New-York tribune., 1908-05-24
MANY EARLY EXPERIMENTS.

Often as the story Of trolley development has
been told. the rapidity with which il has taken
place is always appreciated. This sort of
electric transportation is not Yet Of age. Within
the lifetime Of a boy the horse has been retired.
Because OF the inconvenience of horses motive
power streetcar managers everywhere a few years
ago were eagerly watching the outcome Of expert
1nents with electric traction. For years they had
kept watch the pioneer efforts: Thomas Dayen-
ports little circular 10Y railroad. shown Spring
field Mass in 1885; Professor Moses G. Farmers
car, propelled from nitric acid battery, in lS47:
Thomas Halls toy motor car on a forty-f track.
the marvel Of visitors Charitable Mechanics
Fair at Boston, 1891; Professor - C. Pages trial
motor car, run the Washington & Baltimore
Railroad line in 1873; the trial cars expert
Inented upon by the wizard of Menlo Park in the
early Sos Leo Daft's experimental roads exhibited
at Ccney Island and Mechanics Institute Fair at
Boston, in 1854; Charles J. Van Depoees's demon
startion line at the New Orleans Exposition of
1885, and John c. Hen-y's Kansas City 1ndepen-
dence line first exemplifying the overhead wire
system with rod which the management of the
road called troler but which the employees called
the trolley. iAInE the name Of the system for all
time When finally Frank J. Sprague's line at
Richmond was declared successful practical men
al over the country eager o make the
change as soon possible.
To help them DO this ii happened that within a
very few years after the first successful operation
al Richmond great deal of money became avail
able for Hhat appeared certain TO become profta-
the early &'s seemed have been pretty well con-
Ftructed Many Of Them longer so profit
able as few decades before. Particularly in New
England. where SO many OF the great continental
lines wcIe projected and 10 an extent elsewhere
owners of railway stocks beginning 10 sell
Iheir holdings and reinvest in electrical enter
prises. Telephone securities appealed to many.
with the result that to-day, as President Vail has
recently shown, more than ;hree-fourths of the
share capital Of the parent company of the Bell
system held in New England
Many others, particularly during the duh times
about 1852 and 1888 capital for which there were
bat small DIVIDENDS the established industrial
systems were installed in all the more populous
cities after superseding the cable cars. which aad
been invented about 1873 Frequently there were
several litte electric traction companies in city;
later came such consultations in the direction of
efficiency the Boston Elevated Railway Com
pany. the Detroit United Railway Company the
New Orleans Railways Company. the United Rail
ways and Electric Company of Baltimore and
many Others.
Toward the end OF the sos came the beginning
OF the great iEtergrban systems OF the Middle
West OF the most prominent promoted by a
New England interest which has since come to
grief. bat most CT them successfully and conserya-
tively financed. The whole country had awakened
10 a perception that the trolley going further.
Figures told remarkable growth. Some 500
miles O. in 1890 had expanded nearly % 90
IL 1892. The number Of fare passengers than
doubled in twelve years The number Of employees
became an army twice the size Of the standing
army OF The United States.