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Show on ELECTRIFYING RAILROADS. A. H. Armstrong, chairman of the electrification committee of the General Gen-eral Electric company, has issued an article on the fuel question in which he declares "we are now- wasting enough, fuel on our steum engines to pay Interest oharges on tho cost of completely electrifying all the railways rail-ways in tho United Stales." The electrification Is not far off is tho opinion expressed by many, railroad rail-road experts, especially .In view fo the success which seems to have marked the electrification of the Chicago, Milwaukee Mil-waukee & St. Paul line, and the facl that the cost of coal has steadily in-' in-' creased and is not likely to decrease for some time. Mr. Armstrong makes several interesting inter-esting announcements about possible electrification He says that approxi-1 mately 10,000.000 kilowatts would be sufficient to run all tho railroads as they were operated in 191S and he estimates es-timates that the power station capacity of the country in 1918 was 20,000,000 kilowatts, or twice as much as would be necessary for complete electrification. electrifica-tion. He points out that one-fourth of all the coal mined in the United States Is consumed on the railways each year j and he declares that fully one-third of j the coal burned in locomotives is wasted while the locomotives are idle, ! are standing in Ihe roundhouse with i fires banked or are coasting down. I grade. The electrical expert declares that , if all our railways were completely I electrified they could carry one-fifth more revenue prdpuclng freight tonnage ton-nage which no change In present operating oper-ating expenses or track congestion. No doubt all possible information bearing upon- the question of electrifying electrify-ing railroads is being studied diligently diligent-ly by railroad executives just now and it bchooves'the public io gie- the mat-, ter some thought, too, for the consumer consum-er pays a good share of the cost 6C" bringing goods to his door. Who knows but what the electrification electrifi-cation of tho roads will be the solution of the perplexing problems which the-railroads the-railroads face in view of the increasing increas-ing cost of operation and tho objections objec-tions which meet every announcement of an increase in freight rates. oo |
