St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-07-30


The electric locomotive for use on
steam roads has at last become an &C
cOmplished fact. Among the preten-
tious exhibits OF huge steam locomo-
tives made by our railroad companies at
the worlds fair will, in few days, be
shown a thirty-ton high-speed electric
locomotive, the first practical and COM
mercial one OF its kind ever built, and
upon this unasSuming piece of cleo
trical machinery the steam locomotive
may look down as the forerunner OF
more powerful competitors which will
ultimately drive it from the steam rail-
road field or relegate it TO secondary
position as traction agent.
1t is only twelve years ago since
Stephen d. Field filed papers in the
patent Office on the application of the
motor to the street railways, in company
with applications from Werner Sismens
and Thomas A. Edison. Twelve years
only have elapsed since Edison ran his
modest little electric locomotive around
his laboratory at Menlo Park. While
Van Depoele was inventing and per-
fecting trolley sytems with success in
the West, young Frank Sprague, fresh
from long naval cruises, was installing
: the first practical and commercial
electric street railway in America,
at Richmond, Va, and the
New York elevated road was ex-
permenting with electric traction. In
1887 the Richmond road was in success
full operation, and SIX months after, at
Crescent Beach, Mass, the first Thorn
sOn-HoustOn road was running.
The short space of six years has seen
a modern invention adopted in nearly
every town of Importance in this .coun-
try and in Europe, and even IN Siam an
electric railway transports the children
of the White Elephant along the streets
of Bangkok.
This electric locomotive, constructed
in the Lynn shops OF the General Elec-
trio company, will go out to Chicago in
tow OF regular train. 1t is built to
the standard steam railroad gauge. Its
dimensions are somewhat similar to
those OF the steam motors now in use on
our elevated lines, i. e., sixteen and a
half feet long, eleven and a half feet
high and eight feet four inches wide.
ne lHOlOIS are SuppOll leu Oh oplihSo
resting upon the frame of the ma
chine, and the armatures are
mounted upon hollow shafts through
which the aXles of the wheels
pass, and to which they ale
connected. by special couplings. The
cab is of sheet iron and is built upon
the frame of the locomotive, directly
over the moving parts. 1t is symmet-
rical in appearance, and it is so curved
as to offer receding surfaces to the at
mOSpheric pressure. The windows al
low of unabstructed view In all dlrec-
lions.
The interior of the cab is finished in
hard wood, and is lighted by a cluster
of incandescent lamps. Inside this cab
are the electric air compressors, for OPP
Grating the air-brakeS and the whistle,
and the controlling switch. Above the
frame of the cab at each end are placed
the electric headlights.
The electricity will be taken up by
the motors according to prevailing coll
ditions. The trolley may be. under GER
tain circumstances. the method adopted,
while under others the current will be
taken from conductors running parallel
with the service rails by means of
running wheel or sliding shoe con-
tact, as in the case of the intramural
railway at the fair, or the overhead rail-
way at Liverpool.
This locomotive is designed to attain
normal speed of thirty miles an hour,
and was primarily intended for elevated
work, and for passengers and light
freight traffic, or less important stea IN
roads.
The adoption of the electric loeomo-
tive will, Of course, be gradual. The
capital already invested in our trunk
railroads will not permit of sudden
discarding of the costly steam engines
and their replacement by electric loco
motives and all the improvements
which the Introduction of electricity
would entail. At present the use of
electric locomotives over long distances
is limited, by the cost of long lines OF
feeder wires to carry the electricity to
suitable feeding points, and until this
problem is solved restriction of its en-
pioyment must necessarily exist.
At first it will probably be used in
elevated railroad service, and in New
York and Brooklyn and Chicago alone
its advent will be hailed with a feeling
OF deep gratitude. Electric locomotives
will then probably be adopted as feeders
to the trunk lines, both for freight and
passenger traffic; and to operate short
suburban lines, where rapid efficient
service is requisite. Their peculiar
fitness for switching purposes will adj
vance their use another step, and then
slowly, as the different problems pre-
scented are overcome, they will invade
the province of the trunk line steam
locomotive and the millennium of rail-
road travel will be within the realities
of life. Indeed, 1t will not De long be-
fore passengers will travel in comfort
through the tunnels at Baltimore, be-
hind I00-ton electric locomotives now
being constructed.