The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1895-02-08
Electric Road Construction.
Something about their Building and their
Cost-An Article of Local Interest.

Something about their Building and their
Cost An Article of Local Interest.
Just at the present time, Paw Paw
people are considerably interested in
the matter of electric railway construc-
ton, and following is an article right
in this line that will prove interesting,
copied from "A recent issue of the Scten-
tifc american:
AT the recent meeting of the Ameri
can Society of Mechanical Engineers "A
paper was presented by Mr.. Z. j. Field,
i'm which he reviews the first introduce
ton of the trolley system seven years
ago and its steady progress since that
time. One of the difficulties met with
i'm the introduction of the cable and
electric road was the condition of the
old horse road construction The first
step was the introduction of girder and
II rails, which at first were 3 to ) inches
i'm depth, requiring the placing of the
rails on cast or wrought iron chair or
stringer in order to get the depth over
ties. This method proved little better
than the old flat rail, especially at the
Joints. The rail mills then undertook
the rolling of heavier and deeper girder
and L rails, which, at the present state of
development, gives us, we believe, a
roadbed construction equal to any
steam road in the country. The stand
ard to-day for electric tramway road
bed is 20 to 80 pound L rail, or 10 to %
pound girder rail, the depth running
from to o inches.
The special work on track work, such
as crossovers, turnouts, curves, etc,
has also met with large improvements.
Now we have aS Il standard for this
special work the steel rails bent to the
form required and surrounded by a
mass of cast metal to hold them
together, and one company is turning
out this special work with the parts
welded together; also in cast steel. The
electric welding of rails at the joints
when laid is then mentioned. After
one winters test of a road built on this
system, 9 per cent of the joints pulled
apart.
The general basis of calculation of
the horse power required for a tramway
system must take into consideration
the local conditions of service, grades,
curves, etc; but, in general, 10 10 20
horse power per car in use on the road
is the general limit of well-designed
station, which will include the condi-
ton of the plant. A road of 100 cars
would therefore require about 1000
horse power, which horse power should
be divided into say four units of 500
horse power each. The number of units
in any station should be the fewest
number which will give safe and
economical division of the units, and in
station of this kind four or five units,
| pHi ~ To q ha ina nd
should be the standard.
The old horse car road in large cities
operated at total cost of from 1S TO 25
cents per car mile. One car mile is
taken as the standard for operating ex-
penses in our tramway service. The
heaviest item in this operating expense
was the question of power, and this is
where the electric road has made its
heaviest gains in the reduction of
operating expenses. This item is
reduced in power in service to-day to a
cost, under general conditions, ranging
from to II cents per car mile. The
relatiNe proportion of operating expen-
SEES To earnings in the horse service was
from 20 to 80 per cent operating expen-
SEES to gross earnings. In electric SER
vice we have considerable increase i'm
our gross earnings over our old horse
line, which increase runs from % to 80
and even 100 per cent in some cases and
the operating expenses being 40 To 60
per cent of the gross earnings. 10 this
operating expense we include all the
operating expenses of the road other
than the fixed charges.
The cost of building and equipping
an electric road is considerable. The
standard price four wears AGO for an
equipment of two 10 horse power motors