Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-07-20

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W
GHlM MS of electricity for
HEAS&f-. steam on railroads.
NN The papers had been
y teeming with ac-
counts Of the trial trip of the new electric
engine in the Baltimore tunnel and also of
the trial trips on the beach road near Bos-
ton The rank and file of railroad en-
ployes are 10th to acknowledge the advan-
tage of electricity In their business. Said
an old engineer to the group as The Star
writer Joined It:
Mark my words, we will go into the
twentieth century before you see electrici-
ty take the place of steam on the railroads.
1t may be that portion of the passenger
traffic will be handled through electric
motors, but as to general adoption it
will come slow, If it comes at all.
''They were going to perform wonders
with that big electric motor UP in the Bal
timore tunnel" chimed in another Of the
gsoup, b.. but IT. ! see she vas burned out on
mind. I don't believe the wires can carry
enough electricity to enable the motor ell
gines to haul freight trains. 1 noticed in
the account of the breakdown that the
connecting joints were red hot which would
seem to substantiate my belief. There
may be a great amount Of electricity flying
about on the wires and through the mo-
tors, but 1t takes an enormous amount to
move freight trains.
Their electric motors may be large, but
just look at the hog engines we use on
our road to move freight" continued the
old engineer. "They demonstrate the pow
er necessary to handle freight. The expert
ments up near Boston, 1 understand, were
great success. Passenger cars were NOV
ed at high rate of speed, and it was also
demonstrated that the trolley system could
yet not interfere with the running Of the
road by steam, but on the freight question
we hear nothing, and on this point base
my belief that we will go into the TWEEN
tieth century before we see a general adop-
ton of electricity.
In Handling Freight.
zone thing that can be counted on is
that the locomotive will not disappear as
rapidly as the car horse There are diff
culties to be encountered in applying cleo
trlcity to steam roads which did not have
to be met in applying 1t to street roads.
The bJAiness of the latter is wholly pas
senger traffic, but the business of the
steam roads Is divided between passenger
and freight. 1t Is in the attempt to apply
electricity to the transportation of freight
that the greatest difficulties will have to be
overcome. 1t appears to be a comparative
ly simple matter to string trolley wires
over the track Of a steam road and run
trolley cars instead of the present heavy
own the right of way the change appears
to be an easy step.
But when 1t comes to applying electric
ity to the movement of freight trains the
problem assumes an entirely different as
pect. A passenger train can be broken up
into single cars and run with about the
same attention needed on a long train. The
cost for employees would be little, If any,
more than on an ordinary passenger train,
and If electricity costs less than steam the
change would be desirable. But in the
case Of freight trains very few employees
are needed, and the number would have to
be increased If the train was broken up
into single cars. This would add largely to
the cost of running freight trains, and
consequently to the cost Of transporting
freight. So change from steam to cleo
tricity in moving freight does not appear
probable until motors are invented capable
of moving as heavily loaded freight train
as can be moved by a locomotive.
Another point rot generally recognized
is the Importance of the freight business
to the steam railroads. 1t is the source of
the larger part of their income. The re-
Pittsburg were in round numbers nearly
$50, 900 600 last year for freight alone, while
the receipts from the passenger traffic were
only about s20,00O.0OO. From this you can
see that the freight-carrying branch of the
railroads is quite an important one.
Cars From Other Roads.
"Then there is another obstacle which
electricity were adopted at the same time
by all the steam roads those using cleo
tricity would find themselves embarrassed
in the handling of freight cars from roads
not equipped with this motive power. The
Importance Of this point is shown by the
fact that our road east of Pittsburg alone
last year handled a. freight mileage Of cars
from other roads of 37O.O0O.OOO, as against
a freight mileage of 100000 of its own
cars.
IT have been dabbling into and keeping
close watch on things electrical for the
past ten years, and I believe it will take
new brains before we reach that stage
when we can get the utmost practical use
of the electrical current You can easily
recall the great work Of Edison Bell and
Tesla, and while the latter has probably
not given his greatest ideas to the world,
the limit Of their inventive brains. In the
next ten years another genius will proba-
bly, come into view and with him q new
era of electric discoveries. AS 1t is at pres
ent, everything Is guess work or in the ex-
perimenting stage.
1.-The railroad officials are evidently bas-
ing the future development Of their roads
upon this same idea, as some ten million
dollars will be expended on roadbeds and
equipment during the next two years.
Still another important point in equip
ping railroads with electricity that cannot
be overlooked is the bearing the condition
SoSSSSS~
full operation. I can take my engine down
to the depot, couple on to a train of cars
and pull it over to Philadelphia under any
condition, excepting two-foot snow.
Couple up an electric engine to a train
and see what co1fronts 1t. The same snow
will suck all the electricity out of its coils
as fast as it reaches there. A heavy sleet
storm, thing that does not bother us at all
when under way, will also render the wires
useless. The multiplicity of small wires
from the power house to the engine are liza
BILE to burn out at any time, and also a
similar accident to that which occurred in
the Baltimore tunnel last week.
Distribution of the Current.
Elm attempting to carry on the traffic Of
by electrical locomotives, operated
from a central station, it will be found that
they are at great disadvantage because
of the irregular service necessitated by the
freight traffic and the unequal distribution
of the load along the line Suppose that
there were two stations supplying the lines,
and that the traffic was uniformly dis
tributed along 1t, then the capacity of each
station would be one-half of the total re-
quired capacity.
Then again suppose the entire traffic was
concentrated in one train, then each sta
ton would need to have capacity equal to
the total power required for hauling the
entire traffic, as the train would be first