D.—4

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line, it must employ well-tried apparatus that has passed beyond the experimental stage, and it must be thoroughly flexible so as to afford the travelling public the advantages that are denied with steam operation. The use of any system which does not possess these qualities will burden the corporation adopting it with a heavy expense, for which there is no adequate return. Whether the system shall be alternating or direct current depends entirely on the development of the art, from a practical standpoint and the local conditions. The more congested the traffic, the more necessary the adoption of the system that will be least in danger of failure and best adapted to public demands." Finance, Cost, etc. Referring to some remarks reported to have been made by him in Melbourne on the subject of the electrification of suburban railways, Mr. Johnson, Commissioner New South Wales Railways, said ''he had not been able to make any investigations in Australia, and therefore had formed no opinion in relation to this country. His observations were of the position of affairs in England only, and there he recognised difficulties of cost in the way of electrification which were well-nigh insurmountable." The first cost, also the maintenance, are both considered to be in favour of the third-rail system when the overhead system requires to be utilised for heavy traction. It is considered more economical to build new cars complete for electric traction than to convert the ordinary cars. The cost of electrifying the line-work only (third-rail system) on the North-eastern Railway was about £6,500 per mile. No definite particulars of the cost of the overhead system for cases providing for heavy goods traffic are obtainable, as practically very little has as yet been done in the way of handling such traffic by that system. Some experts estimate the cost of overhead equipment to provide for heavy goods traffic as high as the third-rail system; others again estimate as low as £2,000 per mile for a double track ; and the general opinion appears to be that it might cost anything from £2,000 to £6,000 or £7,000 per mile of double track, according to local circumstances. Mr. W. E. Langdon, electrical engineer of the Midland Railway, in a paper read at the Institute of Electrical Engineers, estimated the total equipment for conversion from steam to electric traction at £9,000 per mile, and some engineers have estimated as low as £5,000; but it is worthy of note that Mr. J. A. F. Aspinall, general manager of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, reported at the Railway Congress at Washington that the total cost on their lines had been £20,000 per mile (but gave no details of what this included), and that the cost of working was quite as high as by steam after making proper allowance for the depreciation of the more costly electric plant. The North-eastern Railway gives the cost of working by electric traction as about half the cost of steam ; but neither give the full details of wdiat is included. In speaking of the electrification of the Liverpool and Southport Railway, which is one of the Lancashire and Yorkshire lines, Mr. Aspinall admitted that the change had been made not with any idea of economy of working but of securing better results. He said his company did not expect to save money, they expected to make money ; and these he considered were very different things. Certain expenses more or less offset one another, but experience had shown that it cost more money to work the line by electricity that it had when locomotives were used. The approximate figure which Mr. Aspinall gave for the electrification of such a line as the Liverpool and Southport was in the neighbourhood of about £20,000 per mile, which he believed was roughly about three and a half times that required for steam traction. Another interesting point brought out on that line was that the weight of what he called the locomotive equipment of the electric train was not any less than it would be with steam locomotives. In main-line work the total weight of motors, controllers, and the electric equipment in general about equals, if it does not exceed, the weight of the ordinary train with the steam locomotive attached. Extract from the Railway Gazette, dated 2nd November, 1906. In preparing an estimate of the comparative cost of electric and steam working upon an existing and up-to-date line worked at present by steam it is important to clearly analyse the necessary capital outlay in such a way as to favour neither system. The capital expenditure involved in making the change to electrification may generally be divided as follows: — (a.) Capital which has been expended on the existing system and may be no longer useful. (b.) Additional capital outlay necessary in connection with the electrification. (c.) Capital outlay already incurred, but which can be transferred to another portion of the system worked by steam, and hence be credited to the cost of electrification. The following hypothetical estimate is given as illustrating the chief items which have to be taken into account in considering such a proposition : — Estimated capital expenditure on railway ten miles long (twenty miles single track) with 100 trains running each way per day : — (a.) Capital expenditure of existing steam system, — Train-miles per annum = 100 x2x 10 x 340 ... ... ... 68,000 Number of locomotives, assuming each to run 17,000 train-miles per annum ... ... ... ... ■ • • - • ■ • • ■ 40 Number of trains at 25,000 train-miles per annum each, say... ... 27 Carriages at 7 per train ... ... ... ... ... 189