The morning journal-courier., 1908-12-12
Paper Read by Engineer Murray of This City Before Eleotri- cal Engineers Institute
 in New York.
SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE
Interesting Story of Difficulties Sur mounted In the Successful In- stallation of the New
 System.
,aneeinl to the Icnrnul- conrler.l


 New York, Dec 11,--At the meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers held in this city tonight, a paper entitled "The Log of the New Haven Electrfcation" was read by w. s, Murray of New Haven, electrical engineer of the New York, New Haven Hartford railroad The paper, which deals with the authors experiences from April 1. 1905 to November 1, l9OS in electrically equippng and operating the road between New York and Stam- ford, was well received by the engi- neers and was followed by a protracted | discussion on the success of the method used
 The paper was in the naturs of | statement of the errors made, and their correction as the almost untried prob lems facing the engineers were worked out, The entire paper, with some ex- eellent photographs and many dls- grams will be published in the proceed ing of the American Institute of Eec- trical Engineers. Leaving out the more technical portions of the address the paper was in part as follows;
 'fhe duty assigned to the engineers of the New Haven railroad was 10 pro- vide for the electrical operation of their trains At the early period of April l. 1905, when we settled down to this responsible task the data in the field, upon which to base real conclu- sions were about per cent, In com parson. with the experience now avail able If Ignorance maketh the brave l can only say that I am more than thankful We were so ignorant at the outset Could we have read the history of our errors, rather than have made them l question whether we would have had the temerity- though l con fess our convictions would have been the same to ask the president of the New York. New Haven & Hartford Railroad company to put up with the criticism, abuse and unfair remarks that have been made ny those ignorant of the facts"
 After mentioning troubles with the power house, which had to he material ly changed, with line Insulation and circuit breaking, he said
 "1n themonth of May. 1908, lt hs came evident to us that within al lesst one month from that date, if some change were not effected In the contact wire, that the New Haven electric ser vice would cease While this truth was so plain it may he best described by the fact that daily reports were show ing that the copper trolley wire was ot ,fa nnd tysi lt was not broken if had become so badly linked at the hanger points that it was Impossible to operate electric locomotives upon the line without seri- ous arcng An examination of the hard drawn copper trolley wire throughout its length proved that even after only few months operation upon it, its crosa- section, had been go lnaterally reduced as to point to ita short line with a continuance of op. eration upon it MT McHenry, vice president of the New York New Haven and Hartford Railroad company, made the suggestion that auxiliary wire he suspended from the present. copper wire by clips al its mldpoint between the hangers, and followed up the sugges- ton that this auxiliary wire be made of steel of the same cross-section as the 0000 grooved hard drawn copper above it lt took two weeks for the manufacturer to draw two miles of this wire It was installed Immediately upon lis receipt on the main line be tween Port Chester and Harrison, and after test. sixty miles more were or. dered and erected This auxiliary wire has been in use now for several months with the result of a smooth and almost sparkless overhead contact
 aAnother trouble was with the loco motives, which had to be changed in several respects on the whole how ever they have worked ouL even better than was expected The specifications upon which the locomotive units were purchased were that each unit would handle a normal trailing load of poo tons, The writer by careful measurement of tho weights of all the trains (traillng loads) in the Nav Haven service, found that they averaged 212 tons If seemed good engineering that if 15 per cent of the service could he handled by locomo- tives rated upon a basis of 200 tons trailing load that that would ho the correct locomotive unit size; using two units for the remaining 25 per cent of the trains To-day, three years after this decision, we find that l3 per cent. of our trains can be handled with single units 27 per cent requiring two units The percentage is slightly different from the original as the service Is slightly heavier
 9Gojncident with the use of the first double unit locomotive trains there was started a rumor that the New Haven locomotives did not have the capacity for which they were design ed To dispol this idea for over, l judged the best argument would be list of the trains whose weights were in excess of trailing loads the loco- motives were designed to carry"
 
 'So great was the demand for oloc- trc service that in July, 19o7 long before We were rcad., as the records Of our operations have proved. thu first commercial service Was borun between New Rochelle and the Grand ] Central station With all speed posqf- he tho aIccUdcation was pusaod
 (Continued on Second PeEeD