OCR Text |
Show RAILROADS AND ELECTRIC POWER. The San Francisco Chronicle, noting the report of the Denver & Bio Grande railroad engineers that it would be both practical and economical for that company to run its trains in the Colorado mountains moun-tains by electric power generated from Colorado-livers, Colorado-livers, thinks that the Southern Pacific would do well to make a like examination, and expresses the belief that power enough might be furnished by the streams around Shasta to run the trains between be-tween Oakland and Portland. That business can be investigated and decided in a week. We have the authority of a most eminent electrical engineer that power enough can be generated from Klamath river alone, from the point where the C. & O. bridge crosses the river, to Klamath lake, to furnish the road with power for all purposes and have enough left to light both San Francisco and Portland. The Klamath is a sovereign stream, and if we remember remem-ber correctly, it has a fall of 1500 feet between the points named above, or about 230 feet per mile. It is wide and deep and swift; the power could be picked up every mile or two, and the aggregate would be enough to turn the world. Then, as the river is the outlet of a great lake, its minimum flow is very great, and through three-fourths of the year is most regular. The McCloud, the Pitt and the headwaters of the Sacramento are all near by, and Oregon has .four or five great rivers. Bnt the Klamath would supply alj the power needed for the I roads, and, pu in use, it would supply the world with the example of 1000 miles of railroad with all irs trains operated by power drawn from a single river. The river, too, is almost exactly half wny between be-tween the north .and south, terminals o the. road.- |