THE FUTURE
Nothing irritates an electrical engineer more readily than the
repetition of the phrase, 'Electricity is in its infancy.' The words
have been used by countless mayors and aldermen while 'inaugurating'
tramway or electric lighting schemes; they have been echoed by
innumerable journalists who persist in maintaining a Jules-Verne
attitude towards the electrical industry. And what disturbs the
electrical engineer is not only the banality of the phrase but the use
of it as a comment upon the achievements to which he has devoted his
life.
Nevertheless it will be admitted, from the rapid survey which we have
taken of electric traction, that the potentialities of electricity in
locomotion make an even stronger appeal than the actualities. Except in
one field--the tramway field--engineers have only touched the fringe of
possible developments in electric locomotion.
Even in tramway work we may, if legislative conditions improve and
if current becomes much cheaper, see a considerable development in
passenger and also in agricultural lines. Meanwhile the trolley omnibus
offers a prospect of extension in electric road traction; and there
is a great deal yet to be done with petrol-electric vehicles and with
electric automobiles in certain classes of transport.
The great field, however, lies in railway traction. There are 200
miles of electric railway in the United Kingdom; and there are nearly
13,000 miles of steam railway. Not even the most sanguine electrical
missionary will believe that this difference can be materially altered
within the next decade, but there is ample ground for faith in the
steady increase of the electrical figure. If the advance of electric
traction on railways must be slow, it is because financial and not
engineering considerations govern the speed of conversion. No railway
company can take a step involving hundreds of thousands of pounds, and
a revolution in working methods, without prolonged consideration and
elaborate preparation.
On roads, on tramways, and on railroads, the future lies with
electricity--wholly on railroads and tramways, perhaps not wholly on
roads. There is scope for it also at sea; and if our canals are worth
the cost of reconstruction on modern lines, electric haulage will
be used there on the model of the canal haulage installations which
exist here and there on the Continent. For marine work the advantages
of electricity have yet to be confirmed by practical experience; but
on land it has already proved that it supplies a means of locomotion
which is more efficient, cleaner and more attractive, and more closely
adapted to the needs and distribution of modern population than any
other.
The fashion for devising Utopias is not so popular as it used to be,
but in every ideal world which is more than a spiritual vision, and
in every intelligent forecast of an advanced civilisation, universal
electric transport is taken for granted. Electrical engineers are ready
to prove that this standard element in Utopia is available at the
present day on the basis which is the ultimate justification of all
engineering projects in this workaday world--the basis of profit.
Their confidence will be intensified when we approach the
'all-electric' age prophesied by Mr Ferranti in his Presidential
Address to the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1910. Mr Ferranti
looks forward to a national scheme for the supply and distribution of
electric power. Under this scheme, the production of electricity would
be concentrated in one hundred huge power stations, using engines of
enormous capacity and acting as wholesale suppliers of electrical
energy to towns, railways, tramways, and factories. The price of
electricity would then be a fraction of what it is now; and all the
economies of electricity in action would be multiplied accordingly.
Technically, the scheme is quite feasible; and it could be realised
in the near future if capitalists and the Government could be brought
to appreciate the tremendous stimulus it would offer to industrial
activity and the effect it would have in conserving the power which is
latent in our coal measures.
INDEX
Acceleration, 23 _et seq._
on electric railways, 107, 110
Accumulators, 70
on air ships, 90
on ships, 90
Aeroplanes, 90
Alternating current, 30, 115
Automixte (petrol-electric), 85
Automobiles (electric), 70 _et seq._
advantages of, 80
hiring of, 75
in United States, 79
Batteries (electric), 13
Behr, F. B., 131
Blackpool, 37
Bournemouth, 38
Braking, 67
Brennan, L., 132, 134
Brighton line electrification, 117
Broadbent, F., vii, 116
Brunel, 8, 11, 17
Cab (electric), 78
City and South London Railway, 97
Conduit system, 28, 37, 126
Continuous current, 116
District Railway, 103, 119
Durtnall, W. P., 88
Dynamo, 13
reversibility of, 15, 67
Elberfeld-Barmen Railway, 125, 135
Electric traction
advantages of, 19 _et seq._
automobiles, 70 _et seq._
backwardness of, 46 _et seq._
on main line railways, 116, 122
Faraday, 13
Ferranti, 140
Fischer (petrol-electric), 85
Giant's Causeway, 93
Griffiths-Bedell (G-B.) system, 44
Gyroscopic railways, 132
Hanging railway, 125, 135
Heilmann locomotive, 128
Kearney, E. W. C., 133
Launches (electric), 73
Light Railways Act, 58
Liverpool Overhead Railway, 97, 111
Locomotive (electric), 12, 97, 108
Heilmann, 128
turbo-electric, 129
London
electric cabs in, 79
electric railways in, 97, 103
tramways in, 39, 53
Lorain system, 44
Lyttelton, A., 119
Marylebone, 81
Mavor, H., 88
Mersey railway, 97
Mono-railways, 131 _et seq._
gyroscopic, 132
Motor (electric), 14
Multiple-unit system, 99, 108
Omnibus (electric), 77
petrol-electric, 83
Overhead system, 17, 128
'Paragon' system (ship propulsion), 87
Petrol-electric system, 82 _et seq._
Provisional Orders (Tramways), 48
Railless traction (_see_ trolley omnibus)
Railways
atmospheric, 7
cheap power for, 113
experimental electric, 16
finance of, 100
opposition to, 6
pioneer electric, 92, 96
rope, 7
Raworth, J. S., 68
Regenerative control, 67
Series-parallel system, 32, 115
Ship propulsion, 88
Siemens, vii, 14, 16, 114
Signalling (automatic), 112
Single-phase system, 120
Starting torque, 23 (_see_ also acceleration)
Stephenson, vii, 5, 9
Storage batteries, 70 _et seq._
'Stud' system, 42
Telpher system, 136
Third rail, 16
Three-phase system, 118
Torquay, 44
Trackless trolley (_see_ trolley omnibus)
Trailers, 26
Tramcars
equipment of, 31
Tramroads
early, 4
Tramways
accumulators on, 20
conduit, 28, 37, 126
cost of, 53
generating equipment for, 22
inter-urban, 50
legislation for, 47
municipal, 49
overhead system on, 17, 128
statistics, 27, 28
surface-contact, 28, 42
Tramways Act (1870), 95
Trolley omnibus, 56, 60 _et seq._
in relation to tramways, 65
Trolley system 17, 29 _et seq._
bow, 31
Tube railways, 97
Turbo-electric locomotive, 129
Veto (tramway), 47, 51
Waterfalls
electric power from, 94
Watt, vii
Wheatstone, 14
Wolverhampton, 44
Workmen's fares, 53
Yerkes, C. T., 104
_Cambridge:_
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Transcriber's Note:
Italics are indicated by _underscores_.
Bolds are indicated by =equal signs=.
Small capitals have been rendered in full capitals.
Footnote is placed to the end of chapter.
A number of minor spelling errors have been corrected without note.
End of Project Gutenberg's Electricity in Locomotion, by Adam Gowens Whyte