The Portland daily press., 1892-09-17
ELECTRICAL POWER.
It Will Soon be Used for Railway
Locomotives.
An Expert Tells Walter weIlman That
Trains VIII Run from New York to
Chicago in Eight Hours-Wonderful
improvements In Progress.
Especial Correspondence

| Especial Correspondence
WASHINGTON, Sept. 81 was some
what startled today while talking with
distinguished electrical engineer who
was in Washington on business con-
nected with the patent Office. Gin five
years." said he, '.you and I will be rid
ing from New York to Chicago behind
electric locomotives at a speed of 1876
miles an hour"
eDo you really believe that" asked
| in establishment.
"I almost know it," was the reply.
"I can see it coming. We are only on
the threshold of the electrical world.
| The power of the future is electricity
| Do not think me an enthusiast nor a
dreamer. AS you know, am thor
oughly practical engineer. have made
fortune out of the business, and I only
wish l was younger that might be sure
of living to see the realization of the
great plans which happen to know are
even now being reduced to practical
shape.
"Within year think you will see
electric locomotives taking the place of
steam on our great railways, just as
+ they have already supplanted other
I motors for city and suburban traffic.
when a start is once made, revolu-
ton will quickly follow. At first the
electrical locomotive may not run much
faster than the new compound cylinder
steam locomotive, which easily makes a
mile minute on long distances. I came
down to Washington yesterday on one
of the Royal Blue expresses. The time
from New York is five hours. Twenty
minutes Of this time is lost crossing from
New York to Jersey City and getting
under speed out Of the Jersey City yard.
Ten minutes is lost at Philadelphia in
stoppage and reduced speed, and about
twenty-five minutes at Baltimore, where
the entire train is ferried across the bay
on a transfer steamer, and where the de-
tour into the station is somewhat slow
for four or five miles. There were other
minor losses, and the actual running
time from Jersey City to Washington
station was about four hours, or say PAS
minutes. The distance is 22S miles.
"That comes very near a mile a min
ute, you see, and is, in my Judgment,
the fastest and finest run made by any
train in the world, not excepting the
Empire State express on the New York
Central. That train runs 44O miles in
$50 minutes, a little faster schedule than
the Royal Blue, but having less loss by
stops. The actual run is not SO speedy.
AS I rode down here by the Royal Blue
I noticed the vast sums of money that
had been spent to produce such perfect
track, motive power and rolling stock,
and said to myself that the electrical
locomotive would have a hard task be-
fore it if it set out to eclipse this mag
nifcent speed, for we made mile after
mile in fifty-two seconds, or speed of
nearly seventy miles an hour.
"But know the powers of electricity
when properly applied, and know
what the inventors are doing, and am
sure that the near future will give us
an electric locomotive making double
the speed of these compound cylinder
steam flyers. In a very few years we
shall travel from New York to Chicago
i in eight hours, or perhaps seven, where
as it now takes twenty-five by the linn
tied trains. To make this great speed /
think there will be some changes in
track and rolling stock. The rails will
have device which will absolutely pre-
vent the cars leaving the track, and the
cars will in all probability be much
lighter than they now are. These are
the conditions which will produce the
g H. Ed
tracks, less dead load in the cars, cleo
trical power"
"What do you think of electricity as
a power in other directionsr' I asked.
ssIt is the power Of the future in al
most everything. The steam engine as
a motor must go. For instance, you
will live to see the steam engine ban
ished from ocean steamships. Instead
of dead load of from 900 to 1000 tons
of coal carried in the hold, fed to huge
furnaces by small army of stokers who
work in a veritable hades-the average
life of the steamship stoker is only seven
years-ships will put to sea with their
motive power stored away in electrical
reservoirs, to be used as wanted by
In6 Uufn OF d lever alu WlIuOu6 one
tenth part OF the weight or consuming
one-fftieth of the space Of the coal
supply now provided. What is true of
the large ocean steamships is true of a
great variety of other craft, large and
small. Ultimately electricity will sup
plant steam in all of them, giving great
er economy of energy, of space, of la
Dor, of risk"
"What are the especially new things
in the electrical feldF
''There are so many new things in the
electrical line that I could not begin to
mention them. Electricity is coming
into everything-industrial, domestic,
mechanical. The most important things
in the electrical world today are the de-
velopment of the storage battery motor
for city railway lines, the perfection of
the high speed locomotives for long dis
lance railways, and new and 1nysteri
Gus and wonderful thing promised by
Thomas A. Edison. just what this is
do not know.
sMr. Edison is a friend of mine, and
l often meet him. But the day has
passed in which outsiders can find out