Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1903-11-21
A NEW RAILROAD RECORD.
The Speed of las Miles an Hour At
tanned by an Electric Car in
Germany.

Germany.
The speed of 125 miles an hour. AZ
tanned the other day by an electr;. ear
on the military road extending from Ber-
I'm to Zossen. means something more than
the hopeless understanding of the best rec
ord ever made by a steam locomotive and
the outdoing of anything that has hitherto
been attempted in the way Of fast rail-
way travelling. To electrical engineers If
means thhat it is possible to construct an
electrical equipment capable of driving a
ga al almost any speed rOadbed can
bear
Train acceleration has been studied nv
engineers ever since railroad engineering
became something of an exact science
or that reason many have doubted the
Elumate value of this Berlin-Zossen m
deftaklng. But the mere duplication of
tram acceleration figures was something
Iar beyond the purpose of the engineers
oI whom the speed trials were conducted
Bon j. Arnold in this country has CON
clusively shown the superiority of the
electric car to the steam locomotive in
gettlhg up speed; but no engineer as yet
KNOWS the comparative efficiency of
steam and electric traction at high speeds
ana still less the cost of driving an eler-
tFic tfaln at the rate of one hundred
miles an hour. 1t was for the purpose Of
determining these very questions that the
beftln-ZosSen experiments were under
taken, and not simply for mere record
breaking. Science is not n snort. IL *
the gathering and Classifying of facts
for practical use.
The speed of 125 miles an hour repre.
sents the elimination of the experimental
work of two great German electrical
companies, who. in the interests Of cleo,
commercial rivalry, TO give ND all pros
pect of gain for the time being, and to
determine by a series Of carefully con
Quoted scientific trials just what an cleo
trio car can do at high speeds. Probably
nowhere in the annals of modern en-
gineering is there to be found an example
so CHARACTERISTIC of German patience and
thOroughness. We hear much these DAYS
of syndicates formed for the purpose OF
cheapening the productive cost of goods
but this is surely the first instance of the
formation of a syndicate for the sole
object of solving a much discussed prob
lem in electrical engineering.
The history of this Berlin-Z ossen
scheme is not without interest Regun
some two years ago with practically the
Same rolling stock used in the recent
trial, the experiments had to be tempo
rarily abandoned when q speed of ninety
miles was reached. the track proving far
TOO light to withstand successfully tbe
enormous strains imposed by n swiftly
moving vehicle. Electrically considered.
however, these early trials were anything
but failures. The motor equipment
proved well-nigh faultless; Dangerously
high tensions Of thousands of volts Uer,
handled with comparative safety. With
roadbed vastly improved tests were
resumed a short time ago at ninety miles
an hour The speed was successivelv
raised from so to 100 and from 100 TO
III miles, until at last a velocity of
125 40 miles was attained, for which
the undertaking was originally planned.
1t is to be regretted that the military
road from Berlin to Zossen is far too
short to realize all the advantages to be
obtained from high speed. The car could
hardly have travelled any great distance
at it's unprecedented rate when il be-
came necessary to slow down, as the end
of the line was near. Still, the results
obtained will serve to clear up many 81
doubtful point in electric traction Some
thing of the braking power required to
stop this 10O-mile-an-hour car viii surely
figure in the reports Of the tests.
To the man who has an eye for dra-
matte effects, the Berlin-Zossen record
lends itself well to striking comparisons.
III electric expresses travelling at the
rate of 125 miles an hour were as COM
mon as sixty-mile-an-hour trains, it would
be possible TO journey from New York to
Philadelphia in little more than forty
three minutes, and to cover in seven min
utes the short distance of fifteen miles
between the Battery and Spuyten Duy-
WI, or in other words, the entire length
of the island Of Manhattan.-Scieutific
American.