890 REPORT—1896. 
The trains make a round trip of eight miles in one hour, with three minutes 
lay-off at each end. 
The cost of keeping the slot clean comes to about 40/. per quarter, and the 
repairs to each plough conductor about 50s. per quarter. 
Attempts have been made to obviate the necessity of the slot by what is 
lnown as the closed conduit : but at present the results are not encouraging. 
The following figures will help to convey to the mind the great development . 
which is taking place in America, as regards the earnings upon lines electrically 
equipped. They are derived from the Report of the State Board of Railroad Com- 
missioners for Massachusetts. 
1888 1894 Increase 
Net earnings per passenger carried Beets ‘78  62°5 per cent. 
Net earning per car mile - 2°78 4:83 356, 
Net earning per mile of road . . . £484 £762 57 
” 
In addition to the application of electricity for illuminating purposes, and for 
the driving of tram cars and railways, it has also been applied successfully to the 
driving of machinery, cranes, lifts, tools, pumps, &c., in large factories and works. 
This has proved of the greatest convenience, abolishing as it does the shafting of 
factories, and applying to each machine the necessary power by its own separate 
motor; the economy resulting from this can hardly be over-estimated. 
It is also successfully employed in the refining of copper, and in the manu- 
facture of phosphorus, aluminium, and other metals, which, before its application, 
were beyond the reach of commercial application. 
The extent of its development for chemical purposes in the future no one can 
foresee. 
It is hardly necessary to call attention to the successful manner in which the 
Falls of Niagara, and the large Falls of Switzerland, and elsewhere, are being 
harnessed and controlled for the use of man, and in which horse-power by thousands 
is being obtained. 
At Niagara, single units of electrical plant are installed equal to about 5,000 
horse-power output. These units are destined to be utilised for any of the purposes 
previously suggested, and it is computed that one horse-power can be obtained 
from the river, and sold for the entire year day and night continuously, for the 
sum of 3/. 2s. 6d. per annum. 
Electric head lights are being adopted for locomotives in the United States. 
The use of compressed air and compressed gas for tractive purposes is at 
present in an experimental stage in this country. The latter is claimed to be the 
cheapest for tramway purposes, the figures given being— 
: d 
Single horse cars - 3 : . . ; : : 2 
Blectrical cars, with overhead wires. i 4h 
Gascars . ‘ : 4 4 
Combination steam and electric locomotives, gazoline, compressed air, and hot- 
water motors are all being tried in the United States, but definitive results are not 
yet published. 
The first electric locomotive practically applied to hauling heavy trains was 
put into service on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway in 1895 to conduct the traffic 
through the Belt Line Tunnel. 
It is stated that, not only was the guaranteed speed of 30 miles per hour 
attained, but, with the locomotive running light, it reached double that speed. 
On the gradient of 8 per cent. a composite train of forty-four cars, loaded with 
coal and lumber, and three ordinary locomotives—weighing altocether over 1,800 
tons—was started easily and gradually to a speed of 12 miles an hour without 
slipping a wheel. The voltage was 625. The current recorded was, at starting 
about 2,200 ampéres, and, when the train was up to speed, it settled down to 
about 1,800 ampéres. The drawbar pull was about 63,000 Ibs. 
The actual working expense of this locomotive is stated to be about the same 
as for an ordinary goods locow otive—viz., 23 cents per engine mile. 
