ELECTRIC LIGHTING ON RAILWAYS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 10335, 17 June 1895, Page 2

ELECTRIC LIGHTING ON RAILWAYS.

Ax admirable trait of the citizens of th» United States is (says the LylttUm Times) their readiness to' learn, and their willingness toadmit superiority when they meet it. Stay-at-home Americans may, and doubtless do, indulge in "blowing about "the greatest country on airtb, Bir"; but when they travel they do not begrudge praise to the institutions and achievements of other countries. The World's Transportation Committee from America, which is just now on a visit to New Zealand, has for its president a Major Panghorn, who cheerfully admits that in one respect at least South Australian railways are a " wrinkle " ahead of the American. He remarked to a Melbourne interviewer :—: —

"On the South Australian railways they have got a system of electric lighting that is better than anything we have seen anywhere else in the world. They have succeeded in working their electric lighting on the cars by means of a dynamo run from the axle. Wo in America do it by a dynamo run from the engine and worked by steam. But our plan, yon pee, takes steam from the engine, and so lessens its power for actual work. In South Australia this is avoided, and the motiva power of the revolving axles, •which would otherwise be lost,- is employed to work the dynamo. It is simply splendid. And that is not all wo learned nbout electric lighting on trains in South Australia. It is a wonderful system of electric accumulation they have there. On the train from Adelaide to Broken Hill, for instance, the journey being at night, tho electric lights are on all tho time. Well, on the way back from Broken TTill to Adelaide, this journey being in the d.iy. electrical energy is being stored up, and enough is stored to light the train on its return journey from Adelaide to Broken "Hill, without any electrician being in attendance to look after it, so that they save the expense of an electrician every journey they. miko. Lighting by electricity on this system is actually less expensive than kerosene, and the light they get is the best light I erer saw on a car."

We fear that after such an experience the Commission will consider the railway system of New Zealand quite rudo and primitive; but an open-minded gentleman like Major Panghorn may even find it possible to discover .something that we do well ; and he is not likely, we should think, to be misled by the statements ot unpatriotic people who, because they happen to be in opposition to the Govern • ment, condemn unsparingly everything done or, being done in tho colony. .We might well ask, however, why a system of olectric lighting is not in vogue in our railway trains.