ELECTRIC TRAINS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 99, 8 April 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

ELECTRIC TRAINS.

£1.500,000 SCHEME. A swift, non-stopping, smooth-run-ning electric train is proposed to be established between London and Brighton, bringing the breezes of the sea front within 45 minutes of London Bridge. The preliminary step towards tne task of electrifying the main lines of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway has been taken; the line is i lieing surveyed, and specifications are being prepared. These specifications, w-ith a report, will be submitted to the braid, who will '.hen decide whether the scheme will be undertaken or not. The cost of making Brighton practically a suburb of London is likely to ib- a million and a half sterling. The initial expenses of the specification are considerable, for the work wifi take -.ho engineers two years to complete. Another three years must lie spent on the electrification »self, so that five years must pass before the first electric I “Southern Bell’’ glides out of Victoria’ Sta-.ion. The present plan, the “Express” underst inds, is for the line to be elects ified. in any case, as far as Croydon. It wilt then be transferred for electric | ’.rains as far as Newharcn on the eastI ern branch of the line, and Brighton I and Wor'hing on the west. Approximately. 39 miles of the main line are to be electrified on the single phase system, plus the mileage from Wivetsfi'eld, through Lewes, to Newhaven, from Preston Park to Worthing. This is what the electric journey of tile future will lie:—The traveller will find Victoria or London-bridge almost as silent as ';be tube station. The arc lights will be tindimmed by the smoke of hundreds of engines. There will Is? none of the hi-sing of stoatn. the clatter of great steel driving wheels and the nerve-shat*ering shriek of steam whistles. There will be no black sooty smu's floating in at the window* when tl-.cv are open. His carriages will be the same, for tbev have all been newly-buih. but lie will see a strange engine not like the edd-humned tuba en-ones. Ho -.t il! see an oblong truck-shaped engine without th? bulb-like growths and funnels of to-dav. with 1 wo long flaxiM? (xilcs rising from the flat roof. Tl: • express driver will need no longer to wear blue d'ill e’ethes covered with

oil and grim<*: ho will be ertirolv under c< ver durinr the iournev. with glass -. indotvs ,?f th"" side and f in.., like the windows of an observation '.ar.