| Show F I f 151 ARIDEONA 3 I I REVOLUTIONIZING I I LOCOnOTIVE t OOW I I I I AX EXPEItT OnEltVEIt ArOPUlVU ACCOUNT OF TIlE WORKINGS WORK-INGS OF TIlE HUGO ELECTRIC ENGIVES THAT ART SOON TO HE KaULOYEI IX IIAULIXG PASSENGEIl TRAIAS THROUGH THE LONG r BALTIMOUC TUNNEL I i c BT E H MULXIN Copyright 1806 by S S McClure Co Some time during the first week in November the three mammoth electric locomotives owned by the Baltimore Dhio Railroad company will begin to haul all the passenger trains of that line in addition to the freight trains through the tunnel which runs under the city of Baltimore This wilt be the first piece of a trunk train line ever operated by electricity land the departure depar-ture from the established railroad practice prac-tice is attracting the attention of railway rail-way and electrical experts all over the S world l For several months past these el ctrl locomotives have bean successfully Pu i e hauling all the freight traffic of the B O line through the tunnel and while in Baltimore recently I accompanied i accom-panied the engineer of locomotive No 3 Ion I-on one of lila regular trips Following I netic attraction in front of it The engineer en-gineer told me afterward that he had I the sanif difficulty at first in trying to reckon the speed of the electric locomotive I loco-motive through the Intuition of his teetHe I teet-He had soon given it up however and had taken to timing his new engine I either by watching passing objects our of the cabwindow or when he wanted to make some by using the secondhand second-hand of his watch Throughout the whole length of the tunnel the speed of the electric engine kept on Increasing though all the time we were on an upgrade of fourfifths of 1 per cent There was something aweinspiring in the silent propulsion of Its 96 tons of metal with no visible vis-ible sign of the source of its energy There was not even the relief of seeing the waste products of this energy for the current having done its work travelled noiselessly and unseen back to the fardistant power house We I saw the incandescent lights standing I apart as ive looked ahead they were for the electric motor itself multiplying multi-plying the remainder by 2S6 an 3 dividing divid-ing the product in pounds by the draw I bar pull per ton we get the tffight of the train in tons This is apparently I matter for experts alone but when electric elec-tric traction comes into general lisa on trunk line railways it will hayea profound pro-found effect on the management of traffic bec use the best equipped < lines I will insist that other railways sending 1 them cars for through transportation I will keep them up to the highesl standard stand-ard of running efficiency Half an hour after the electric locomotive loco-motive had been placed in her siding a freight train consisting of 35 loaded cars and two steam engines came along and N 3 promptly backed up and took charge of it It pulled the tran with steam shutoff on the engines overthe upgrade in the tunnel with as much apparent ease as if it had been going I alone There was the same absence I of effort or straining and the speed was constantly accelerated until the power was shut off I dont know how much one of these electric engines can pull remarked Mr Shepard but I know that we have had more current on one of them than would be sufficient to drive all the trolley cars in Baltimore I i S L t I I S i S I E fir fif r f 5S I f f 0 t I S ij t t S MiiSiX OX ELECTRIC cxcixp trAtfEi x < ti SEGER TKAIA THROUGH uAimn > RC TUNNEL 1 f Is a record of the impressions and conclusions con-clusions The steps at the side of the big Baltimore j Balti-more Ohio electric locomotive seemed I familar enough and I clambered aboard after the engireerincnarge and the electrical superintendent Mr Sheppard Shep-pard Once inside the cab however I found all my previously associated ideas with a locomotive footplate rudely upset Instead of the familiar end view of the fire box with < its furnace door and its gently sizzling steam taps I saw a breasthigh wooden box two feet square in crosssection On the top of this box was the customary throttle valve handle of a steam locomotive frith its notched quadrant for Keeping it at any polni where the engineer desired de-sired to set it Attached to one side of the box was the frame In which the I I reversing lever moved from full forward for-ward to full back Above the box was a large guage wiiich registered up to I 5000 Instead of 200 The handles of an automatic air brake completed the visible equipment of the footplate of thIs extraordinary locomotive Mr Shepard nodded to the engineer who bad been transferred from long service on the steam locomotives on r the line as a special marlc of merit With his right hand the engineer threw r off the air brake while he pulled the J lever into the first notch with his left The huge 96ton engine slipped away so quickly that I was not at first aware that we were moving and almost before be-fore I fully realized the fact the engine Ii was entering the tunnel which runs fbr C almost a mile and a half under the streets of Baltimore t Let her cut said Mr Shepard as the engine reached the spot just inside the south portal of the tunnel where the up grade begins We were running without any load behind on this occasion oc-casion ip order that I might have full opportunity to feel the engines speed The engineer pulled the lever toward ii I him until it stood half way on the I i rack There was an ominous sound I I from the rails echoed and reechoed from the walls of the tunnel The incandescent in-candescent lights which lit up the way on both sides at Intervals of a few feet began to pass more rapidly A few seconds more and I could no longer lon-ger see them on one side Faster and fester grew the speed until the air which entered through the partlyopened cab window in front not only threatened to take my breath away but also hurl me against the back of the cab I grasped a friendly railing I and pointed muteiy ItO the window The engineer shut it with a bang and gave her another notch By this time I had found my bearings and tried to feel the speed through my feet Any one who has ever stood on the footplate of a steam locomotive going j at the rate of SO or CO miles an hour knows what it is to feel the speed I through his feet The throb of the steam as it leaves the cylinder by the exhaust pipe and forces Its way to the open air through a funnel causes a corresponding vibration In the framework f frame-work The faster these throbs succeed one another the greater the speed of f the engine since each four of them man one complete revolution on the driving wheels At very high rates of speed the footplate makes the soles t of your feet feel as If they were asleep The sensation is a glorious one associated asso-ciated as it Is with mans amost limitless limit-less power over the mechanism which carries him with it through the air at a speed more than twice as great as LI that of the tastes race horse I had riddea often enough on a steam I locomotive to know exactly how sleepy soy feet ought to feel at fifty miles an tt hoar I felt as hard as I could on the t electric engine but my feet told neE ne-E nothing Then it began to dawn upon I me that there was no steam to make vibrations Electricity unique in all itS manifestations wasted none of Cts energies In vibrating the footplate Each of the four great armatures beneath be-neath our feet whirled around trying 7 to catch the lightning in its surrounding surround-ing fixed Heldmagnets and never sueS sue-S ceeding because its own turning on L its axis aways kept driving on the mag strung close together as we passed them and that was all Pretty soon we saw the disc of white light which marked the north portal of the tunnel and the next moment we were in broad daylight with a signal 200 feet off standing at danger The lever was dropped back to fcs starting point and the hissing of the airbrakes prepared us for a sudden though not violent stop Then we gently switched onto the southbound track and ran back through the tunnel by gravity alone The engineer told me that we had exceeded 50 miles an hour on our outward journey and I can quite believe be-lieve him When we had reached the siding on the south fide of the tunnel Mr Sheppard Shep-pard began to display the interior works of the electric motor He took off the front door of the wooden box and showed two sets of strong copper ribs so curved and proportioned that when the lever was pulled out one notch the top copper rib on one side overlapped and touched that on the other As the lever was gradually pulled fartherout the succeeding pairs of copper ribs came into contact one pair after another until tho fun current cur-rent passed through the motors A series of copper discs in another part of the box sent this current through the motors in the proper direction to make the engine go forward or backward back-ward We should never have been able to handle a current of 1500 horse power said Mr Shepard only for a beautiful invention conceived by Elihu Thomson The sparking from switching on or off such a current would melt the copper contacts were it not for a series of electromagnets elec-tromagnets placed opposite the contact points When the current is switched on or off a current is I sent through these magnets and the magnetic field blows out the sparks Mr Sh pard showed how this was dtfne by itching on the current while the door of the controller box was off There was a blinding flash of light for an instant blown out as soon as it appeared ap-peared by the electromagnets Viewed from the outside the electric locomotive looks like the tenders of two yard switching engines coupled together togeth-er The cab is large and roomy and contains in addition to the apparatus already mentioned an electric air pump for charging the brake reservoir The compressed air whistle with which the engine is filled is as loud and shrill as that of any steam locomotive The eight wheels of the electric engine en-gine are each 5 feet 2 inches in diameter diam-eter Each pair has its own motorof 360 nominal horse power but capable of developing the power considerably in excess of that limit The motion of each armature Is delivered to the wheels by five steel arms which fit in between the spokes near the rim The limit of the hauling power of one of these electric engines has not yet been reached owing to the weakness of the coupling which hold the train tesether The best hitherto recorded performance has been the hauling of a train of 44 loaded freight cars and three engine weighing altogether 1003 tons While this train was on the upgrade a pin came out in one of the couplings As son as this defect was repaired the electric locomotive started the entire train with stretched couplings and accelerated ac-celerated its speed until it reached 12 I milesan hour On another occaison < 38 loaded freight cars and an attached steam engine was hauled through the upgrade at a speed of 23 miles an hour Trains of 500 tons in weIght have been taken through the tunnel on the upgrade at 40 miles an hour The electric engines not only haul trains but give the weight of them It has been found by experiment that it requires 144 ampere of current to drive the engine by itself jjt has also been found that each ampere of current exerts ex-erts a drawbar pull of 2S6 pounds So vthat by taking the number of amperes recorded on the guage abstracting144 I S I 1 IQ > i |
