The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1892-09-29
ELECTRICAL POWER.
1T WILL SOON BE USED FOR RAIL
WAY LOCOMOTIVES.
An Export Tells Walter wellman That
Trains VIII Run from Now York to
Chicago In Eight Hours-wonderfu
improvements in Progress.
Especial Correspondence

WASHINGTON, Sept. 81 was some
what startled today while talking with
a distinguished electrical engineer who
was in Washington on business con-
nected with the patent Office. .In five
years." said he, "you and will be rid
ing from New York to Chicago behind
electric locomotives at speed Of 1876
miles an hour"
"Do you really believe that?" asked
in establishment.
~ almost know It," was the reply.
~ can SEQ 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 a thor
oughly practical engineer. 1 have made
fortune out of the business, and only
wish was younger that might be sure
of living to see the realization of the
great plans which happen to know arc
even now being reduced to practical
shape.
within a year think you will sec
electric locomotives taking the place of
steam ON our great railways, just as
they have already supplanted other
motors for city and suburban traffic.
when 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 q
mile a minute on long distances. Icame
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 1T Baltimore, where
the entire train is ferried across the bay
OH IL transfer steamer. and where the de-
tour into the Station is somewhat slow
for four or five miles. There were other
minor losses, aI.d the actGul running
time from Jersey City to Washington
station was about four hours, OF say 245
minutes. The distance is 228 miles.
That comes very near a mile min
ute, YOU SEQ, 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
$50 minutes, q little faster schedule than
the Royal Blue, but having less loss by
stops. The actual run is not so speedy.
AS rode down here by tho Royal Blue
noticed the vast sums of money that
had been spent to produce such perfect
track, motive power and rolling stock,
and said 10 myself that the electrical
locomotive would have hard task be-
fore it if it set out to eclipse this mag
nificent speed, for we made mile after
mile in fifty-two seconds, or q 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 very few years we
shall travel from New York to Chicago
in eight hours, or perhaps seven, where
as it now takes twenty by the linn
tied trains. 10 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 oil probability be much
lighter than they now are. These are
the conditions which will produce the
| great speed Of the future-improved
| tracks, less dead load in the cars, cleo
trical power"
"What do you think of electricity as
power in other directions?" l asked.
1T is the power of the future in al
o.
a motor must 60. For iratance, you
will live to sec the steam engine bun
ished from ocean steamships Instead
of n dead load of from COO to 900 tons
| of coal carried in the hold, fed to huge
furnaces by small army of stokers who
work in IL 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
| the turn Of lever and without one
tenth part OF the weight or consuming
| onc-tiftieth of the space of the coal
supply now provided. What is true of
the large ocean steamships is true of O
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 field2"
"There are SO many new things in the
electrical line that could not begin to
mention them. Electricity is coming
into everything-industrial. domestic,
mechanical. Tho most important things
in the electrical world today are the de-
velopment of the storage battery motor