The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-06-17
THE ELECTRICAL COLLEGE.

The steam engine revolutioniZed the
begins to look like it has had it's day and
must surrender to electricity. Not only
in North Carolina are new electric roads
projected, but the outlook is that cleo
tricity will supplant steam on the great
est railroad systems. The New York
Tribune says that syndicate has been
organized by Mr.. VIM. c. Whitney, COM
posed of leading capitalists of this coun-
tyr and the firm of CAM & Company,
who own at Budapest, Hungary, the
largest electrical works III the world, to
convert the steam railroads of this coun-
try into electrical railroads. The sym
dictate has hundreds of millions of dollars
of capital The CAM concern built in
Budapest the first successful under
ground trolley lines and it is said that
their ideas have been adopted in the con-
struction of electric roads all over the
world. The New York Tribune is au-
thority for the assertion that 1.-THE con-
Germ has been engaged in recent years in
the work of converting steam railways
in Europe into electrical roads. It's most
important demonstrations to the minds
of some railway men was made on the
Valtellina line, sixty miles in length,
running past Lake Como in Italy. This
line was converted into an electrical
road by CAM & Co. eighteen months
ago. The operation of the railway for
eighteen months is said by engineers to
have proved that the electrical equip
ment save fifteen per cent of the operat-
ing expenses OF this road the Tribune
says:
1.-The Valtillina line runs through a
mountainous country and has some
troublesome grades. Passenger trains
over the road are drawn by motor cars
which take the electricity from overhead
wires. 1t is asserted that the swift
moving trains have met with no acct
dents for eighteen months, while travel
on the line has increased because it has
been made more pleasant by the absence
of smoke and cinders. For the hauling
of heavy freight trains on the line cleo
trical engines of great power are used
The engineers declare that one of these
engines, weighing only thirty tons, will
draw the loads and do the work of a
steam locomotive weighing 120 tons. The
to be gained largely through the steadi-
ness of it's pull and it's more perfect con-
tact with the rails
The new syndicate is ready to spend
$25, 000, 900 in the first steps of instituting
this great change. They have purchased
the big plant of the Stanley Electric
Company at Pittsfield, Mass, which al
ready supplies most of the electric roads
of the country, and will greatly enlarge
it.. Writing of the purposes of the COM
pany, the Tribune says:
''The conversion of steam roads into
electrical roads is expected to begin first
along the Atlantic seaboard, particularly
cities. The Pennsylvania railroad will
have to haul trains by electricity
through the tunnels that are to be con-
structed under the North river and I'M
der Manhattan Island and the East river.
The New York Central is expected to
employ electrical locomotives for it's
traffic in the Park avenue tunnel before
long. Wherever there is a congestion of
traffic on the steam roads in the East,
it is believed, there will be a displace-
ment of the putting locomotive by the
electrical engines. Having
made beginning. the railways of the
East are expected to extend the use of
electricity along their lines, driving the
steam locomotives to the railroads of the
West, where they can be used until they
are worn out"
With the perfection of Mr.. Edison's
new storage battery, the problem of
short line electric railroads would be
solved, and the dirt road problem would
be largely solved because a net work of
electric roads would honeycomb the