The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.Byrn, Edward W. (Edward Wright)
History
The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
Byrn, Edward W. (Edward Wright)
Inventions -- History; Inventions -- History -- 19th century
In Fig. 39 is shown one of the most powerful electric locomotives ever
constructed. It was built in 1895 by the General Electric Company for
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, to draw trains through the long tunnel
from the Camden Street Station in Baltimore, for the purpose of avoiding
smoke and gas in the tunnel, which is 7,339 feet long. The locomotive
weighs ninety-six tons, or twenty-five tons above the average steam
locomotive. It was designed to draw 100 trains daily each way, moving
passenger trains of a maximum weight of 500 tons at thirty-five miles an
hour, and freight trains of 1,200 tons at fifteen miles an hour. It has
two trucks, and eight drive wheels of sixty-two inches diameter. There
are four motors, two to each truck, each rated at 360 horse power.
Other important applications of the electric motor are, the propelling
of automobile carriages, small boats, and fish torpedoes, operating
steering gear for ships, passenger elevators, rock drills in mines,
running printing presses, fans, sewing machines, graphophones, and in
all applications where space is limited and cleanliness a desideratum.
According to Mulhall there were in 1890 in the United States and Canada
about 645 miles of street railway operated by electricity. This about
concluded the first decade of the life of the electric railway. Some
idea of the rapid increase in this field may be had by the statement of
the same authority that there were in 1890, at the end of this first
decade, forty-five additional electric railroads in course of
construction, aggregating 512 miles of way, which nearly doubled the
previous existing mileage.
In 1898 it was estimated that there were in the United States 14,000
miles of electric railroads, with a nominal capital of $1,000,000,000,
and employing 170,000 men. In the same year a single electrical contract
was entered into between the Third Avenue Railroad and the Union Railway
Company of New York, acting as one, and the Westinghouse Electrical and
Manufacturing Company, amounting to $5,000,000. This was for the
electrical equipment of their respective railway lines, and is the
largest electrical contract ever made. The change in equipment from
other motive power to the electric is rapidly going on in all
directions, and the rapid succession of trains will doubtless cause it,
for passenger traffic on short lines, to eventually supersede steam.
The eighth annual report of the General Electric Company shows for the
year 1899 orders received for railway and other electrical equipment
amounting to $26,323,626; goods shipped, $22,379,463.75; profit on same,
$3,805,860.18. The growth of its business from 1893 to 1899 shows the
following per cent. of increase: In 1893, 36 per cent. above 1892; in
1894, 126 per cent. above 1893; in 1895, 10 per cent. above 1894; in
1896, 60 per cent. above 1895; in 1897, 60 per cent. above 1896; in
1898, 21 per cent. above 1897; in 1899, 51 per cent. above 1898.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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