The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-30

Northern Railroad company will find it 1 economically expedient to initiate the ex-
 ample set by the Milwaukee and St. Paul company.
 | Some i6ea of the magnitude of this elec-
 trification can be obtained when it is
 known that SO far it is entirely within the state of Montana, and Serves an area | larger than that of the combined New England States. About a year ago, when
 the New Haven Railroad company com pleted the identification of it's main line from New York city to New Haven-about IA miles-and began by operating most of it's passenger trains and many of it's freight trains by electric energy. the achievement created nation-w wide interest. Some years ago the late George Nesting house. whose electric apparatus and mo-
 tors are used by the New Haven Railroad
 company, was asked just before he in
 stalled the system if electric energy and
 the motors which utilized it would be available for freight as well as for pas senger trains. In reply, he said that the time is coming when a majority of the freight trains of the United States, espe- cially upon the trunk lines and other great systems, would be operated by elec-
 tricity. MT. Westinghouse lived long
 enough to see his prediction verified, at 1 least in the case of the New Haven com pany. One day last week an electric mo- tor upon that line hauled freight train. all the cars of which were loaded. con sisting of S5 cars. and apparently with
 greater ease than any locomotive owned by the New Haven company could have dono it.
 In the southeast. in Texas, and in the far west the utilization of water power which is converted economically into elec- tric energy has proceeded upon vast scale. Few persons realize the extent of development of this kind in North Caro- hn ralo t,fc mh
 prised in the Carolina company now serve nearly 150,000 people. In 1914 the system earned gross, $1,3000,000, approximately, and net, SCH .000 A map upon which are delineated the various lines of this com
 pany shows that the system goes through almost all of central North Carolina and
 then on into northern Georgia, northern
 Alabama, Birmingham Chattanooga and
 Nashville, and is reported to be the long
 est stretch of the kind now operating anywhere in the world.
 The Texas plant operates in a territory 225 miles square, considerably larger than any one of a number of states in the
 union. Three years ago 1t did not contain a single transportation line. Now there are about $50 miles of high-tenson lines.
 Had 1t not been for the business de- presson of the past two or three years and for the timidity of capital these sys-
 tems would by this time have been greatly e& pdIlucu. III IespOuSe tO inquiry, u cii ic-
 full computation was made, a day or two ago, to show how and where these propo-
 sitions have been financed. who furnished
 the money and what form the securities took, The computation resulted in the astonishing statement that about 70 per cent of the capital needed to construct and
 opera te these plants came from New Eng
 land. The rest of the country furnished only about 30 per cent. In due time other parts of the country will doubtless fur nish capital necessary for the contem-
 plated expansion of these several systems. And it appears to he the belief of those
 who are interested. and it is even reported to be the belief of John D. Ryan. now one of the worlds s greatest authorities in the copper industry. that the first demon stration that confidence has returned and capital is ready to invest in large enter prises will be made through the expan- sion of the electric systems especially in the west and in the south