Electric railway

“ The electric tram, clean, frequent, and rapid, will be everywhere; the electric cab will run at a normal fare of threepence a mile; perhaps also there will be electric overhead railways, constructed upon a system which does not interfere with the perspective of the main thoroughfares, for the overhead electric railway, whatever may be its defects, is a means of locomotion vastly preferable to the unventilated tubes on which we now pride ourselves. May we not also hope that the general application of electric force will do much to cleanse our atmosphere? ”

“ It is not generally known that the country people along the line of the electric railway make strange uses of the insulated rails, which are the medium of electricity on this tramway, in connection with one of which an extraordinary and very remarkable occurrence is reported. People have no objection to touch the rail and receive a smart shock, which is, however, harmless, at least so far. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The electric-railway systems have extended far out into the country-districts, making those districts residences for workers in the cities. They also to-day form connecting lines between cities. One can go from Portland, Me., through Boston to New York city by using the trolley-lines connecting the intervening towns. For underground railroads the electric system has not only the advantages of economy and efficiency but that of producing no smoke. The London Metropolitan Underground road is operated by electricity, and the new underground road in New York city uses the same method. ”

“ An electric railway will form part of the Electric Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, and among the proposals to be laid before Parliament next session is a project for constructing an electric railway between Northumberland Avenue and Waterloo Station. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wherever traffic is dense and the distance to be traversed not too great, the conditions are already present for the advent of this form of locomotive; and when we recall the rapidity with which city and suburban railways have spread, we can not doubt that once the problems of electric railway engineering are worked out, and the necessary preliminary work of demonstration gone through with, we will witness an equally rapid extension of electric traction to the steam highways of the world. ”

“ It is more than probable that amongst the earliest practical applications of electric motive-power on existing railways will be its introduction as an auxiliary on the steep gradients of some of the mountain railways abroad. In many of these regions there are millions of gallons of water running to waste down the ravines, a portion of which could be utilized in working powerful generating plant, to drive strong electric motor-cars for assisting the ordinary locomotives up the steep inclines. ”

“ As the first essential of a successful electric railway is a plentiful supply of cheap power, development from the experimental stage of Portrush had to wait until engineers mastered the art of producing electricity from large generators. ”

“ The chief disadvantage is the stoppage of all trains on a section if the source of current supply should fail. With proper precautions in design and construction this should be a remote possibility, and since electric rail haulage, in any form attempted up to the present, has shown a reduced cost for a given service as compared with steam traction, it is not improbable that the future will witness great activity in the change from steam to electricity for long-distance railway work. ”

“ The electric railway possesses great advantages over horse or steam power for towns, in tunnels, and in all cases where natural sources of energy, such as water-falls, are available; but it would not be reasonable to suppose that it will in its present condition compete with steam propulsion upon ordinary railways. ”

“ No difficulty is encountered in defining a street or a suburban electric railway. These are essentially local, are fundamentally passenger carriers, are to an inconsiderable extent engaged in interstate carriage, and transact freight business only incidentally and in a small volume. ”

“ The stoppage or breakdown of any car will automatically stop those following by cutting off the current.
In the early days of railway history lines were projected in all directions, regardless of the fact whether they would be of any use or not. Many of these lines began, where they ended, on paper. And now that the high-speed question has cropped up, we must not believe that every projected electric railway will be built, though of the ultimate prevalence of far [Pg 270] higher speeds than we now enjoy there can be no doubt. ”

“ In the United States the various States have each a railway commission, while the general Government is represented by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Electric Railways.—The use of electricity as a motive power has not only revolutionized suburban traffic but it has become a great factor in rural transportation as well. The speed of the horse-car rarely exceeded five or six miles per hour, while that of the electric car is about ten miles per hour in city streets and about twice as great over rural roads. ”

“ At the Paris Electrical Exhibition, the current was conveyed through two separate conductors making sliding or rolling contact with the carriage, whereas in the electric railway now in course of construction in the north of Ireland (which when completed will have a length of twelve miles) a separate conductor will be provided by the side of the railway, and the return circuit completed through the rails themselves, which in that case need not be insulated ”

“ In the railway world there is a growing conviction that the adoption of electric traction on all suburban and inter-urban railways must be simply a matter of time. For main line traffic the possibilities of using electricity are as yet only an article of faith among electrical engineers. ”

“ In the application of an automatic block system to an electric railway where the rails are used for the return circuit of the propulsion current, it is necessary to modify the system as usually applied to a steam railway and introduce a track circuit control that will not be injuriously influenced by the propulsion current. This had been successfully accomplished for moderately heavy electric railway traffic in the Boston elevated installation, which was the first electric railway to adopt a complete automatic block signal system with track circuit control. ”

“ Electric lights are now in general use in towns numbering their population by hundreds only. Electric transmission for street-railway service is practically universal and electric power for shop drive is in great demand. The substitution of the electric locomotive for the steam locomotive for terminal service and even for line duty by several leading railway systems is no longer a mere expectation but is an every-day working reality. ”

“ With these facts in mind, we shall ask the reader to assign to Edison a due proportion of credit for his pioneer and basic work in relation to the prodigious development of electric railroading that has since taken place. The statistics of 1908 for American street and elevated railways show that within twenty-five years the electric-railway industry has grown to embrace 38,812 miles of track on streets and for elevated railways, operated under the ownership of 1238 separate companies, whose total capitalization amounted to the enormous sum of $4,123,834,598. ”

“ The Rail Bond is now an essential basic feature of practically every one of the electric railway systems now in operation, since they all use the track for a return, and the track rails must be securely bonded in order to insure indispensable electrical continuity of the circuit. ”

“ There are 17 electric locomotives, ranging from 55 to 100 tons weight; 287 freight cars are owned, which have no electric equipment, are the same in all respects as steam railroad freight cars, are interchangeable with steam railroads, and are and have been regularly so exchanged. Foreign line freight equipment of every character flows freely over the road. ”

“ The electric railway recently set in operation between Frankfort and Offenbach furnishes an occasion for studying the question of such roads anew and from a practical standpoint. For elevated railways Messrs. Siemens and Halske a long time ago chose rails as current conductors. The electric railway from Berlin to Lichterfelde and the one at Vienna are in reality only elevated roads established upon the surface. ”

“ Engineering and legislative conditions combined to retard electric railway enterprise so that it did not begin to take firm root in Great Britain until about 1890, and did not attain to any conspicuous growth until the beginning of the twentieth century. ”

“ If the advance of electric traction on railways must be slow, it is because financial and not engineering considerations govern the speed of conversion. No railway company can take a step involving hundreds of thousands of pounds, and a revolution in working methods, without prolonged consideration and elaborate preparation. ”

“ Existing tramways can be adapted to this system with rapidity, and all experts bear testimony to the fact that electric haulage is comparatively so cheap, and the development of traffic on its adoption so great, that horse traction has no chance against it.
There are four kinds of electric-tramway traction which, though apparently rather puzzling, are readily explained. These are the Conduit; the Surface Contact; the Overhead (or trolley) ; in each of which the{133} current is conveyed to the line—as in an electric railway—from a power house ”

“ As regards the working voltage, this can be varied to suit special requirements, but the locomotive we illustrate was designed for 110 volts. At this pressure its possible working speed was at least eight miles per hour. The supply of power is also a matter not referred to particularly, as in many cases a lighting plant is used by the contractors, which could also be employed to provide the necessary energy for the electric railway. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From a few miles of crude tramways the world has in a century built 500,000 miles of steam operated and 100,000 miles of electrically operated roads; instead of spragging the wheels we rely on the automatic high-speed brake; the coupling of cars has become an imitation of the action of human hands instead of risking their destruction; each train finds the condition of road ahead and protects itself by the agency of electric circuits and semaphores, the sequence of whose operation discloses on behalf of safety any obstruction of the route ”

“ 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.) ”

“ The Electric Telegraph has also been found a valuable auxiliary in ensuring the safe working of large railway traffics. Though the locomotive may run at 60 miles an hour, electricity, when at its fastest, travels at the rate of 288,000 miles a second, and is therefore always able to herald the coming train. The electric telegraph may, indeed, be regarded as the nervous system of the railway. ”

“ As electricity has been so successful in the street railway, where it has superseded all other forms of motive power, it might naturally be supposed that it would do equally well in the automobile; but when the difference in the conditions is taken into consideration it will be found that such a conclusion is not justified. In the street railway systems the cars run continuously over the same route, and on that account the electric current required to operate the motors can be conveyed to them from a central power station by means of wires. ”