The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-02-04
Fin Innovation in
ELECTRIC Transit


m n INGENIOUS system of electric
IAN traction for street cars is about to
Ell be tried in Hanover, Germany. 1t
I'M was decrced that within the built
up portion of that city no over
head wires would be permitted. The TN
derground trolley system was found 20
be too expensive; the storage battery
system is also extensive, and is open
to the objection that ii Is usually neces-
sary to unload the batteries from the
cars at the car barns in order to recharge
them. This necessitates duplication OF
the battery plant, or else a large sur
plus of cars must always be maintained.
In the Hanover system the overhead troll
ley wire is to be used everywhere eX-
cept in closely bult-up sections. Each
car will carry under the seats q small
auxiliary storage battery, which is auto
maticaly charged from the trolley wire
while the car is making it's circuit in the
outlying districts. When the car shall
have reached the end of the overhead
trolley wire system it will thus have
stored up more than sufficient power to
carry 1t over that part of the route where
the overhead wire is not allowed. In this
way much lighter less costly and more
compact and convenient form of battery
can be used than in a system designed 10
operate entirely by storage batteries. 1t
is somewhat analogous to the system
the electric light plants in office build
ings in this country where 1t is necessary
to maintain q few lights beyond the or
dinary business hours. The storage bat
terry used as an auxiliary to the electric
lighting plant under such conditions is an
entire success.
There is common belief that the So
called storage battery stores or bottles
IN electricity which is developed by
dynamo; this is an error and the name
storage battery is misnomer. Long be-
fore dynamos were invented currents of
electricity sufficiently powerful to run
locomotives and other machinery had
been developed by gavanic batteries
Fifty years ago Pages electric locomotive
was operated in Washington by gall
vanic battery carried in the cab. 1t was
soon found that the galvanic battery was
too expensive to make and operate. so
that electric traction, lighting, etc, were
compelled to await the advent of the
modern means of developing electric
force cheaply by mechanical means
that is, the dynamo
o
The true function of this cheaply made
electric force from a dynamo when di-
verted into the cells of a so-called stor-
age battery is not to become itself quiz
escent or absorbed in the cells; on the
contrary, it is to do active work. the
work of making from inert materials
powerful galvanic battery, so that when
the current from the dynamo is with
drawn and the terminal wires of the
newly made galvanic battery are Joined
together a continuous galvanic, not an
intermittent dyanmic, current of cleo
tricity is developed This differs in no
respect from the current developed by
the old-fashoned galvanic battery; but
fnol llNr fYnn a
veloped by the dynamo. In the one case
the current is continuous; in the other
it is intermittent. Hitherto the storage
battery system of propulsion for street
cars though much cheaper than the old
fashioned gaivanic battery, has proved
far more expensive than the overhead
trolley system. While we believe that
the prejudice against the latter system
is gradually dying out, as the dangers
have been proved TO be largely imagi-
nary, there are, no doubt, many places
where the Hanoverian system, ii it
should prove successful, would find a
useful field for application. 1t certainly
has the merit of novelty.
For some unexplained reason the stof-
age battery seems to succeed very mucn
better in Europe than in this country
This may be partly due to the long and
acrimonious litigation over patent rights
in this country. The United States COM
mercial agent at Weimar, Germany,
states in the consular reports for Janu-
airy that the use of accumulators as a
motive power for street railways has
proved a success on the Charlottenberg
Pferdebahn, and there seems every likeli-
hood of further development of this
means of locomotion in the city of Ber-
lin; but the great weight of the batteries
is a serious bar 20 progress The Hano-
verian scheme would appear to offer an
escape from this dilemma, and is, so far