The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-05-14
FIXTURE Possibilities.

Yet IL must by no means be supposed
that the application of electricity to street
railway traction was made entirely sue
cossful in the brief period outlined here.
Nor am disposed to maintain that cleo
trio street railway traction has even now
reached a state of perfection. And yet
within the lifetime of the generation now
living, equal progress should be made in
the application of electricity 10 the maui
ing of trunk line trains ON long distance
railroads.
The problem is a fascinating one, in
volving almost a revolution in our social
life. So great is the gulf between fifty
and one hundred and fifty miles an hour
This would be the browning achievement
or rather the supreme result of the tabors
Of those pioneers who. like Robert DAVID
son, foreshadowed as long ago as 1883
what might seine day be realized. just
half a century has elapsed since Davidson
moved by electricity a ten-foot car equip
ped with forty cels Of primary batteries,
at the rate of four miles an hour.
In 1879 at the Berlin industrial exhib.-
ton, Siemens & Halske exhibited an cleo
trical railroad. In the fall Of 1888 Leo
Daft operated an electrical locomotive
called the Ampere. on the little railroad
up Mt Gregor. New York. In 1884, e. NJ
Bentley and w. II. knight ran expert
mentally in Cleveland. o.. an electric
railroad with motors under The floors cf
the cars. The great Thompson Houston
system was founded on their patents and
on those OF Van de Paeles
The. result OF my own Investigations has
inclined me towards the separate equip
ment of each car with electric motors,
according to what is now called The multi
ple-control system, Their than TO the con
strucfion of heavy electrical locomotive,
which should draw a number of unequlp-
Ped cars. Yet each of these syStens has
its special uses and advantages. The mo-
tors and generators used on The pioneer
line in Denver were notifications Of The
famous Brush arc light machines made
in Cleveland. The motors were first placed
on a separate truck and suspended indie
pendent,y of the springs which carried
the car body.
Tie next or second conduit road con
strueted in the United States wes laid on
the Bentley-Knight system In Allegheny,
Pa, and in 1887 the third commercial e,oc-
trio railway was installed by f. J. Sprague
in Richmond.
BY this time il was evident that electric
railways were successful and popular, and
three companies, the Thompson-I4ouston,
the Sprngue Electric Railway and Motor
Company, and the Short Electric Railway
Company, began the manufacture of cleo
trical railway appliances
In 1880 the Edison General Company
absorbed The Sprague interests and the
Westinghouse Electric and Manufactur-
ing Company took up railway work. I'm
provements were making constantly. Mild
steel was found 10 be the best material
for motor construction. it's Dermeability
being double that of cast iron, so that
an equally strong magnet could be made
of hall the ruetal. The Short company
now began producing q moter which oper-
ated directly on the axis withiut the use
of gears. By a spring system the arma-
ture could start suddenly without en-
countering the inertia Of the en- r. car,
The Walker Manufacturing Company
evolved motors 50 much more powerful,
and at the same time so much simpler,
than any heretofore in use, chat long
distance railroading came to ne regarded
as the next great problem to te over
come by electrical engineers. The cnor-
nous electrical locomotives designed to
pull heavy railroad trains through the
Baltimore and Ohio tunnel in Baltimore
were built and equipped with the Short
goarless motors The problem of long
distance railroadjng seemed one step near
err solution. for these electrical locomo-
tives haul the heaviest freight trains