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When the Steam Railroad Electrified

Indiana University Press

Electricity challenges steam

I see in the recent subjugation of the subtle and hitherto elusive force of electricity to the needs of man," said American Street Railway Association President H. H. Littell at Chicago, Ill., in 1883, "boundless possibilities for the world's three great requisites of advancement; heat, light, and motion."

When Littell spoke, electricity was little more than a curiosity. Within the preceding decade, however, great progress had been made in developing practical applications of the principles of electricity, and before the end of the 19th century the electrical industry would achieve an importance that even the prophetic Mr. Littell would have been hard pressed to imagine.

Fundamental to the ultimate successful application of electricity to transportation was the work of English physicist Michael Faraday, beginning with the discovery of electromagnetic rotation in 1821 and culminating in 1831 with a series of electromagnetic induction experiments which demonstrated that electricity could be produced from magnetic force.

Between 1829 and 1831, Prof. Joseph Henry, an instructor at the Albany (N. Y.) Academy, developed a practical electromagnet and used it to power an experimental motor that used magnetic attraction and repulsion to produce reciprocating motion.

Among the earliest attempts to apply Faraday's and Henry's discoveries to the development of a practical electric motor were those of a young Vermonter named Thomas Davenport. Davenport, a blacksmith who had little formal education, was a man of remarkable curiosity and ingenuity. He acquired an electromagnet in 1833 and conducted experiments at his Brandon (Vt.) home. In 1835 Davenport demonstrated a working model of his first motor at the Rensselaer Institute in Troy, N. Y., which subsequently acquired the model as part of the school's scientific apparatus. Davenport later developed an improved motor which he used to power a small circular railway and a printing press. Although he obtained a patent for his motor in 1837, the design was too early and too crude for practical exploitation. Davenport died a poor and disillusioned man at Salisbury, Vt., in 1851.

Only a few years after Davenport demonstrated his electric railway, Robert Davidson, an electrical inventor of Aberdeen, Scotland, made the first attempt at constructing a full-sized electric locomotive. Financed by a grant from the Scottish Society of Arts, Davidson built a 5-ton machine powered by a 40-cell zinc-iron sulphuric-acid battery and electromagnetic motors of his own design. Thus powered by what he termed "galvanic power," Davidson's machine made several successful trips on the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway about 1838, attaining speeds as high as 4 mph. Soon afterward, the railway's enginemen reportedly destroyed the locomotive, presumably fearful for their employment. More favorably impressed with the experiment, however, was a Lieutenant Lecount of the Royal Navy, whose "A Practical Treatise on Railways," published in 1839, predicted: "We have no hesitation in saying that electromagnetism will at no distant day compete with steam as a motive power, and successfully."

In 1847 Prof. Moses G. Farmer, a notable American scientist, successfully operated an experimental locomotive, powered by a 48-cell Grove nitric-acid battery, that carried two passengers along an 18-inch-gauge track at Dover, N. H. During 1850 and 1851, Professor Farmer, aided by Thomas Hall, exhibited at the Charitable Mechanics' Fair in Boston a second small electric railway that was distinguished by its use of the running rails to transmit power to the locomotive.

A more ambitious experiment was carried out in 1851 by Dr. Charles G. Page, a Harvard-educated physician and a lifelong experimenter in electricity and magnetism. Page, then employed as a principal examiner in the United States Patent Office, built a small electric locomotive powered by a 100cell Grove battery and a 16 h.p. electric motor, in which the reciprocating action of a system of magnets and solenoids drove a flywheel through crankshafts. Page's locomotive reached 19 mph and covered the 5 miles between Washington, D. C., and Bladensburg, Md., in only 39 minutes in a trial run on April 29, 1851. However, the rough ride almost entirely destroyed the fragile pottery cells of the battery. Congress, which had put up $20,000 for the experiment, lost interest, and Page was unable to continue development of his ideas.

These attempts to produce a practical means of electric transportation shared a common weakness in their dependence upon batteries for power. Further progress was to await the development of electrical generators as a more satisfactory means of power supply.

In 1860 Italian physicist Antonio Pacinotti built a continuous-current dynamo, or generator, utilizing a ring armature winding. About 1867 several inventors in the U. S. and Europe, including Farmer, independently formulated the principles of self-excitation of the field magnets, and in 1870 Belgian-born electrical inventor Zenobe Gramme combined these discoveries into a practical generator which came into wide commercial use. In 1873 Gramme demonstrated at the Vienna Exhibition that his generator worked equally well as a motor to reconvert electric power to mechanical energy. With the advent of practical generators and motors the development of electric railways resumed after more than two decades of inactivity.

THE first generator-powered electric railway to operate with any success was constructed by the German electrician and inventor, Dr. Ernst Werner von Siemens, for the Berlin Industrial Exhibition in the summer of 1879. A small locomotive, powered by a 5 h.p. motor and capable of speeds of 8 mph, pulled a train of three cars around a loop of half-meter-gauge track about 1000 feet in length. A steam-driven generator supplied power to the locomotive through a center third rail. Capable of hauling 18 to 20 passengers at a time, the Siemens railway transported close to 100,000 persons during the course of the exhibition.

At the same time that Siemens installed his railway at Berlin, two American inventors developed similar projects. In 1879 Stephen D. Field originated plans for an experimental electric railway utilizing a third rail placed in a slotted conduit for power supply. In the latter part of 1880 Field began building a small railway at Stockbridge, Mass.

The celebrated American inventor, Thomas A. Edison, laid 1400 feet of track at his Menlo Park (N. J.) laboratories in the spring of 1880 and experimented with a small generator-powered locomotive that pulled two small cars at speeds as high as 40 mph. Late the following year, Edison contracted with Henry Villard, president of the Northern Pacific Railway, to construct two larger locomotives and a 2½-mile test track. Villard, a German-born journalist who became interested in railway finance, was one of Edison's earliest and strongest backers and had an optimistic view of the future of the youthful electrical industry. According to press reports of late 1881, Villard contemplated electrifying at least 50 miles of NP track in Minnesota if Edison's experiments were successful. Two curious-looking locomotives, resembling small steam locomotives, were built and tested at Menlo Park in 1882. Shortly afterward, however, the Northern Pacific became insolvent because of the high costs of its extension to Seattle, Wash. Villard was forced to resign, and no more was heard about NP electrification.

Both Edison and Field, as well as Siemens, applied for patents on their similar ideas at almost the same time. After several years of litigation, the Electric Railway Company of the United States was formed in 1883 to consolidate the interests of Edison and Field. In June 1883, the company exhibited an experimental locomotive, The Judge, at the Chicago Railway Exposition. During the exposition The Judge transported 26,000 passengers around a 1500-foot, 3-foot-gauge circular track. The locomotive drew power from a center third rail and had a maximum speed of 12 mph. The locomotive made an appearance at the Louisville Exposition later in the year. In 1887 Field developed a larger, more advanced locomotive, which operated experimentally on New York's 34th Street El.

Leo Daft, a New Jersey electrical manufacturer and inventor, was still another entrant in the field of electric railway experimentation. During 1881 and 1882 Daft tested several small electric locomotives on a short section of narrow-gauge track at the Greenville (N. J.) plant of his Daft Electric Company. Seeking a more practical test, Daft designed and built the 2-ton, 12 h.p. experimental locomotive Ampere which was operated on the Saratoga & Mt. McGregor Railroad in New York in November 1883. The little locomotive, hauling a standard steam railroad coach carrying about 75 passengers and negotiating an average grade of nearly 1.5 per cent, covered a mile in 11 minutes. Power was supplied through a center third rail and two small contact wheels mounted on the locomotive.

According to an account of the event in Scientific American, four horses were felled by contact with the third rail, and several persons narrowly escaped injury when the Ampere derailed on its return trip. Still, reported the journal, "Mr. Daft was warmly congratulated on the degree of success obtained, and most of the numerous party present were confident the trial was a proof of the practical success of the system."

Less than two years later, in August 1885, Daft completed a 2-mile electrification of a Baltimore (Md.) horsecar line. Although the line later returned to horsecar operation, the Daft electrification operated regularly for several years, and generally is regarded as the first electric road to have operated successfully in the United States.

Soon after Daft's Baltimore electrification began service, he operated the locomotive Benjamin Franklin for several weeks over an experimental electrification on the Ninth Avenue line of the Manhattan Elevated Railroad. The locomotive's motor was mounted on a platform and pivoted at one end, with power transmitted to the single driving axle through grooved wheels held in contact by the weight of the machine, supplemented by an adjusting screw. The Benjamin Franklin was rebuilt in 1888 and ran for eight months in regular tests between 14th and 50th streets on the elevated road. Speeds as high as 28 mph were obtained with heavy, four-car trains, and in one test, Dan eight-car train was pulled up the line's maximum grade of nearly 2 per cent at 7 mph.

Much of the electric railway experimentation of the 1880's, such as Daft's installation at Baltimore involved street railways. In 1881 Siemens completed the world's first successful commercial street railway electrification at Lichterfelde, a Berlin (Germany) suburb. An experimental Siemens electric tram car operated at the Paris Exposition in 1881 and a second commercial line electrified by Siemens opened at Portrush, Ireland, in 1883.

A number of other electrical experimenters also began to experience success at this time. Edward M. Bentley and Walter H. Knight opened a 2-mile electric street railway at Cleveland in 1884. Belgium-born Charles J. Van Depoele ran a short electric line at Toronto, Ont., in the summer of 1884, and in 1886 he installed the world's first completely electrified street railway system at Montgomery, Ala. John C. Henry, a former telegraph operator, built an electric line in 1884 at Kansas City, Mo.

A young Naval Academy graduate named Frank J. Sprague was the most important of the early electric railway experimenters. In 1885, when he conducted electrification experiments on the elevated tracks of the Manhattan Railway, Sprague devised the nose-hung or "wheelbarrow" method of motor mounting and gearing that was to become almost universal in electric railway equipment.

Despite successful experiments, Sprague was unable to interest the owners of the elevated in electrification and subsequently devoted his efforts to street railway electrification. His 1887-1888 electrification of the Richmond (Va.) Union Passenger Railway generally is regarded as the first large-scale, fully successful street railway electrification. Within a few years of its opening, electric street railways became commonplace.

Although much electric railway development work was devoted to street railways, interest and experimentation in the electric operation of steam railroads continued. In 1887 a 7½-ton electric locomotive capable of hauling 100-ton coal trains on a 1.5 per cent grade was placed in regular service on a 3-mile line at the Lykens Valley Colliery in Pennsylvania, and similar mining and industrial electrifications were installed during the ensuing few years. Another significant advance came in December 1890, when the City & South London Railway began operating its 3.5-mile London (England) subway with electric locomotives. The four-wheel, 10-ton locomotives could haul 40-ton trains at 25 mph. They were powered by two 50 h.p. gearless motors with armatures wound directly on the axles.

BY the beginning of the 1890's electric locomotives had succeeded in several applications where operating conditions and train tonnages at least approached those of steam railroad service. Several interesting, if unsuccessful, railroad electrification projects were advanced during this period.

Quite remarkable among these early projects were high-speed tests carried out by the Electro-Automatic Transit Company of Baltimore in the summer of 1889. The Electro-Automatic company, organized by inventor David G. Weems, engaged Oscar T. Crosby to conduct the test of the Weems system. Crosby, a graduate of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, had been one of Sprague's associates in the Richmond street railway electrification.

The Weems company constructed a 2-mile circle of 28-inch-gauge track at Laurel, Md., for the initial high-speed tests. The bright red, wooden-bodied locomotive was rectangular in cross section — 2½ feet high and 2 feet wide — and 21 feet in length, including a 4-foot pointed "prow" at each end. Two traction motors were installed, with the armatures mounted directly on each of the locomotive's two axles. The Weems high-speed train, including two cars, weighed about 6000 pounds. Power was supplied at 500 volts through an overhead third rail and an upward-bearing brush mounted on the locomotive. The unmanned train was controlled from the power station inside the circle of track. Locomotive brakes were applied automatically whenever the current either was shut off or failed for any reason.

The test track, constructed with only poorly laid 16-pound rail on grades as steep as 2 per cent, was ill-suited for the contemplated high speeds. Nevertheless, the train attained speeds of 115 mph, and data was obtained concerning air and train resistance at high speeds.

Based on the test results, Crosby proposed full-sized standard-gauge electrification tests in which 150-mph speeds were contemplated. Crosby's working drawings included such advanced features as all-steel passenger cars, magnetic brakes, regenerative braking, and streamlining. An 18-ton locomotive of about 600 h.p. was planned. As in the previous trials, traction-motor armatures would have been carried directly on the locomotive's driving axles. The locomotive would have had a parabolic or wedge-shaped front end, and the train would have had a continuous exterior surface.

A 1500-volt power system was planned, with supply and return conductors mounted on opposite sides of the track. A special switch on the locomotive's "trolley arm" collector would energize only a short section of power-supply conductor adjacent to the passing locomotive.

The Weems company was unable to raise the necessary money for a trial of Crosby's standard-gauge high-speed electrification, and it suspended operations soon after the trials at Laurel were completed.

Henry Villard, who had financed some of Edison's experiments a decade earlier, briefly re-entered the field of steam railroad electrification about this time. After losing his personal fortune and the presidency of Northern Pacific in the financial depression of 1883-1884, Villard went back to his native Germany for two years. He returned to New York City in 1886 with new German financial backing and became instrumental in planning the consolidation of Thomas Edison's various electrical enterprises, along with Frank Sprague's Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company, into the Edison General Electric Company. Villard was president of the new firm from the time of its establishment in early 1889 until he was forced out by financier J. P. Morgan three years later, when Edison General Electric was merged into the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to create the present-day General Electric Company.

Shortly after his return to the U. S., Villard again became affiliated with the Northern Pacific, serving as chairman of the railway's board of directors from 1889 until 1893. Through a subsidiary Chicago terminal company, the Chicago & Northern Pacific, which was organized and leased to the Wisconsin Central in 1890, the NP had an interest in WC's growing suburban traffic. In early 1892 Villard initiated a feasibility study of a Chicago terminal electrification. Electric traction pioneer Frank Sprague, together with Doctors Louis Duncan and Cary T. Hutchinson of Johns Hopkins University, designed a locomotive for experimental operation at Chicago. Baldwin built the 60-ton eight-wheel locomotive, which was rated at 1000 h.p., in 1893. At the time it was the largest electric locomotive ever built. A large center operating cab afforded unobstructed visibility, while sloping hoods at each end housed various equipment, creating a "steeple-cab" arrangement. Four gearless traction motors and a pneumatic control system were employed. Unfortunately, financial reverses intervened again. Northern Pacific entered bankruptcy, Villard lost his post as chairman of the board, and the tests never took place.

Far more ambitious but no more successful than the Weems and Villard electrification projects was the remarkable Chicago & St. Louis Electric Railway proposed by Dr. Wellington Adams in 1892. The railway, according to its promoters, would be built in an absolutely straight "air line" between its terminal cities, cutting more than 30 miles from the shortest steam railroad mileage. Low-slung, wedge-nosed cars, capable of running at 100 mph on 6-foot driving wheels, were planned for the railway. The line initially would be built with double track, but provision would be made for an eventual two more tracks. Such advanced features as automatic block signals and telephone communication between moving trains were planned. At night, an automatic system of incandescent lamps along the right of way would illuminate the roadbed for a mile before and behind a moving car.

Editorial writers in the railway trade press were not kind to the proposal. Noting that the railway's "air line" route managed to miss every intermediate point of consequence, Railway Age observed, "Drawing straight lines on paper and running them through the air are easier achievements than providing the capital for the construction of a projected railway." This indeed proved to be the case, and Adams' grandiose project never went beyond the prospectus stage.

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Excerpted from When the Steam Railroad Electrified by William D. Middleton. Copyright © 2001 William D. Middleton. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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