The record-union., 1892-11-11
new YORK TO CHICAGO.
The Trip Will Soon be Made in
Eight Hours.
An Engineer Thinks Electricity VIII
in Five Years Supersede Steam, and
That Locomotives WIN Then Travel
125 Miles an Hour.

says writer in the New York Advertiser,
while talking with a distinguished cleo
trical engineer who had recently been in
Washington on business connected with
the patent office. sin five years." said
he, you and l will be riding from New
York to Chicago behind electric loco
motives at a speed of l25 miles an hour"
"DO you really believe that?'' / asked
in astonishment
II almost know it," was the reply. 81
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 dreamer.
AS you know, l am thoroughly prac-
tical engineer. 1 have made a fortune
out of the business and 1 only wish l was
younger that l might be sure of living to
see the realization of the great plans
which l happen to know are even now
being reduced to practical shape.
within year / think you will see
electric locomotives taxing the place of
steam on our great railways. Just as they
nave already supplanted other motors for
city ana suburban traffic. When a start
IS once made, revolution will quickly
follow. At first the electrical locomotive
may not run much faster than the new
compound cylinder steam locomotive,
which easily makes mile a minute on
long distances. l went to Washington
the other day 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 \ ork to Jersey
City and getting under speed out of the
Jersey City yard. Ten minutes are lost
IN Philadelphia in stoppage and reduced
speed and about twenty-five minutes in
Baltimore, whore the entire train is fer
ried across the bay on transfer steamer,
and where the detour into the station is
somewhat slow 1or 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 240 minutes. The distance is 22S
miles.
FASTEST TRAIN IN THE WORLD.
THAT comes very near mile min
ute, you see, and IS, in my Judgment, the
fastest and hnest run made by any train
IN the world, not excepting the Empire
State express on the New York Central,
That tram runs $40 miles i'll go minutes
Il little faster schedule than the ROYAL
Blue, but having less loss by stops. The
actual run is not so speedy. AS l rode
down to Washington by the Royal Blue
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 hard task before it if it set
out to eclipse this magnificent speed, for
we made mile after mile in fifty-two sec
onds, or speed OF nearly seventy miles
an hour.
But L know the powers of electricity
when properly applied, and l 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 \ lew \ orl6 10 Chicago in eight
hours. or perhaps seven, whereas it now
takes twenty-five by the limited trains.
10 make this great speed l think there
Will be some changes in track and rolling
stock. The rails will have device which
Will absolutely prevent the cars leaving
the track, and the cars will in all proba-
bility be much lighter than they now are
These are the conditions which will pro-
.duce the great speed of the tuture-im-
proved tracks, less dead load in the cars,
electrical power"
"What do you think of electricity as a
power in other directions ?''
1t IS the power of the future in almost
everything. The steam engine as motor
must go. For instance, you will live to
see the steam engine banished from ocean
steamships. Instead OF a dead load of
from 600 to GOO tons of coal carried in the
mold, 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 the turn of lever and
without one-tenth part of the weight or
consuming one-fittieth Of the space of the
coal supply now provided. What is true
OF the large ocean steamships is true of
great variety OF other craft, large and
frl nisl -ssa1t
plant steam in all ofthem, giving greater
economy of energy, of space, OF labor, of
risk"
EDISON GUARDING a SECRET.
"What are the especially new things in
the electrical field ?'
'Thero are so many new things in the
electrical line that ] could not begin to
mention them. Electricity is coming
into everything industrial, domestic,
mechanical. The most important things
In the electrical world to-day are the de-
velopment of the storage battery motor
for city railway lines, the perfection of
the high-speed locomotives for long dis
tance railways and new and mysterious
and wonderful thing promised by
Thomas a. Edison. Just what this is |
do not know.
MIR. Edison is friend of mine and
often meet him. But the day has passed
in which outsiders can find out all that is
- >
ago Edison's latchstring was always ont.
lie liked to have electricians and others
visit his workshops. He took delight in
showing them what he had accomplished.
what he was trying to do. He had few
secrets. Even the things which he en-
deavored to guard, in his careless, good
natured way, visiting electricians were
able to divine the nature OF, to smell out
their purpose, scope and general plan,
though the details were concealed from
their eyes. Many an electrician has made
fortune ont OF suggestions gathered dur
ing a visit to Menlo Park.
"Now all this is changed. Edison is in
the hands of shrewd business men, who
guard him and all his works as if he were
the great Koh-i-noor diamond. They are
perfectly right in doing SO, for Edison has
little idea OF business; small conception
of his own commercial value. To him
money is desirable only because it is
something that can be spent in unravel-
ing more of natures mysteries in devils
ing new blessings for mankind. The
business men who have surrounded Edi-
son say he has done enough for the world
and that il is time he were doing some
thing for Edison. They say, and truly,
that there does not live upon the face of
the globe to-day another man who has
done as much for his race as he.
"Unless I am greatly mistaken, Edison
is now engaged upon an invention which
will. commercially, be the greatest of all
his works. l don't presume to know
much about it, because, as l have said /
the inventor Is now carefully guarded
and few hints of his operations reach out
side ears. But few facts have accident
aIiv come to my knowledge which con-
vince me that Edison is constructing