The herald., 1896-01-12
Los ANGELES RAILWAY CO.
Important Changes Now Being
Made in the System
AN EXCELLENT INNOVATION
Which Will Obviate Troublesome DELAYS
on the Road
Cars to Be Dispatched Schedule Time by
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS of ti,e pou,ar
AN EXCELLENT INNOVATION
Cars to Be Dispatched on Schedule Time by
Telephone Of the Power
house and Its Entire Equipment

The Los Angeles Railway company is
now engaged in making some very i'm
portant changes and Improvements, which,
when completed, will make the system one
of the finest in the country. The contem-
plated changes will not be confined to any
particular branch of the company's busi-
ness, but will be general and will amount
to an almost entire remodeling of the
present system, embracing new appliances
of power on an enlarged scale, the addition
of novel features in the way of managing
the many branch lines, and the initiation
of methods of controlling the electric cir
cults, etc., that have never before been ap-
piled to street railway service.
At the company's power house on Grand
avenue large force OF men is now en-
gagged in putting up the new machinery,
part of which will take the place of the
original apparatus, and the remainder will
be used in operating the new lines soon to
be electricized. Up to the present time there
have been two 500-horse-power engines in
the plant, The first measure of relief viii
be the installing of an SO0-horse-power
engine, having a capacity of 1000 if
needed. An important change will be the
separation of the power which furnishes
the stationary motor circuit from the gen.
eral line circuit which furnishes electricity
for the locomotion of cars. For this pur-
pose a25O-house-power vertical engine is
now being put in.
There is now in process of construction
In the east a 1200-horse.power engine.
which is intended as substitute for one
of the two original 50O-horse-power en-
Rines. This engine will be built on what
is known as the direct connected order:
that is, the armature and the electric gem
orator are connected directly with the en-
gine instead of being geared with belts and
run as separate piece of machinery. This
engine will be one of the finest of it's kind
ever used in this country. In the place of
the other 5OO-horse-power engine, one of
double the power will be established.
When the entire new mechanical equip
ment has been put in, the company's plant
most completely finished of any on the
coast.
In all of the other departments of the
system improvements of equal importance
are being substituted for the old order of
things.
That of most interest to the public, and
In fact of widest and most important influ-
offce, is the change in the control of the
foircuits over the different branches of the
oystem. The simplest way of operating
the electric current is to have it applied at
the point Of generation and circulated in
one grand round through all the lines. Un-
der such an arrangement n breakage at
one point necessitates the shutting down of
tho whole road. Small breaks are con-
stantly occurring, through the carelessness
Of those who move houses, and by many
uother causes, so that every car
town would be stopped very frequently
method of distributing the current