Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1900-12-28
FAST ELECTRIC CARS.
ENGLAND LEADS IN ELECTRIC
PROPULSION.

PROPULSION.
A One Hundred Miles per Hour Speed is Ex-
pected-A Western Cyclone Would Be Tn.
able to Overtake lt-Time Will Be Practical.
ly Annihilated by Ensland's New Enterprise.
England seems to be taking the
lead of the United States in the mat
ter of developing the possibilities of
electricity as a motive power on rail-
ways. The suburbs of London are
now reached by those doing business
in the city by means of electric rail-
ways that make much faster time
than those in this country and greater
improvements are in contemplation.
One of the greatest of these new en-
terprises is the construction of an
electric railway connecting the cities
of Liverpool and Manchester. A bill
for its incorporation was recently re-
jected by the House OF Commons, but
the projectors are not discouraged and
propose to renew the effort for fran
chise at the next session of Parlia-
ment, and in the meantime are "edu-
eating the people" on the subject of
rapid transit. The rejected bill au-
thorized Mr.. Behr to construct de-
cided novelty in its line. He hoped
to achieve new result by the combi.
nation OF old and well-known princi-
pies. What he promised to do was to
propel train by means of electricity
at the rate of at least hundred miles
an hour. He selected for his expert
ment the cities of Liverpool and Man
chester because they are sufficiently
far apart to make the advantages of a
high speed obvious, and sufficiently
close in their commercial relationship
to make constant intercourse neces-
siity. There are, in fact, already no
fewer than three separate railway
companies possessing lines between
Manchester and Liverpool and provid-
ing a magnificent service of trains.
In an ordinary way it would appear
presumptuous to propose a fourth
line, and apparently that is the view
that the select committee of the
House of Commons has taken of the
matter.
But the line that Mr.. Behr proposed
would have been entirely different
from any of the existing three. 1t
was to follow an approximately
straight line between the two cities
without any intermediate stations.
Trains were to succeed one another at
ten-minute intervals and to accomp-
lish the whole distance in twenty
minutes. The train, it must be ex-
planned, consisted of only two carri-
ages, each provided with its own mo-
tors. In order to secure safety at
this enormous speed Mr.. Behr adopted
the monorail system which has already
been used with advantage for steam
driven trains. In this system the
weight Of the train is borne upon a
single rail, which is supported on
trestles, and the train is kept from
rocking by means of side rails, which
acts as guides. The system was tried
experimentally at Brussels and gave
satisfactory results, but things which
can be done safely abroad are appar-
emily impossible in England. As far
as can be gathered from the argu-
ments of counsel before the commit
tee the scheme has been rejected on
the double ground that it would be
impossible to attain the speed prom
ised by Mr.. Behr, and that if such a
speed were attained the new railway
would draw away all the traffic from
the old lines. These mutually de-
structive arguments strikingly recall
the attitude of the wiseacres who at
the beginning of the century did all
they could to prevent the introduc.
ton of the steam locom olive.