Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-01
IL" Locomotives
Widely Scattered


NE OF THE most interesting sights
/ have ever run across" said man
from the middle west on the evening
~ of the first day of his visit to New
York, was the biggest herd of little
four-wheeled locomotives 1 have ever seen.
Il saw them when l went to the Bronx
Zoo this afternoon. They stand away up
town on bunch of cross tracks that lie
at right angles to the "a and Sd avenue
lines, connecting the two. There are scores
ana scores of them. They must be relics
of the old days when the New York Il
lines We're operated by steam / should
think they would be sold, if possible; if not,
broken up and got out of the way.
They remind every beholder of the fact
that little old New York has always been be-
hind the rest of the world in some things.
For several years 1t was away behind both
chicago and Boston, too, 1 am told in the
way 1t ran Its elevated railroads. Chicago
which had no elevated roads until many
years after New York. started one of her
Il lines with locomotives. but substituted
the third rail for the locomotive long be-
fore New York did, and as L understand
It, Boston, which also put up it's elevated
ROADS long after New York, never used loco
motives at all. and was running electric
trains on her T. roads years ahead of New
York
The herd of little four-wheeled Iocomo
tives' which the visitor in New York saw
Is really an impressive sight. and It means
just what he said it did. But to the man
who sees with an understanding eye 1t
stands for the sacrifice of some millions of
dollars. sacrifice of the sort which cele-
brated English railroad manager once said
was peculiarly characteristic of the railroad
manager In America, the sacrifice of -great
values in machinery, while still in perfect
condition, to keep up with the times
AT the same time every New Yorker who
ever rides on the elevated rairoad-and that
includes practically the whole of the big
towns 100000 people-and every one who
lives along the IL" lines, remembers very
well that the Manhattan Railroad Company
was Internationally slow in making the
sacrifice. 1t was one long agonizing stretch
of uncertainty lasting several years before
the company could make up it's mind to
drop the noisy, uncertain locomotive in IA
vor of the far more satisfactory third rail-
During that period of balancing almost no
end of experiments were tried with various
sorts of propulsion other than steam The
people of the big town, having learned from
the success of the conduit trolley that the
IL trains could be run without steam loco
motives and their noise and dirt, if only
the company would keep up with the pro-
cesson, were making severe protests
against a continuance of the nuisance. They
talked with each other about 1t almost con-
tinuously; whenever some one got a cinder
from an L. engine in his eye miniature
impromptu Indignation meeting was held
and the newspapers were full of angry
communications.
y +
From the very first the indication were
all that the third rail was the only really
suitable method of propulsion to install in
place of the locomotives, but the railroad
authorities, particularly Uncle RUSSELL
Sage, were not sure. He was amusingly
anxious for delay. He wasn't quite sure,
even, that there should be any change at
all. Locomotives had done very well down
to that time, and really he didn't see why
they wouldn't do permanently. All this talk
about SCOT and cinders was nonsense.
He would be in favor of nothing else but
the third rail If the roads were just being
in Boston and Chicago, but the situation
was different in New York.
Just see what 1t will cost to throw away
most pitifully
1t was while Uncle RUSSELL was holding
back, so the public has always understood,
their history rose between Sage and George
Gould, his partner in Manhattan and the
son of him who had been his partner in
various famous Wall street operations In
the old speculative days of the house of