ELECTRIC RAILWAYS, cars driven along tracks by electric power, supplied either from a central power station, or storage batteries, the latter method being no longer in practical use. The first ex periment made in an electrically driven vehicle, interesting from a historical point of view rather than from any practical results it attained, was under taken by Thomas Davenport, of Bran don, Vermont, a blacksmith with a self developed education in electricity and mechanics. In 1835 he attempted to propel a wagon by means of a revolving electro-magnet, without any degree of success. A more significant attempt was made three years later, in 1838, by Robert Davidson, in Aberdeen, Scotland, who built a small locomotive which was able to move along a track for a con siderable distance. In 1850 the first practical electrical locomotive was built in this country, by Prof. C. I. Page, of Washington, D. C. This electrically driven vehicle, of sixteen horse power, was tested on the tracks of the Balti more and Ohio railroad, and attained a speed on a level stretch of track of nine teen miles an hour. In both these me chanically successful cases, however, the commercial value of the experiment was handicapped by the limitations of the storage battery, which was too expen sive as a means of locomotive power. It was not till the dynamo was invented and developed that the electric railway attained its first possibility.
It was the development of the dynamo which made it possible to generate the electric power necessary for propelling the cars at a central point and transmit it to the moving cars by means of over head wires or third-rail tracks. It was on this principle that the first practical electric railway was built, in 1879, at the International Exposition held in Berlin, by Siemens and Halske. The demon stration was made by means of a locomo tive running on a track a thousand feet in length. In the following year Thomas A. Edison and Stephen D. Field, in this country, began experimentation. In 1883 they exhibited an electric locomo tive in Chicago, which was the first of i the type which is now successfully em ployed all over the country. So con vincing was the demonstration that in the following year the first track was laid on a city street for practical elec trical railway operation, in Kansas City, Mo. and there accommodated public traffic. This venture was so eminently successful, from a commercial point of view, that several other cities followed the example of Kansas City with electric railway service. Four years later, in 1888, Richmond, Va., electrified its whole urban street railway system, with a total of thirteen miles of track. Before the close of the year there were thirteen electric systems in operation in as many municipalities in the United States and Canada, with a total length cif track of forty-eight miles.
From now on the development of elec tric railway construction went on at a rapid pace, existing municipal services being not only converted to electric power, but new tracks being laid and ex tended far into the country districts.
The electric railway, or trolley car, as it is more popularly called, has not only displaced the old urban horse cars and cable cars, but it has widely supple mented the regular steam railroads. It has been one of the powerful influences in bringing the rural population into i close touch with city life, in that it has made transpOrtation from the rural communities into the larger towns and cities easy and cheap. In this respect it stands perhaps equal with the auto mobile. In passenger traffic the electric railway has been a keen competitor of the regular railroads, especially in the more populous rural districts.
Finally the steam railroads were them selves affected and subjected gradually to the transformation from steam to electricity. In the urban districts many railroads now employ electric locomo tives. Most notable example is New York City, into which no passenger i train is now drawn by steam locomo tives, all the lines entering the metro polis being now equipped with electric motive power. Most notable illustration of the development in this direction has been the electrification of five hundred miles of track of the Chicago, Milwau kee and St. Paul system, where it crosses the continental divide through Idaho and Montana, which took place in 1916. In 1919 over two hundred miles of track were added to the same system, through the Cascade Mountains in Washington. Along these stretches of line locomotives 112 feet long, some of 2,000 horse power, haul long trains of passenger and freight cars up and down the steep grades of the mountains. Coasting the down grade, the revolving wheels generate enough supplementary electric power to contribute over 40 per cent. of the power needed for the up grade hauls. The power, transmitted from the power stations to the locomo tives by wires or third rails, is gener ated from water power, of which a great deal may be found in the mountain dis tricts. It is this which renders elec tricity as motive power much cheaper than steam. Where water power is not available coal is needed to generate the current. Even under these circum stances the operation of railroads by electric power is cheaper than steam, but the necessity of building power plants and the interest absorbed by the capital invested in them makes the total cost more. Where railroads are public property, however, and are constructed and maintained by collective capital, and use, or service, is considered rather than commercial profit, the tendency is to apply electric power, as is the case in many countries of Europe. Were all the steam railroad lines of the United States to be electrified, it is estimated that one-sixth of the total coal con sumption of the country could be saved. Specifically, the 125,000,000 tons of coal now being burned by the railroad lines of the country could be reduced to 40, 000,000 tons, were electricity to be adopted as the motive power universally.