Electric tram

“ 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? ”

“ Dismissing all these systems, we turn to electricity, as admittedly the best agent for tramway traction, and, until some marvellous discovery displaces it as a force, likely to remain and to become universally adopted.{132}
Blackpool was first in the field with an electric tramway in 1883. Several other provincial districts followed suit, including Bristol and Stockton-on-Tees. London, in 1900, welcomed the completion of Mr. J. Clifton Robinson’s great scheme for electrifying that portion of the London United Tramways running between Hammersmith and Kew. ”

“ Even were they laid, the trouble would not cease, for a tram is confined to its track, and cannot make way for other traffic. This inadaptability has been the cause of the great outcry lately raised against the way in which tram-line companies have monopolised the main streets and approaches to many of our largest towns. While the electric tram is beneficial to a large class of people, as a cheap method of locomotion between home and business, it sadly handicaps all owners of vehicles vexatiously delayed by the tram. ”

“ Along the Boulevard Andrassy at Buda-Pesth there is a shallow electric tramway built upon similar principles, a few feet under the main thoroughfare, which is by no means a failure, financially or otherwise. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Ninety-five per cent. of the world’s electric tramways are worked on the overhead principle. The distribution of electric energy is by means of a wire, called the trolley wire, upheld by insulated brackets on poles twenty feet above the ground, along the entire track, which is divided into sections, each section taking its current from the main conductor-wire, which is laid underground, through the iron poles. Should any one section of the trolley wires meet with mishap, only the cars working on that section are stopped ”

“ But the practicability and the economy of a system of electric tram-cars has yet to be proved; for the experiments at Antwerp, while they show the perfection of the electric car as a means of conveyance, have not yet finally determined all the questions which arise in the consideration of the subject. For instance, with regard to economy, the engine employed to generate the electricity was not in thoroughly good order, and from its being used to do other work than charging the accumulators of the tram-car, the consumption of fuel had to be to some extent estimated. ”

“ STEVE'S new station was located on the main line of the electric tram road. Long rows of dump cars were drawn there by an electric motor, on which sat a motor-man controlling the speed of the car with one hand, and with the other continually ringing a gong warning everyone to get out of the way. ”

“ The general conclusion to which these experiments bring us is that, undoubtedly, if it could certainly be relied upon, the electric car would be the preferable form of tramway motor in towns, because it is simply a self-contained ordinary tram-car, and in a town the service requires a number of separate cars, occupying as small a space each as is compatible with accommodating the passengers, and which follow each other at rapid intervals. ”

“ Under the sanction of the Brighton Town Council, the Magnus Volk Co., Ltd., now work the Brighton Beach Electric Tram-railway, which at its opening was regarded as a great novelty and curiosity, constituting an additional attraction and amusement to “London by the sea,” and tens of thousands must have taken a ride in its little open cars since it came into existence twenty years ago. The gauge is but 2 feet 81⁄2 inches, the “feeders” are underground, the propelling system is electric, with a third rail, and its speed is about 12 miles an hour. ”

“ Then up-to-date towns provided with electric traction thicken on the Lancashire coast as far as Fleetwood. In the Isle of Man there are no fewer than four electric tramways. Except at Glasgow and district, the west of Scotland is bare of any kind of tram, and continues so round the North Cape and the East Coast until we come to Aberdeen, Dundee, and Kirkcaldy. ”

“ The inflexible nature of a tramway system has been the principal factor in securing the popularity of a free road vehicle, and at the present moment the motor omnibus is able to compete directly with great success against the electric tram car. So it came about that passenger transport was very rapidly converted to mechanical power. If London is taken as an example, we find that at the present moment over 95 per cent. of passenger transport is carried on by mechanical vehicles, while certainly not more than 15 per cent. ”

“ The engines used to produce this are of 16,000 h.p. capacity, while each of the generators is of the great weight of ninety tons, almost the largest in existence for traction work.
Altogether, the tramway enterprise of Glasgow is in its magnitude and its good management almost unique. The size of its power-house will be surpassed by that which supplies the Electrified Metropolitan District Railway; but the wise and economical arrangement of its traffic can hardly be beaten, and is a model to other large cities and towns contemplating the adoption of electric tramway traction. ”

“ There is a large sphere open to the motor bus outside districts where the electric tram would enter into serious competition with it. We have before us a sketch-map of the Great Western Railway, one of the most enterprising systems with regard to its use of motors to feed its rails. ”

“ These runnings away of electric trams called for increased attention to the question of brakes, which, though they will always hold a car on a stiff incline on dry rails, yet when the track is greasy they introduce an element of danger by reason of their very power. They skid the wheels, which is always a source of great danger. In such cases safety lies in relaxing the pressure, but it needs a wary brain and firm nerves to ease off the brake at all when the car has already bolted. ”

“ So long as fares are determined by arbitrary conditions, little can be done to increase the revenue on an electric tramway system. Such matters as the weather and the extent of building operations have far more influence on tramway traffic than anything the tramway manager can do to assist it. Apart from the development of parcels traffic, his best opportunities lie in the skilful adjustment of the service to the varying needs of the public, so that the 'rush' hours find an adequate supply of cars, while the quieter hours find no 'waste car mileage' in the form of empty cars. ”

“ This is a far more important point in tramway economics than it appears to be at first sight. The superiority of the electric tramway over the horse tramway depends less upon higher speed than upon the fact that less time is wasted in stopping to pick up and set down passengers. ”

“ What the automobile is to the comfortable classes the electric tram is becoming to the poorer. It is a means of getting into town. It does not, however, produce the same psychological effects. For one thing, the speed is not so great, and you have not the least anxiety as to what it may choose to run into; if you want to see things you are at a greater height, your range of sight is much longer. ”

“ Apart from such a large project as the electrification of the District and Metropolitan Railways, there is scarcely a municipal authority in Great Britain which has not in hand some scheme of electric railway, tramway, or lighting. It is as well to think that electricity is not the agent of the future, but of the present, and an era which has already dawned. ”

“ The higher speeds with more frequent, more comfortable, and more commodious cars have created a volume of traffic far beyond what could have been handled with horse traction. The change also led to a great increase in the length of tramway routes and to the construction of new tramway systems. In 1898, when the electric tramway movement began in earnest, there were 1064 miles of tramway in the United Kingdom. Now there are 2562 miles, and the number of tramway passengers is more than double the total of third class passengers on the whole system of British railways. ”

“ A regenerative tramway may thus be represented, from the energy point of view, as one in which all the cars are running at normal speeds on level roads.
Incidentally the regenerative system gives a very perfect control of the speed of the car on all gradients, owing to the regeneration which begins automatically when the motors start 'coasting.' It is a power-saver and a brake in one; and its efficacy as a means of control is so great that, if its incidental drawbacks could be avoided, it would be worth adopting for this purpose alone, both on electric tramways and on electric railways. ”

“ But since the British Electric Traction Company had invaded the Five Towns, and formed a subsidiary local company, and constructed dozens of miles of new line, and electrified everything, and raised prices, and abolished season tickets, and quickened services, and built hundreds of cars and engaged hundreds of conductors—since then a tram-conductor had been naught but an unhuman automaton in a vast machine-like organization. And passengers no longer had their favourite conductors. ”

“ But with electric traction the main item is the cost of the standing equipment—the power house, [Pg 26] mains, and overhead lines—and unless that equipment is adequately utilised the revenue will not cover the standing charges. A fifteen-minute service is, generally speaking, the lowest economic limit on an electric tramway. Every tramway manager tries to attract sufficient passengers for a more frequent service ”

“ They seat thirty inside and thirty-nine outside passengers, have spring cushions covered with plush moquette, and ceilings panelled in bird’s-eye maple. There are electric push-buttons for signalling the motor-man; electric light is provided, and ventilators extend the whole length of the car, ensuring an abundant supply of fresh air.
No cars, however, in Great Britain have reached the pitch of perfection attained in America by the palace and parlour tramcars ”

“ Electric tramways have reached a period of middle age in which they are more concerned about their internal economy than the prospect of enterprise in new directions. Such development as they feel capable of making under present legislative conditions is only by proxy and tentatively, with the aid of the trolley omnibus. ”

“ The first thing which strikes one about the trolley omnibus in comparison with the electric tramcar is the cheapness in first cost. All the expense of concrete foundations, heavy rails, and granite paving [Pg 62] is avoided. On ordinary roads the overhead construction is much less costly, as a single line of poles supporting two wires is sufficient for the up and down services. Estimates show that the equipment of a mile of roadway on this system will cost only from one-fourth to one-third of the corresponding tramway system. ”

“ At one stage, no doubt, people were a little too enthusiastic about electric traction. They imagined that electric traction would create profitable traffic along the most deserted of side streets. Acting on that theory, municipalities constructed—or forced tramway companies to construct—lines along roads which could never supply [Pg 58] enough traffic to justify the expenditure involved. The interest on capital and other standing charges for an electric tramway route are so substantial that a certain minimum of traffic density must exist before any profit at all can be earned. ”

“ The motor-omnibus requires no special track, no overhead wires, no power station and sub-stations, and no costly widenings of streets and roads or rebuilding of bridges. Consequently, the capital expenditure involved in the provision of a large stock of motor-omnibuses is far less, in proportion, than that entailed by electric tramways providing an equivalent service. The motor-omnibus, too, has greater freedom in a busy thoroughfare—and is thus quicker in its movements—than the tramway car, limited to a fixed track and much more liable to be detained by blocks of traffic. ”

“ A further rival to the electric tramway is arising in the system of railless electric traction, the fundamental principle of which is the application of electric power, derived from overhead wires, to electric cars, resembling motor-omnibuses (or alternatively, to goods lorries and vans) , driven on ordinary roads without rails, and capable of being steered in and out of the traffic over the whole width of the roadway. ”

“ If, in the result, private enterprise, thus driven to adopt new expedients in locomotion, should so far perfect a motor-omnibus, or any other alternative service, that the electric tramway will not only have a powerful competitor but be largely superseded, the position of the municipalities which first sought to exclude or to exploit private enterprise and then invested large sums in speculative tramway undertakings of their own will be sufficiently serious. ”