The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1907-03-27

leo IN tnls way anu ASSIST udteIIdiiy
in the development Of this part of the
country.
Electric railway systems will un-
doubleday soon supplant the present
methods of operation, especially in
those localities where power can be
gener ated from natures storehouse.
What has been accomplished in this
connection in one part of the west is
told by the Inter.Ocean in this de-
scription of a California project:
In these days of miracle.working en-
cheering when man does not hesitate
to change the face of continents and
make rivers run up stream, 1t is the
mountains that offer natures last de-
iance. Now, at last, they are being
conquered and set to work to help in
their own undoing.
All the world of railroad men hates
q mountain, and especially o range OF
mountains. 1t Is q formidable OBJ
stacle to transportation when it stands
across the right Of way. The steep
haul OF the mountainside cuts the
heart out of profits or diverts traffic
or both. Other things being equal,
the battle is to the railroad with the
easiest grades.
On the Central Pacific, for example,
three or four locomotives pull pant.
ingly a short train Of loaded freight
cars from Truckee, Cal, up the steep
grade to the summit of Emigrant pass,
in the Sierra Nevada mountains, s..
600 above sea level. 1t ia a spectacle
to make a railroad manager weep.
Now all this is to be changed. If
the Sierra Nevadas will continue to
stand in the way, they must cease to
be hostile. They must go to work and
themselves haul these freight trains to
their own SUBMITS.
This seeming reversal of natural
laws the mountains will accomplish
through the everlasting nov that
cap their SUBMITS. The little noun.
tain stream flowing down from the
melting snow furnish unlimited power.
Converted to mans use they will do
the work easily that now taxes steam to
its utmost.
This is the transformation ordered
by E. H. Hartman and ioutlined by
Dewey Sheldon Beebe in 1.-THE Techni.
cal World Magazine. Though great
secrecy has been maintained his en-.
gineers have made all the surveys and
electric companies are figuring on the
contracts. The work will be!begun in
the spring.
The mountain stream will be con-
fined in a great dam. They will be
transformed in a power house or
the California side Of the pass. A
third.rail electric system will be pu,
in owe about eighty miles of track
Electric motors will take the place o,
steam locomotives.
While the initial cost of this worl
will be enormous, the engineers are
confident that it will result in sufficien
permanent saving to make it pay. 4
number of advantages are at once ap
parent.
With steam alarge amount of powe
must be wasted in hauling up the fue
necessary for its production, Will
with electricity the full power /
available at all points on the line
With electricity, there is small chanc
of a train "sticking' or an espe
cially sharp grade, for the temporar
"overload capacity of the motor ca
always be depended upon to meet
sudden emergency.
With electricity it will no longer b
necessary to make up short and ligt
trains to keep within the limits of tn
steam power. There is plenty OF pow
err to haul the heaviest trains. More
over, a ate Of speed can be game
. that has hitherto been impossible
!, Thus there will be a reduction in Of
, Grating expenses and a saving in rul
ming time.