ELECTRIC RAILWAY 



1997 



ELECTRIC RAILWAY 



The Compound Motor. The compound mo- 

 tor is a combination of the series and the shunt 

 types. One branch of the current goes around 

 the field coils, as in the shunt motor. The 

 other branch, having a low resistance, goes 

 around the field 

 and through the 

 armature coils. 

 The current flows 

 in the same direc- 

 tion in the two 

 field coils. The 

 division of the 

 current and wind- 

 ings are shown in \ 

 Fig. 7. C o m - 

 pound motors are 

 used in rolling 

 mills and other 

 places where the 



load may be sud- FIGURE 7 



denly increased. A compound-wound motor. 

 Uses. The electric motor is used for almost 

 every purpose which requires power for oper- 

 ating machinery. Since electric power can be 

 carried hundreds of miles with but slight loss, 

 the electric motor makes available hundreds 

 of thousands of horse power from water power 

 sites; before its invention this immense power 

 was useless because of its inaccessibility. The 

 power generated at Niagara, for instance, is 

 used to operate street cars more than two hun- 

 dred miles away, and the street cars in San 

 Francisco are operated by power generated by 

 mountain streams over a hundred miles dis- 

 tant. Many small towns have become thriving 

 manufacturing centers because they have ob- 

 tained electric power from a distance. Electric 

 motors are constructed in all sizes, from those 

 that operate a sewing machine to the locomo- 

 tive that moves the heaviest trains. 



The application of the small motor which can 

 obtain its power by connecting it with an elec- 

 tric light fixture to operate the churn, the 

 washing machine and wringer, the vacuum 

 cleaner and other household machines, has 

 conferred a great blessing on many homes in 

 both city and country. In nearly all modern 

 factories each machine is operated by its own 

 motor. W.F.R. 



ELECTRIC RAILWAY, a railway on which 

 cars or trains are propelled by electricity. Be- 

 fore the nineteenth century had run half its 

 course, the idea of driving trains by electric 

 power had begun to interest inventive minds. 

 Thomas. Davenport, a blacksmith of Brandon, 



Vt., attempted to build an electric railway as 

 early as 1835. Three years later a Scotchman 

 living in Aberdeen invented an electric loco- 

 motive. These first experiments had little 

 practical significance, because experts had come 

 to realize that so long as current had to be 

 generated in batteries service on a large scale 

 would be too expensive. It was the invention 

 of the dynamo, furnishing a current of high 

 voltage at a considerably less cost, that en- 

 couraged inventors to push their experiments. 

 See DYNAMO. 



Investigations were conducted both in Eu- 

 rope and in America. A working railway was 

 shown at the Berlin exposition of 1879. In 

 1883 Thomas A. Edison and Stephen D. Field 

 exhibited an electric locomotive at Chicago. 

 The first overhead trolley line was built at 

 Kansas City the following year, and four years 

 later the street railway system of Richmond, 

 Va., was equipped with electric power. The 

 period of rapid expansion which followed may 

 be dated from the successful experiment* at 

 Richmond. In city after city electric caw 

 have taken the place of horse-cars on the street 

 railways, until now the latter are rarely nan. 

 Cable-cars, too, have largely been superseded. 

 Improvements in the type of motor and the 

 construction of cars went rapidly forward, and 

 as they did so the electric car spread from 

 the city to the country- Interurban line*, 

 forming a network across the country, are 

 everywhere bringing the town and the village 

 nearer to the city. 



As electric locomotives of increased efficiency 

 are designed they are more and more substi- 

 tuted for steam locomotives. The first " ha *g|t* 

 from steam to electricity were made to elimi- 

 nate the smoke and dirt of coal on elevated 

 railways, in tunnels and subways and at ter- 

 minals in large cities. All trains entering New 

 York City are now operated entirely by elec- 

 tricity. But, except in mountain regions where 

 water power is plentiful, electricity has not 

 been found more economical than steam. It is 

 true that electric locomotives may be operated 

 more dimply, but interest on the enormous 

 cost of installing the electrical equipment w 

 usually greater than the Having. Perhaps the 

 greatest step in the history of electric railroad- 

 ing was the introduction in 1916 of electric 

 engines on 440 miles of the main line of the 

 Chicago, Milwaukee fc Saint Paul Hallway in 

 the mountains of Idaho and Montana. These 

 engines arc 112 ft. 8 in. long and haul passen- 

 ger and freight bruins across the continental 



