Mustin, Herbert S. Norton, Elbert F., Louis Duncan. Samuel Reber. H. S. Hering. T. C. Martin. Ralph W. Pope. G. S. Albanese. H. V. Hayes. Francis Blake. I. H. Farnham. Chas. R. Cross. E. M. Barton. P. H. Alexander. R. B. Owens. B. F. Thomas. Chas. E. Emery. R. B. Owens. B. F. Thomas. Chas. E. Emery. Chas. F. Scott. F. Stuart Smith. R. W. Pope. J. N. Johnson. Ralph \V. Pope. Chas. E. Dressier. Graduate Student, Johns Hopkins R. B. Owens. University, 1104 McCulloh St., W. E. Shepard. Baltimore, Md. H. A. Foster. Electrical Engineer, H. H. Eustis. A. B. See Manufacturing Co. Geo. D. Shepardson. 442 Henry St., Brooklyn, N. Y. Alonzo B. See. Inspector, City Electrical In- C. C. Haskins. spection, 15 City Hall, Chicago, C. G. Armstrong. III. Alex. Dow. Consulting Engineer, 140 South Electrical Engineer, Piazza Sta- President, The American Bell Electrical Engineer, Telephone Assistant in Electrical Testing, North Industry, Ohio. Electrical Engineer, Westinghouse Inventor, Maywood, N. J. The President:—Have you any further business, Mr. Secretary? The Secretary :—Nothing further, Mr. President. The President:—If not, the regular order of the business of the evening as announced on the card will be taken up. I take pleasure in introducing to you Mr. Albert Stetson who will read a paper on the Practicability of Electric Conduit Railways. American Institute 0/ Electrical Engineers, THE PRACTICABILITY OF ELECTRIC CONDUIT RAILWAYS. BY ALBERT STETSON. Two years ago, if an electrical engineer had been asked as to the practicability of an electric conduit railway, he would probably have shrugged his shoulders and expressed great scepticism as to ultimate success. The writer hopes to be able to show that some real progress has been made since then, and that the way out of the difficulty is in sight. Electric traction for street railways has come to stay, and we must choose between the trolley, secondary battery and a conduit construction (either slotted or closed). The trolley has been, and still is the most important factor in electric traction. It has done, and still is doing excellent work in educating the public into the beauties of rapid transit in cities. There is much talk in our sensational daily press about the "deadly trolley," but much of it is ridiculous, and most of it undeserved. Surely no member of this Institute has joined in this outcry, and it would be a move in the right direction if some of our daily papers would have attached to their staffs, men who are capable of judging of technical subjects, so that they might be able to impart correct ideas as to the march of human ingenuity and progress. Our daily newspapers have specialists to report society scandals, dog-tights, pugilism and horse-racing. But, is it not strange that none of them employs trained technical experts? The progress of the arts and sciences is certainly as interesting to the average man and woman, as is what ladies do and say in a Turkish bath! It is, perhaps, useless to undertake to reform the press in this respect, but until we can, we must expect from time to time to hear of the "deadly trolley." There is a field, and a wide one, for the trolley, and the men who have devoted their talents and their money to advancing electric traction by the trolley, deserve well of the race. Many men have worked in this field, but I believe that Mr. Frank Sprague, with his twelve miles of road in Richmond, working successfully, sent electric railways forward twenty years. All honor then to the trolley men! They have and will hold for a long time the field in smaller cities and towns, and for inter-town communication. Railroad men as a rule, are very conservative, and until a few months ago there was nothing in sight that gave promise of our being able to do away with the trolley in cities. Certainly they could not be expected to wait until something practicable appeared, nor could they afford to stop their cars as soon as they heard of fairly successful experiments with a conduit railroad. Large vested interests cannot be overthrown nor changed in a moment, and it will be interesting to see what position trolley men will take when the conduit has demonstrated its utility and practicability. I expect to find them more than ready to adopt it wherever the traffic will warrant them in so doing. We have admitted the claims of the trolley people, and given them due credit. But there are also rights of the public that must be respected. The streets of our cities belong to the public, and not to corporations. So long as nothing better was in sight, it was to the advantage of the public to have rapid transit, even though the trolley were the medium. But the structure is unsightly, and the poles and wires are a constant menace to the public. A trolley current will not, probably, kill a man who has no organic disease, but it will kill an animal, it will terribly burn any one who comes in contact with it, and would probably cause the death of a man troubled with heart disease. The feed wires are a constant source of danger. A trolley wire may get crossed with an electric light wire carrying an arc current, and it then becomes a dangerous thing. If the streets are at all wide, very large poles, taking up too much sidewalk space, are used, and these invade public rights. We have a right to beautiful streets, and no corporation, for the sake of private gain, has a right to disfigure them. We have a right to safe streets, and no corporation has a right to contribute anything towards rendering them less safe. In our cities and large towns, trolley as well as other current conveying wires must go underground so soon as any economical and practicable method is demonstrated. Secondary batteries have been used in nearly every large city of the civilized world, to supply the demands for electric traction, but have been given up as too costly. I know there are still people who are willing to spend their money on this ignis fatum, but the number is growing beautifully less year by year. The writer has spent much time in investigating the subject here and abroad, has examined everything in this line that Europe has offered, and he asserts, without fear of successful contradiction, that not one instance can be found in the world where a traction secondary battery has paid an honest dividend. The cars (if supplied with sufficient power) are too heavy for ordinary track construction, the heaviest ballasted steam track being scarcely good enough to insure them a commercial life. The conditions essential to the life of a secondary battery, are large, thick and heavy plates. Such a batten' can probably be commercially employed in lighting stations, but those are diametrically opposed to the conditions for a traction battery. In traction, the battery must be small (on account of the limited space at our disposal), and it must be light; for every 150 pounds of lead carried, means the cost of transporting a passenger. To run successfully, we must be able to ascend such grades as exist in railway work, and when sufficient battery power for this is carried, the car becomes unwieldy. A sudden call for power from a 6inall battery may tear it all to pieces, and the "selfcontained" car then becomes anything but an "ideal" motive power. AVhen, in 1881, Sir Win. Thomson carried across the channel, Faure's little box containing 1,200,000 foot-pounds of electrical energy, great hopes were excited, and those million foot-pounds of energy were soon changed into millions of shares, and that changing process has been going on ever since! The average investor did not, of course, know that those large figures represented about the energy of \\ ozs. of coal, and that, if Sir "William had brought his pockets full of good cannel coal, the supply of energy in Old England would have been much increased, but investors did believe that there was the "ideal" system for electric traction. The best electrical, chemical, mechanical and engineering skill was employed, improvements were made on the original cell, millions upon millions of dollars were spent, and the results have been financially disastrous. Remem |