Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-07-02
The Future Of the Electric Railway.

1T Is now nearly forty years since
Professor Pages discoveries in electrioi-
BY suggested 10 him the possibility of an
electric railway; but in those days the
costly galvanio battery was the only
source of electricity available for such
purposes, and his experimental electric
locomotive was practical failure. His
power cost too much, and his machine
labored under the disadvantage of hav-
ing to carry a considerable load of bat
terry cells, the action of which was ma
terially interiered with by the iarring
and oscillation of the train when its
speed approached three or four miles an
hour.
The development of dynamo-electrio
machines during recent years has so
lessened the cost of electricity as mo-
tive power as to remove the most seri-
Gus obstacle to the success of Professor
Pages experiments. During the same
time the transmission of powerful cur
rents of cheaply generated electricity,
through conductors Of considerable
length, and the re-conversion of such
currents into working force by economi-
cal motors, have become a matter of
everyday occurrence. tits quite natural
and appropriate therefore that the
problem Of electrical propulsion should
again come to the front, this time with
every prospect Of speedy solution.
The problem had so long been in
allegiance that when DR.. Siemens set up
his electrical merry -go.round in Berlin
last year, most men were disposed TO
look upon him as the prOpounder of
radically novel idea, and the electric
railway as the product of the latest
speculative thought in this direction.
And when Mr.. Edison adopted the sys-
tenn for practical use not a few people
thought that he had switched off from
the line of practical work to play with a
novel toy, the outcome purely Of his ex-
periments in electric lightning. g
The electric railway, however, is not
plaything. 1t is a practical reality,
though just now entering upon the stage
of useful and economical development.
1t opens a field of invention and inn
provement as wide and profitable
probably as was opened up by the first
steam locomotive; and we have no
doubt that during the next fifty years it
may work as great changes in the
processes and economies of life as steam
railways have during the half century
just past.
On the little electric railway set up by
DR.. Siemens in Berlin, the locomotive
obtained its power from a special cleo
trio conductor running between the car
rails, the current being returned through
the rails. Mr.. Edison has simplified
matters by throwing out the central ca
BILE as a needless expense. He makes
the track itself the conductor, sending
the current up one rail and down the
other, the locomotive being operated by
the current forming a circuit through It
when proper connections are made.
For readers unfamiliar with electrical
motors it may be necessary TO say that
the power for the running of the electric
locomotive is generated by stationary
boiler and engine, and transformed into
electricity by an electric generator at
the central station. As was suggested
by the elderly lady fearful of boiler ex-
plosions, the water is boiled at home,
and that source of danger is removed
from the list of travellers risks. And as
the efficiency of a stationary engine is
several times greater than that of To-
comotive engine, it is possible to con-
vert the power of a stationary engine
into electricity, transmit it to The loco
motive upon the track, and there recon-
vert it into working force as economi-
cally as Cf not much more economically
than) power can be directly evolved by
the CONT ustion of coal in a locomotive
furnace.
In the present stage Of his expert
mental apparatus, Mr.. Edison claims
that he can realize in his locomotives
seventy per cent. of the power applied
to the electrical generator. The track
is spiked TO ties, as in the construction
Of an ordinary railway, and the loss OF
electricity in transmission is not more
than five per cent, even when the track
is wet. If there is no error in these
| figures, and we see no reason to suspect
them, the economy of the electric
railway is established. Its apparent ad-
vantages over steam roads are numerous.
In the first place, the locomotive is light,
comparatively inexpensive, and does not
require fireman or skilled engineer to
run it. The lightness of the locomotive
greatly relieves the track, which need
not be nearly so strong and heavy for a
| given service. The wheels of the loco
motive can be given any desired trac-
ton upon the rails, so that a light en-
gine can pull train up grades which
are entirely impracticable with the ordi-
nary locomotive. The track may there
fore follow any ordinary road; and
when the road is used purely for freight
ing, as in conveying ores from mines,
the road may run where other roads
would be quite impractoable.
For city use, the electric railway
promises to be exceptionally useful,
both for the conveyance of passengers
and for carrying packages, Cars pro-
PEELED and governed by electricity might
supersede horse-cars on the surface
roads; and, even II no cheaper, the
sanitary advantages OF the electric road,
resulting from the disuse of horses,
would be considerable. Indeed, it is not
impossible that the city of the future
may dispense with horses entirely for
general trucking as well as for passen-
ger traffic, the roads being laid with
numerous lines of fiat rails transmitting
the power required for propelling car
riages Of every sort. The absence of
noise, dust, friction, and the inevitable
filth attending the use of horses, prom
ises in the new dynamo electric period
n wonderful mitigation of the present
evils of city life. On the elevated
roads the lighter electric engines would
be comparatively noiseless, and, unlike
steam locomotives, would not be con-
stantly pouring into the air sparks, Gin
ders, and other offensive products of
combustion; and the same power
which propelled the cars would light
them.
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