Edison’s Electric Railway.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6752, 5 February 1892, Page 3

Edison’s Electric Railway.

Edison claims that he can get one horse* power of electrical energy out of a single pound weight of cheap coal, whereas steam requires six pounds weight of dear coal to get the same power out of it. He says that eleven years ago he ran a (rain 49 miles an hour by electricity on his own three mile track on Menlo Park. He can now, accord* ing to. his own account, run as many as may be wanted, from 100 to 200 miles an hour, between Chicago and Milwaukie, during the World’s Fair. If we may credit him, the whole system of railway travelling is on the eve of a revolution. Steam will be discarded with as much contempt as would bo the notion of reviving the old stage coach. With the exit of steam there will disappear the locomotive engine. The driving power will be new. The electric currant will pass from the stationary engine to a central rad between the tracks, and thence through the mcch. miasm attached to the bottom of the cars each having its motor. Three stationary engines would bs needed, with 10,000 or 12,CC0 horse power. Each would run the whole Pennsylvania railway system between New York and Philadelphia—freight, local and expre s trains. But under this system long trains will be things of the past. Edison intends to run a train of two curs every 10 minut-s, following each other as So the tram cars. But when people talk of railway travelling at 200 miles an hour one begins to ask, What is to become of the wheels of the cavrugea and the tracks they run on ? Somebody asked Edison on this point, “ Can equipment be devised which will stand tbs strain of such a system at full speed ?’’ The answer may be taken for what it is worth. He claims that the depreciation of rolling stock and road bed under electricity is much leas than under steam propulsion. Every exertion of steam power is of the nature of an explosion ; and when we take into consideration the fact that 400 or 500 engines are on a road like the Pennsylvania at one time, each exercising a different degree of its explosive powers, the depreciation is a great factor. But‘with electricity, he says, it is always the smooth rotary motion, imparted in the same way by the .same men at the stationary engine?. And then be adds “ Full speed on this system is—or I see no reason why it should not bo 200 miles an hour. But for practical purposes I feel sure that a 101 b rail on a ballasted track would stand a speed of 100 miles an hour.”