VI THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC RAILWAYS

THE United States has been preëminent in the development of street railways of all kinds, from the earliest type of horse-car to the modern city and interurban electric cars. Nevertheless, very few of the great general underlying principles upon which these numerous inventions are based have been discovered upon this side of the Atlantic. American inventors have simply excelled in applying the known general principles to practical mechanisms. But although the American inventors have largely monopolized this field of progress, the names of many Europeans also are connected with it. In several instances these foreign inventors, as naturalized American citizens, have done their work in America, being attracted to this country by the exceptional opportunities offered.

In recent years the city of New York has not shown conspicuous activity in adopting innovations and improvements on its street-railway lines. Nevertheless, New York was the first city in the world to have a passenger street railway. This, built in the early 20's, and running along Fourth Avenue, had rails made of straps of iron laid on stone ties. On this primitive line an omnibus horse-car, called the John Mason, was operated. This car was built on the lines of the early railway carriages, having three compartments, with doors opening at the sides. It was, in short, an early type of the side-door cars now used so universally on all European railways. The driver's seat was high in the air as in the case of the ordinary omnibus, and there were seats on the top for passengers.

For several years this primitive road remained the only street railway in existence. But it did not prove a particularly good business venture, and for some time capitalists were wary of investing their money for the construction of other lines. Twenty years later, however, a somewhat similar road, considerably improved, was built on Sixth Avenue. This proved to be a financial success; other lines were soon constructed, and the era of street railways opened.

The great advantage of these horse-car lines over the system of omnibuses then in use lay in the fact that greater loads could be hauled with the same expenditure of horse-power, regardless of weather conditions. The contrast in this respect was particularly marked in American cities where the streets, almost without exception, were badly paved.

By 1850, several cities in the United States had installed street railways; and by 1870 over a hundred lines had been built. Between 1870 and 1890 this number had been increased to over seven hundred, not taking into account the numerous extensions that had been made to many of the older lines.

CABLE SYSTEMS

Even in the early days of street-railway construction the extravagance of the method of horse-power traction was fully appreciated, and the numerous improvements in steam-engines stimulated attempts to adapt the locomotive in some form to city railways. But there were many difficulties in the use of the ordinary, or specially constructed, locomotives in the crowded thoroughfares of the larger cities. It was practically impossible to eliminate their smoke; and their puffing and wheezing, which frightened horses, caused numerous accidents. But even if these defects could be corrected, the locomotive was known to be an expensive form of motive power, when applied to a single short car, carrying at most only a few passengers and making frequent stops, as was necessary in street-car traffic. The inventors, therefore, looked about for other methods of applying steam power. But it was not until 1873 that this idea took the practical form of the cable road, on which single cars could be operated by means of underground cables travelling in slotted tubes, and propelled from a stationary power-plant.

The first practical cable system was made by Andrew S. Hallidie, and his associates, who planned and put into operation the first cable line in San Francisco. It proved to be entirely successful, and was imitated almost immediately in most of the larger cities of the United States, and in some European cities. Within a decade the number of cable railways installed had so reduced the number of horses necessary for operating street-car lines all over the country that there was an appreciable depression in the market prices of such horses.

The importance of this method of transportation is shown in the fact that between the years 1873 and 1890 more than a thousand different patents directly connected with the operation of cable roads were issued by the United States Patent Office. But by 1890 electric traction had become practical, and the issuing of patents for cable lines ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Before the close of the century practically every important cable line in the United States had changed its motive power to electricity. Thus in a brief quarter of a century this method of street-car traction had come into existence, revolutionized all hitherto known methods, and become obsolete.

EARLY SELF-CONTAINED SYSTEMS

In most of the earlier attempts to solve the problem of electrical propulsion the motor vehicles were constructed on a self-contained plan—that is, the power was generated on the locomotive itself, just as in the case of the steam locomotive. As early as 1835 Thomas Davenport, a blacksmith of Brandon, Vermont, constructed such a motor operated by cells, and built a small circular railway in Springfield, Massachusetts, on which he drove this electro-magnetic engine. This miniature railroad was of no practical importance, but it has the distinction of being the pioneer electric road.

Shortly after this, Prof. Moses G. Farmer, a distinguished American inventor and investigator, constructed an electro-magnetic locomotive, which drew a little car, and carried passengers, on a track a foot and a half wide. The locomotive used about fifty Grove cells, which developed a relatively small amount of energy at an enormous cost.

"In 1850–51," says Martin, "Mr. Thomas Hall, of Boston, exhibited a small working-motor on a track forty feet long, at the Mechanics' Charitable Fair in Boston, and while this was a mere toy, and used but a couple of cells of battery, it sufficed to illustrate the principles of a motor or locomotive with a single trial car. About this time (1847) an interesting demonstration was also made with a small working-model, one of the features of which has been most instrumental in the success of the modern electric methods, that of the utilization of the track as part of the return circuit for the current. Doctor Colton, once a famous dentist in New York City, and noted for his early application of laughing-gas in that work, was associated with Mr. Lilly in the construction and operation of a small model locomotive which ran around a circular track. The rails were insulated from each other, each connecting with one pole of the battery. The current from the battery was taken up by the wheels, whence it passed to the magnets, upon whose alternating attraction and repulsion motion depended; then it returned to the other rail, connected the other pole of the battery, and thus completed the circuit necessary for the flow of the current. In like manner in a great majority in use at present, the current passes from one power-house to circuits of one polarity, through the trolley pole to the motor or electro-magnetic propelling system, thence through the wheels to the track, which completes the circuit by being connected to the other pole or side of the dynamo at the power-house. The principles are obviously identical, but it took more than a quarter of a century to develop the proper method of application in all its details.

"The most serious and sustained attempt in the early period to operate a self-sustained vehicle or car—which would correspond with the storage-battery cars—was that due to Prof. C. C. Page, of the Smithsonian Institution. About 1850, Professor Page devoted considerable time to the development of electric engines or motors, in which the reciprocating action of a system of magnets and solenoids or armatures was applied by crank-shafts to driving a fly-wheel, to which rotary motion was thus imparted. This reciprocal motion, as in steam-engines, was one of the prevailing features of the early electric-motor work in this country and in Europe; but it was not long before its general inapplicability was realized, and it was abandoned for the simpler and more direct rotation of the armature before or between the poles of electro-magnets.

"On April 29, 1857, with an electric locomotive on which he had installed a large reciprocating motor developing over 16 horse-power, Professor Page made a trial trip along the track of the Washington and Baltimore Railroad, starting from Washington. In order to obtain current for energization, the motor was equipped with one hundred cells of Grove nitric-acid battery, each having as one element a platinum plate eleven inches square, dipped in the acid. Bladensburg, a distance of about five and one-quarter miles, was reached in thirty-nine minutes, and a maximum speed of nineteen miles an hour was attained; the entire trip to and from Bladensburg occupied one hour and fifty-eight minutes. But many disasters happened to the batteries. Some of the cells cracked wide open, and jolts due to inequalities of track threw the batteries out of working order. These experiments must have been extremely costly, and no little discouragement among people in general attended this failure; but Professor Page was not daunted, and for some years continued his work on electric motors, displaying great ingenuity, but not able, apparently, to give up the reciprocating principle."

The invention of the commercial dynamo, shortly after the middle of the nineteenth century, opened the era of practical electric-railway construction on both sides of the Atlantic. The German experimenters, Siemens and Halske, and later the American, Stephen D. Field, paved the way by numerous experiments and discoveries. It was not until about 1880, however, that the idea of using a third rail for transmitting the current was conceived. Hitherto, most of the inventors had attempted to use one rail as a receiving part of the circuit to the motor, the other rail completing the return part of the circuit. And it was several years after the idea of the third rail had germinated before the attempts to utilize one of the traction rails for conveying the current was abandoned.

THE EDISON ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE

In 1880, Mr. Thomas A. Edison, at Menlo Park, New Jersey, perfected a series of electric-railway motors and locomotives that were actually employed in hauling freight and passengers. The following year Mr. Edison made a contract with Mr. Henry Villard, which stipulated that the inventor was to construct an electric railway at least two miles and a half in length, which was to be equipped with two locomotives and three cars, one locomotive for freight and one for passengers, the passenger locomotive to have a capacity of sixty miles an hour. It was agreed that if the experiment with this railway proved successful Mr. Villard was to reimburse Mr. Edison for the actual outlay, and to install at least fifty miles of electric road in the wheat regions of the Northwest.

The electric locomotives built by Mr. Edison were constructed along the usual lines of steam locomotives, with cab, headlight, and cowcatcher, the motive power being applied from the motors to the axle by means of friction pulleys. This method was soon abandoned, as the pulleys slipped a great deal before the locomotive actually started. A system of belts which was substituted proved more satisfactory. The current was conveyed to the motor through the track, and was supplied to the road by underground cables connecting from the dynamo-room of Mr. Edison's laboratory. The rails were insulated from the ties by coatings of Japan varnish, and by placing them on pads made of muslin impregnated with tar.

From the very first this road gave promise of success. The tireless genius of Edison was constantly finding and correcting defects, and there was every prospect that in a few months a practical and economical electric railway would be an accomplished fact. Then came the financial crash of the Northern Pacific Railway, involving the fortune of Mr. Villard, and tying the hands of the inventor at Menlo Park for the time being.

The year following, however, Mr. Field and Mr. Edison combined their forces and formed a company for perfecting and constructing electric locomotives and railways. In the same year an electric railway was put in operation at the Chicago Railway Exposition, the chief promoters of this enterprise being Messrs. Field, F. B. Rae, and C. O. Mailloux. In the gallery of the building a circular track, something like a third of a mile in length, was laid, and on this an electric locomotive named The Judge hauled a single car which carried over twenty-six thousand passengers in the month of June. In the autumn of the same year, The Judge was used for hauling passengers on a track at the Louisville Exposition. It was capable of attaining a speed of twelve miles an hour, and its average speed was eight miles. It was twelve feet long over all, weighed something like three tons, and, like Edison's locomotive, was equipped with cowcatcher, headlight, and cab. The current was taken from a surface, or feed rail, by means of bundles of phosphor-bronze wire, so arranged that a good clean contact would be made on each side of the rail whether the car was moving forward or backward.

THIRD RAILS AND TROLLEYS

At the same time an Englishman named Leo Daft, then living in America, was making some important experiments with motors for the purpose of driving machinery, these motors being operated from central power-stations located at distant points. Mr. Daft constructed an electric locomotive, and in November, 1883, constructed what was known as the Saratoga and Mount MacGregor Railroad. This railroad was twelve miles in length and included many steep grades. The locomotive, which hauled a regular passenger-car, received the current from a central rail. The year following Mr. Daft built and equipped a small road on one of the long piers of Coney Island, which carried something like forty thousand passengers in one season. It was an improvement over the Siemens electric railway established in Germany in 1881—which, however, was the first road ever established.

The following year the inventor began the equipment of the Baltimore Union Passenger Railway Company, a line that ran a distance of about two miles and reached an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet above the city of Baltimore. This road was put into regular operation in 1886, and was the second electric street railway in America for carrying on regular passenger service.

The Baltimore Union Railway had several novel and important features, one of them being the equipment of part of the line with an overhead-trolley service, the practical importance of which had been demonstrated shortly before by Van Depoele. The projector, Mr. Daft, also built several other lines in different parts of the country, constantly improving upon his earlier efforts, sometimes using two overhead trolley wires, with two trolley contacts, thus doing away with the use of the track as a means of current supply, or for use as part of the circuit. Although in recent years double overhead trolleys have largely disappeared, some of them are still in use both in America and in Europe.

Van Depoele was a Belgian who had come to America in 1869. Although primarily a cabinet-maker, he had a great liking for the study of electricity, and devoted all his spare time and money to efforts to solve the problem of practical street-car propulsion. In 1883, at the Industrial Exposition at Chicago, he operated a car by electricity, using an overhead-trolley system somewhat similar to Daft's. By 1885, he had made sufficient progress to construct a line one mile long for carrying passengers from the railway station to the Annual Exhibition grounds at Toronto, Canada. On a single track he operated three cars and a motor, carrying an average of ten thousand passengers daily, his train sometimes attaining a speed of thirty miles an hour. For receiving the current he used an underrunning trolley and pole very similar to the form now in common use, this being one of the first instances of employing this particular method of receiving the current. In this system an insulated track was used for returning the current.

Van Depoele's next venture was the equipment of an electric railway at South Bend, Indiana, on which five separate cars were operated at one time—a thing supposed by many to be impossible. The cars of this road were equipped with motors placed under the cars instead of above them, thus saving valuable seating-space. In place of the underrunning trolley and pole, however, the current was taken from the overhead wire by means of a flexible cable. Later Van Depoele invented an underrunning trolley and pole, taking out the original patents. His claims to priority were contested eventually, but they were sustained by the United States courts.

At this time there were at least a score of inventors whose work added something of importance to the solution of the problem of electric traction. But without belittling others, it is probably only justice to say that the work of Frank J. Sprague, a one-time lieutenant in the United States Navy, marks the beginning of the modern era of street railways. In 1888, after a period of struggle and a series of disheartening disasters, Mr. Sprague and his associates opened an electric line for the Union Passenger Railway of Richmond, Va., which "forms a landmark in the history of this industrial development." Over a line of road with grades at that time considered impossible, thirty cars were put into use at the same time, the contract for the equipment calling for its completion in ninety days. The success of this enterprise, when on the opening day more electric cars were operated than in all the rest of America together, settled forever the question of the practicality of electric street railways, as well as many of the questions of the practical application of the current, thanks to Sprague's inventive genius.

This road was an overhead trolley-wire system, with an underrunning trolley held in place by the now-familiar trolley pole. The number of difficulties that had to be solved in perfecting this apparently simple piece of apparatus is shown by the statement of Mr. Sprague that "probably not less than fifty modifications of trolley wheels and poles were used before what is known as the 'universal movement' type was adopted."

In this connection the origin of the word "trolley" is interesting. It seems to have been corrupted from the word "troller" by the workmen of a Kansas City car-line. On this line an overhead wire was used, the travelling carriage taking the current from the wire being known as the "troller." The employees of the road, however, shortly corrupted "troller" into "trolley"; and "trolley" it has remained ever since.

As in the case of Van Depoele, whose perfection of the underrunning trolley was contested legally, Sprague's great contribution to electric traction, the suspension of the motor directly upon the axle, had finally to be sustained by the United States courts. Sprague's method was to hang the motor under the car directly upon the axle, by an extension or solid bearing attached directly to the motor. This plan of constructing the motor, together with numerous other improvements, principally in the direction of lightness, simplicity, and adaptability, soon superseded all pre-existing methods of construction. Thus Van Depoele's method of taking the current from the wire, and Sprague's method of utilizing it in the propulsion of the car, must be regarded as epoch-marking steps in the history of electric traction. Sprague's invention demonstrated the validity of his contention, now universally accepted, that motors should be placed under each car instead of being used on locomotives.

STORAGE-BATTERY SYSTEMS

From the earliest attempts at solving the question of electric traction, efforts were made to produce some form of storage battery whereby the cars might be made independent of a distant generating plant. The advantages of a self-contained vehicle are so obvious that it is not surprising to find the inventors persistent in their attempts at producing practical cars of this type. Such battery cars would not require the dangerous, expensive, and cumbrous system of overhead wires, or the more sightly but also more expensive system of conduits. With such a system of cars the elaborate mains and feeders for bringing the current to the track from the power-house, and for effecting the return circuit, could be dispensed with. Moreover, the independent action of such cars over a system where the power is furnished from a single source, where the stoppage of the current stops every car along the line, is inestimable.

Between the years 1880 and 1883 many storage-battery cars were built and put in service both in European and American cities. Probably the most important one of these lines was that which was built by the Belgian, Mr. E. Julien, in New York city, in 1887–8. On the Fourth Avenue road something like a dozen storage-battery cars were put in operation for a considerable time, and later, improved modifications of these cars were operated in Philadelphia under the direction of Mr. Anthony Rackenzaun, of Vienna. But despite the apparent simplicity of the storage-battery idea, innumerable difficulties were perpetually presenting themselves in its practical application. Despite the disheartening results, however, storage-battery cars were not entirely abandoned in practice until 1903, New York city being the last to surrender, as it had been about the last to adopt them.

But in February, 1910, the storage-battery street car again made its appearance on trial in New York—not the old heavy type of unsatisfactory car, but an entirely new and lighter creation of Thomas A. Edison, who had been striving for years to solve the storage-battery problem. This car, which had been tested on the Orange, New Jersey, street-car line on January 20th, 1910, maintained a speed of fifteen miles an hour in actual practice, and ran a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles without re-charging the batteries.

There are some novel features about the car itself, but the all-important one is the peculiar and novel storage battery which it has taken Mr. Edison some nine years to perfect. In an imperfect form this battery was given a trial in 1903, and much was expected of it because it was not only lighter than the usual form of storage battery, but it promised more permanency because an alkali was used in place of an acid as an electrolyte.

In this battery the positive element, which consisted of nickel oxide interspersed with layers of graphite, was packed in perforated nickel tubes. The negative element was iron oxide, with potassium hydrate as the electrolyte. This battery showed no bad effects from over-charging or from being rapidly discharged, but it was found that the graphite soon became oxidized and interfered with the working of the battery. This defect was corrected by substituting chemically pure nickel for the graphite, but another was soon discovered. Under the pressure of the oxide of nickel the square tubes containing the nickel were frequently injured so that the powdered nickel oxide was sifted down on the pure nickel layers and insulated them.

The only solution of this difficulty seemed to be to pack the nickel in strong round tubes four inches long and about the size of a lead pencil, the sides of the tubes being finely perforated. But the expense of producing such tubes by ordinary methods was prohibitive. A machine was finally invented, however, which made the tubes economically by using spirally wound ribbons of metal, the edges being fastened together during the coiling process. By the use of these tubes the battery was so far perfected that it was given extensive trials in 1908 on electric vehicles; and as these tests proved satisfactory, Mr. Edison began the construction of a specially designed street car equipped with two 5-horse-power 110-volt motors of very light construction. The car weighs complete about five tons, and the batteries are stored under the seats running along each side.

This car was tested continuously for three weeks on one of the New York cross-town lines and performed its work so satisfactorily and economically that the management of the line decided to give the system a permanent trial. The regular daily run of this car averaged something over sixty-six miles, but this by no means exhausted the capacity of the batteries; and it is estimated that it could easily have run at least one-quarter farther without re-charging. The surprising feature of these tests was the low cost of running. The total cost of electric power for the day's run was about thirty cents, or 4.3 mills for each mile. The ordinary New York street car costs on an average about five cents per mile for electrical energy; but on the other hand, the carrying capacity of these cars is almost twice that of the Edison car.

The actual cost of running the car, however, was only one of its many advantages. The fact that no underground conduits have to be laid or overhead wires erected and maintained makes the initial cost of installing the line far less than by any other system. The reduction in the cost of maintenance of the line is also an important item, as it is estimated that the cost of repairs on conduit lines is about $15,000 annually per mile.

But the most convincing proof that Mr. Edison has really produced a practical storage battery car lies in the fact that, after testing his car for three weeks in actual traffic, the managers of the street-car line ordered sixteen similar cars for operation over their road.

MONORAIL SYSTEMS

The introduction of electricity facilitated the construction of monorail systems of roads, which had long been the dream of railroad constructors, since this power could be applied with so much more flexibility. The defects of the parallel rail system are apparent both in construction of the roadbed and the operating of trains. It is almost impossible to lay and maintain the rails in exact parallels, and even more difficult to keep each rail at the proper height at all points. Both these factors enter very largely into the determination of the speed that a train can make over such tracks, any very great variation from the parallel causing derailment, while slight depressions or elevations of either rail cause violent and dangerous rocking of the cars travelling at high speed.

In any monorail system the first of these difficulties, the deviation of the rail from the parallel, is, of course, eliminated; and it is found that on a single rail the elevations and depressions are not serious obstacles. Moreover, the cost of construction of a single-rail track must obviously be less than for a double-rail track, and the power necessary to operate cars over such a track far less. But until the invention of the gyrocar (which is referred to at length in the following chapter) the methods of balancing the car on a single rail presented difficulties which quite offset the advantages of the monorail system. Some of these methods are unique and a few of them are practical in actual operation.

In Germany a suspension monorail system is in operation, the cars being suspended from an overhead track. But obviously such a system, which requires elaborate and expensive steel trestle-work along every fork of the road, is not adapted to the use of long-distance roads except in thickly populated districts. A less expensive and highly satisfactory system is the one invented by Mr. Howard Hansel Tunis and used at the Jamestown Exhibition in 1907.

In this system the wheels, arranged in tandem, have double flanges which keep them on the single-rail track, and the cars are prevented from toppling over by overhead guides. These guides must be supported on a frame-work, but as there is little tendency to sway on a single-rail track, they can be relatively light structures. It is the cost of these frames, however, that practically offsets the low cost of road-bed construction, so that, everything considered, the mere matter of initial cost has no very great advantage over the ordinary double-rail road. But the cost of operating is considerably less than the older type, and this road would undoubtedly come rapidly into popularity but for the fact that such gyrocars as the ones invented in England and Germany are self-sustaining on the rail, doing away with the expensive overhead frame-work construction, and are likely to become practical factors in the problem of transportation.

In 1909 an electric aerial monorail up the Wetterhorn in the Alps was put into operation. On this line a car suspended on two cables, one above the other and without supports except at the upper and lower terminals, rises at an angle of forty-five degrees through a distance of 1,250 feet. There are two sets of these cables, each carrying a car so arranged as to work in alternate directions simultaneously, this counter-balancing effecting a great saving in power. The power-plant is located at the upper end of the ascent, and consists of winding drums actuated by electricity which raise and lower the cars by means of cables. On the cars themselves, therefore, there is no power, but each car is equipped with brakes powerful enough to stop and hold it notwithstanding the steepness of the incline.

There is nothing particularly novel in the principles involved in this aerial road, but it is the first of its kind to be built for passenger traffic. Similar less pretentious roads have been in use for freight transportation for several years. But the success of this road means the building of others on inaccessible mountain inclines where the laying of ordinary roadbeds is out of the question, and the operating of cog roads too expensive.