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Show AN ELECTRIC RAILROAD And now it is an electric railroad that Edison is working at. If that versatile inventor were to stick to one thing for a few weeks, there would be less complaints about his fooling the public and playing into the hands of operators in wall street. But this electric railroad is intended, it is said, for localities that cannot afford even a narrow-gauge road. The rails are to be charged with electricity, and the express trains are to run at twenty miles an hour, and the freights at twelve miles. The road will run over the roughest ground, at a cost of not over $5,000 a mile. The cars are to be as light as street cars, and there are to be stations every ten miles to supply the track with electricity. Each train will carry thirty tons of freight and from 200 to 300 passengers. This is what the electric road is to do - on paper. The trial trip on Edison's half-mile railroad at Menlo Park the other day was not such as to induce capitalists to invest their scanty earnings in it. The track took several hundred dollars' worth of electricity to charge it, which was charging pretty steeply, and even then the motor moved at about the speed of a lazy wheelbarrow. Mr. Edison had better go back to his electric light. - Detroit Free Press. |