distinct advantages over its rivals, steam and compressed air, for these narrow gage lines. Reviewing these advantages briefly, we see that the electrical equipment is more economical to work, as one good stationary engine develops power much more cheaply than several small locomotives. Again, the electric locomotive can be more readily designed for narrow gages than steam or compressed air locomotives.
Fig. 1—AN ELECTRIC LINE EQUIPPED ON THE KOPPEL SYSTEM.
Fig. ”

“ The sphere of action of the electric-railway motor is not confined to street railways or suburban transit, but extends to the legitimate domain of the steam locomotive. In many places electric locomotives are used to move freight trains made up of cars of the largest capacity, this same work having been done formerly by steam locomotives. In the city of Baltimore, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad uses electric locomotives, of greater capacity than any steam locomotives so far made, to draw trains through the tunnel that passes under the city. ”

“ The opinion is generally held that railroad companies desire to obtain as large a return as possible upon their investment, and therefore to run their trains as cheaply as possible. If this be true, the value of an electric railway will become obvious, when one remembers that, of necessity, the present locomotive is wasteful in the extreme, and that in an electric railway a large and economical stationary engine renders its mechanical energy to a large and economical dynamo which sends an electric current to an economical motor on an electric locomotive. ”

“ If you succeed in showing me that you can build and operate an electric locomotive that will speed two miles a minute on a level track and will get a heavy drag over the mountain grades, as I said, as surely as two engines of the coal-burning or oil-burning type, I will pay you a hundred thousand dollars bonus, besides buying all the engines you can build of this new type for the first two years. ”

“ The NCR engine house had just been completed when employees clustered around the Dayton for this photograph.
One of the first engine crews poses by the Rubicon.
The Diesel-electric locomotive which replaced them is a 50-ton eight-wheel unit manufactured by the General Electric Company at Erie, Pa. It is powered by two 150-horsepower engines, each driving a D.C. generator. In turn, each of the generators powers a D.C. motor geared to an axle. A powered axle drives two wheels directly, and by side arms two other wheels are also driven. Thus, the locomotive is powered by two independent units. ”

“ There were in 1912 about 41,000 miles of track operated by electricity in the United States; over 76,000 passenger cars were in service and 12,100,000 passengers were carried, all of which goes to show that there is money in electrical inventions for somebody.
The Electric Locomotive.—The 1913 type of electric locomotive used on the New York Central is fifty-seven feet long, weighs 110 tons, has eight motors of 325 horsepower each, which are mounted on four trucks and driving eight axles. ”

“ The pilot and headlight of the freight locomotive came around the turn and the freight thundered on toward the switch. Seeing the group of men standing by the stalled electric locomotive, and the locomotive itself in the clear of the siding, the driver of the freight did not suppose the switch was open. Nobody who was not a criminal would have stood by idly in such an emergency and let the freight run into an open switch. ”

“ How shall we make him most effective for the future necessities of our American railroad structure? There are more than 67,000 of him upon our railroads to-day. He is a factor in their progress that cannot be ignored. They can ill afford to have him remain a laggard, no matter how brisk may be the inroads of his competitor, the electric locomotive.
The steam railroad of the United States seemingly came to the pinnacle of its efficiency about twelve years ago. ”

“ The fascinations of a model steam locomotive, with its furnace, hissing of steam, business-like puffings, and a visible working of piston and connecting rods, are not to be denied, any more than that a full-sized steam locomotive is a more imposing object at rest or in motion than its electric rival. On the other hand, the ease of control already noticed, and the absence of burning fuel, water leakage, smoke and fumes, are strong points in favour of the electric track, which does no more harm to a carpet than to a front lawn, being essentially clean to handle. ”

“ Edward Trevett's book on Electric Railroad Engineering, the first electric railway was constructed by Thomas Davenport, a blacksmith, of Brandon, Vt., who exhibited in Springfield, Mass., in 1835, a small model electric engine, running upon a circular track, the circuit being furnished by primary batteries carried in the car. The invention was crude and of little practical value, "but the idea was there." Three years later, Robert Davidson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, began experiments in order to supplant the steam railway locomotive by the electric locomotive. ”

“ I must look over the field of electrical invention as applied to motive power. I must study things out."
"I don't just see myself," Ned Newton remarked thoughtfully, "why there should be such a great need for the electrification of locomotives, anyway. Those great mountain-hogs that draw most of the mountain railroad trains are very powerful, aren't they? And they are speedy."
"Locomotives that use coal or oil have been developed about as far as they can be," said Mr. Swift, quietly. "A successful electric locomotive has many advantages over the old-time engine." ”

“ C. G. Page, of Salem, Mass., constructed an electric engine of considerable power, which drew a car on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, between Washington and Bladensburg, with a highest speed attained of nineteen miles an hour. In the same year Thomas Hall, of Boston, built an electric locomotive in which the current was conducted from a stationary source through the rails and the wheels to the motor. Dr. Joseph R. Finney, of Pittsburg, about this time devised a trolley apparatus. In 1879 Messrs. Siemens and Halske exhibited their electric railway at Berlin. ”

“ It is not a question of engineering but of finance, and high-speed, heavy electric roads are likely to come when the traffic will support trains at short intervals. The application of electric traction to trains of more than several cars requires a large electric locomotive or a special system of control, so that the motors on each can be controlled by one motorman. The only system in use to-day is the Sprague multiple-unit system, a most ingenious system. (See Street Railway Journal, May, 1901.) ”

“ With one locomotive pulling a long train it is entirely different, as the adding of a number of cars is counteracting the traction of the former, and must be equalized by a corresponding weight of the locomotive, thus furnishing a dead load of no benefit, and besides, necessitating an increased motive force. In making up a train of these independent car motors, flexible electric connections will enable the engineer in the front car to control all the motors, and thus operate the whole train. ”

“ Under the head of cost the electric locomotive comes out well, as motors can be purchased cheaply; and connecting them up with driving wheels is a much less troublesome business than the construction of an equally efficient steamer. One may add that the electric motor is ready to start at a moment’s notice: there is no delay corresponding to that caused by the raising of steam. ”

“ I mean to say that the first experiments in the use of electricity as a motive power were along the electrification of the steam locomotive. Everybody realized that if a motor could be built powerful enough and speedy enough to drag a heavy freight or passenger train over the ordinary railroad right of way, the cost of railroad operation would be enormously decreased. ”

“ There is still some doubt in the minds of railway engineers whether electric traction is really superior to the steam locomotive on the main railway lines, where distances are great and train loads heavy. ”

“ In addition to his mechanical contrivances inside the locomotive, Tom had to arrange for an increased supply of electric power to drive the huge machine around the track that was being built inside the stockade.
A regular station had to be built for receiving the electricity in a 100,000-volt alternating current and delivering it to the locomotive in a 3,000-volt direct current. ”

“ When the babbling voice of the Half Way operator over the telephone warned Hammon of the coming of the runaway electric locomotive, there was time to shift switches at the head of the yard so that, when Number Twenty-eight came roaring in, she was shunted on to a far track and flagged for a stop before she hit the bumper.
Thirty seconds later, from the west, the Hercules 0001 roared down the grade and shot into the cleared west track in a halo of smoke and dust. Speed! No runaway had ever traveled faster and kept the rails. ”

“ A miniature electric railway is a thing that attracts the attention of almost any person. The cost of a toy electric locomotive is beyond the reach of many boys who could just as well make such a toy without much expense and be proud to say they "built it themselves." The electric locomotive described herewith uses for its power a small battery motor costing about $1. The first thing to do is to make the wheels and axles. If one has no lathe, the wheels can be turned at some machine shop. Four wheels are made from a round bar of metal, as shown in Fig. 1. Each wheel is 1/4 in. ”

“ It is thus able to be accelerated rapidly after a stop, and also climb steep grades without slipping its wheels. Nevertheless, there are circumstances which favor the employment of a locomotive at the head of a train, as in steam practice. This is the case in lines where a train of coal or ore cars is drawn by electric mining locomotives. Many such plants are in operation, and, at the same time the electric power is used to drive fans for ventilating, pumps for drainage, electric hoists, etc., besides being used for lighting the mines. ”

“ There has been a steady improvement in the power and efficiency of locomotives, but progress has reached a point at which further increases in speed and accelerating power (a very important matter) are not attainable without a prohibitive increase in the consumption of coal and a costly strengthening of the railway track to stand the strain of heavier engines pounding along at very high speeds. Electric traction, which is a reversion in part to the stationary engine system, offers a means of escape from the limitations of the locomotive. ”

“ That the automatic electric signal system is complicated, and in many of its [176] parts of most delicate construction, is undeniable. So also is the locomotive. In point of fact the whole railroad organization from beginning to end—from machine-shop to train-movement—is at once so vast and complicated, so delicate in that action which goes on with such velocity and power, that it is small cause for wonder that in the beginning all plain, sensible, practical men scouted it as the fanciful creation of visionaries. ”