The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-10-13
RAPID MOVEMENT
THE EARLY POSSIBILITY or
 ELECTRICAL LoCoMoT1oN
At the Rate of One Hundred Miles an Hour4-seems to Be Prac-
 >ticable and Feasible.

Street Railway Journal
 Through years we have been inwardly bracing ourselves for the triumphant en- try of that hundred mile e-an-hour train. But we have waited in vain with the pa- tience of St. Simon Stylites. The conver- sion of the trunk lines of this country to electric power has not yet come. By this statement we mean in no way to minim- iZe the enormous strides which the sci ence of electric traction has accomplished during the last ten years. It has revolu- tionized urban and suburban transporta- Jion and has brought with it host of benefits to city and country unattainable decade and a half ago. But it is unde- niably a far cry from the largest electric railway enterprises at present carried out to the most modest of the high-speed projects that have been before the pub
 lie eye. And the discrepancy between promise and fulfllment Is one that should De explained.
 More than ten years ago the .experi- ments of Crosby made it certain that electric traction at very high speed was as an engineering feat, entirely pracu- cable, even with the means than at hand
 His results in determining air resistance removed the only really doubtful factor from the problem, and the experience of more recent years with locomotives has confirmed these results in the fullest and most satisfactory manner. Further, no engineer is today disposed to deny that the electric motor has certain very mark ed and decisive advantages for such work It renders the whole weight of the loco- motive, or, with multiple-unit control, of the entire train available for traction, facilitates braking by the generator function of the motors. and greatly facili- tates the reduction of dead weight to be dragged. At the present time there has been long enough experience with long power transmission lines to show that the continuous supply of large amounts of energy over long sections of line Is a very simple and easy matter. and that the efficiency of such a transmission Is high enough to utilize fuel more economt- cally than is possible with locomotives, even setting aside the great advantage to be gained by the use of water power
 The cost of the conducting system, once a matter of grave import, has subsided in the SC days of high voitaSes into com parative moderation, and Is likely to sub side still further. And, finally, the trials carried out abroad within the past year or two have shown conclusiyely that en- ergy at very high voltage can readily be taken to the motors by a flying contact with trolley wheel or shoe, so that the transmission line and the working con- ductor may be one and the same.
 The fact is. that. with the light upon the subject now available. 1t Is not too much to say that an electric train at 100 miles per hour not only Is entirely practicable, but involves very little or an experimental character. One might almost go further and say that the only difficulties worth serious consideration are those involved in the track and road bed which, of course, are quite apart from the motive power, except as the electric. motor has somewhat the advant- age in the lessened pounding of the rails. Yet, in spite of all this, the high-speed electric road is today seemingly further from accomplishment in this country than it was seven or eight years ago. Abroad it seems to have been taken up with some prospect of success. particularly by the Studien Gesellschaft, an association Of the German electrical companies. on the Berlin-Zossen line, and 1t would be far from surprising to see the first success reached on the continent.
 The reason for such state or things is not altogether obvious. It apparently is a commercial rather than a technical difficulty that stands in the way. and the difficulty seems to be curiously compo- site one. Are We to suppose that no one wishes to travel at such speed, or that, wishing it, the cost would be found to be prohibtive? Certainly we have never seen an American business man who - faster were available, and the agreements between railroads as to rates plainly show that the public considers the quick CT routes desirable even If the difference in time be only 10 or IS per cent.
 The same argument against higher speed has been used against every ad- vance for half a century past and in eV- cry case competition has forced the tm- provement and the public has welcomed it. As to the matter of cost, 1t is absurd to suppose that fast express trains would be running today if, everything consider ed, they did not pay. You cannot con- vince the American public by any amount | of juggling with statistics that the ex- | isting railroads are regularly running | trains at a loss out of philanthropic en- | thusiasm. Directly or indirectly, good
 service pays and it is fairly demonstrate | ahIe that the cost of electric service at i 100 miles an hour would not be largely in l eycess-per passenger caried-of the cost | of the existing fast express service be-
 tween large centres. Moreover, extra
 fares would be gladly paid for the sake
 of the time gained. Time Is money to a | business man. and if he could step aboard
 A train in Chicago at ?. m. and be land | ed in New York at s a. m., he would save
 an entire business day over the present | trin And the speed thereby implied | would be considerably under the 100 miles | an hour that seems a worthy objective | noint; in fact, less than 70 miles an hour,
 including stops.
 l In this hypothetical trip is perhaps the key to one of the problems to high-speed | traaction. Most of the fast electric lines
 proiected have been of moderate length, nft q