and a half horse power, normal capacity. They have been worked up to eleven horse power, an outrageous overloading. A year ago it was not possible, six months ago even, to design an electric motor to meet all the exigencies of street-car service. There was not that intimate knowledge of street-car service in the possession of electrical engineers to make this possible; and, on the other hand, there was not that knowledge of electrical machinery on the part of street-car builders to enable them to materially assist us in this matter. There had not been in the early state of this work a car properly constructed, properly braced, with its brake apparatus properly made. Two ways of attaching motors to street cars have been developed, both recognizing the variation of distance and position of car body or truck and the wheels. One was to place a motor on the car, and to yieldingly connect it to the axle. The other was developed by us, and constitutes one of the particular features of our system. It is to centre the motor upon the driving axle, and to flexibly or yieldingly support the other end from the car body or car truck. This is to allow, of course, the axle to retain its present freedom, and also, when we use a spring, to ease the strains on the gears.

Experience during the past year has taught us much in the matters of detail. We have spent a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Richmond, and many thousands in other places. We have on hand some twenty-eight or twenty-nine contracts already. We have several roads in operation now, and will have a large number in operation during the winter. In all of these roads which we are to build, there is not one in the form of an experiment; every one of the twenty-eight or twenty-nine roads are to be paid for in cash, or its equivalent, and are not put in for advertisement. They are not to be put in to be taken out again; but to do hard every-day service, running from ninety to one hundred and twenty or one hundred and twenty-five miles a day, with sometimes as high as ninety-five or ninety-six per cent. of the gross working force in use.

So far as the actual cost of operation is concerned, it would vary with the different systems. The actual power expense, the expense in the central station, which includes all depreciation of dynamo machines, engines, all expenses of attendants and of engineers and electricians, the use of oil and waste, and the consumption of coal; in fact, everything in the station, will, on a

road with a direct system of supply (and it will be about the same thing with a conduit as with the overhead system), not exceed one dollar and a half a day for cars making seventy-five, eighty or ninety miles a day. In Richmond a local electric light company supplies the power to the electric railway company at one dollar and sixty cents a day, and they make money. In Harrisburg, with a very much smaller line, with six cars, maximum grades of about six per cent., making about seven or eight hundred miles per day, they run at a consumption of about one hundred pounds of coal per hour in their central station, making an average of about six or seven horse power per car. In Richmond, the average loads in our central station for the thirty cars in operation is about five or five and a half horse power.

There have been a good many objections raised against the overhead system, and one of the most frequently asserted objections is that of appearance. This objection is largely brought about by careless construction; and it is simply a question of dollars and cents to get rid of it. It is quite possible to construct an overhead system that will be ornamental. Such will doubtless be the case with the Beacon street road, Boston, which the West End Railway Company is to build, and which calls for an expenditure five times that of the Richmond road. The road has got to be put up in the best possible manner. We are going to use a wire that has a tensile strength of over one hundred thousand pounds per inch, and we use for our span wires a wire that will practically never break. The trolley wire is of silicon bronze. That wire is not liable to come down; and if, by any accident, a section of it does come down, that goes out of operation, and the rest of the road remains in operation. There will be in the Boston station over four hundred horse power of dynamos and steam engines, and it is our intention to show what is possible on an overhead line on that road. So far as the conduit system is concerned there is no possible question as to its working, barring certain abnormal conditions of drainage. The Bentley-Knight people are putting in two to three miles of conduit in Boston to be in operation this winter, and the street-railway people can look to that city this winter for the best possible trial that has ever yet been given to electricity as a motive power. The use of electric railways has been largely confined to milder climates than that of Boston; but our Company will

have several roads in operation in northern cities during the winter: twelve cars in Akron, twenty in Cleveland, twenty in Scranton, twenty in Boston, with at least three more heavy cleaning cars. These are all northern cities, and the objection against the trial in Richmond, that it proves nothing about winter, which is not so, because they have the worst street storms there, will be met by the operation of these northern roads. These roads will prove more to street-railway people about the practicability of electricity than all the other roads put together. Our present policy is simply to devote our work to the existing contracts on hand. We do not care for any additional work at this time, but wish to devote ourselves to the necessary detail supervision of every element of our work now in hand, which means either the success or failure of electrical railways in the northern cities; and next spring we propose to know all there is to be known about electricity in the winter; and, of course, next spring we expect to take any contracts that may be offered. It seems to me to be the part of wisdom for street-railway people generally to see what these people who are putting in the various systems are going to do in the ice and snow.

Mr. Wason, of Cleveland: I would like to ask Mr. Sprague if any of the officers or directors of the companies he has referred to are connected with the Sprague Electric Motor Company?

Mr. Sprague: I am glad to say in answer to that question that no man connected with our Company, directly or indirectly, is interested in the electric railway company at Richmond. The parties who had that road put in did so on a commercial basis and paid for it. The transaction was wholly of a business character. The Sprague Electric Railway Motor Company is controlled by three persons; one of them is the President of the Edison Electric Light Company, acting entirely in his individual capacity; the other is myself, and the third is one of the most prominent financial men in the United States. Not one of them has had any interest in any electric road which we pects to have; and we do not want them to have interest in it. We do not care to buy testimonials about our work. We are in a position to know as much as anybody can know about electric propulsion. I think I have about me the best force in the United States to-day. It requires trained men. to do the work, and it is in this new business difficult to

put in, or exany financial

get them. So long as they report to us any defects which may exist and are faithful and loyal to our interests, we will take care that we will get over any troubles which may develop. We are half over a trouble as soon as we know just what it is. One of these troubles you have on an overhead line, and that is the liability of the line being struck by lightning. There has never been to my knowledge any lightning device that has been entirely successful in diverting lightning strokes, until quite recently. We have now got lightning pretty well harnessed. We have had lightning strike the car when the man was operating it; he simply hears the "click" and sees the spark, and that is the end of it. I am perfectly willing to ride on the car in the heaviest thunder storm that was ever known. With our latest devices the lightning cannot get into the station or into the motors, except to go where we wish it; it is a trouble of the past, and is now entirely remedied.

Mr. McCreery: Will Mr. Sprague say how many cars he intends to run in Boston?

Mr. Sprague: The total length of the line will be about twelve miles, two or three miles of conduit put in by the Bentley-Knight Electric Company; the balance, which is about six or seven miles. of double and single track, aggregating ten miles of single track, is to be operated by the overhead line; there will be twenty cars, and three cleaning cars run. The central station, which is at a place called Allston, near the middle of the line, is equipped with over four hundred horse power of engines and dynamos. This is in excess of the needs required for the trial; but the President of the West End Street Railway of Boston is one of the most progressive of street-railway Presidents; and he is fully confident that electric railway propulsion in some form or other will succeed. The station will be large enough to do the haulage of a good many cars if the road is equipped with electricity, whether it be by the conduit, overhead or storage battery system. He will have a station which can handle all the cars that he will need for the service on that line, as easily as it will handle the twenty cars with which the experiment is to be made. When you are putting in a dynamo, it is as easy to make arrangements for a hundred horse power as it is for ten.

Mr. Lawless: On September 12th I was in the city of Richmond, and I found that the car houses at either end of the road

contained twenty-eight out of the forty cars, which is the full complement of the road, and they were evidently idle. I asked what the reason was, and they said that the motor on the cars burned out. We asked what was the cause of it, and were told that there had been twelve days of very rainy weather. I then went to a point where I could see the cars quite a distance both ways as they came along; and I found that they were running from a quarter of an hour to an hour and a half apart. Now, I should like to ask whether that condition of things occurs often; I should also like to ask what the cost of repairing the motors is after they are burned out; and thus we can get at something practical. I know positively what I assert, that on the day mentioned they were running in the condition mentioned. I do not assert the cars were burned out; I was only told that.

Mr. Sprague: The management of that road has been characterized by the grossest mismanagement. I want to place the responsibility for an accident on electric roads where it belongs. If you have a cable and some ignorant fellow shoves a spike into it, and lays up the system, are you going to blame the cable? So with the electric railway; if it is run through mud and slush in the street, seven inches below the water line, and by so doing the machinery is deranged, and the motors are left in the streets uncovered, and not even cleaned in nine months, if anybody is responsible, it is the men in charge. No machine will stand this sort of usage. So far as natural and expected depreciation is concerned, the Company I represent is amply able and willing to make a reasonable guarantee as to the depreciation of motors where instructions as to their use and care are faithfully and intelligently carried out. They are not to be abused and left in the street and treated as if they were solid iron. To-day there are not less than thirty-eight out of the forty cars ready for operation. We have now got a good, careful man there, and he wrote to me the other day that they have no difficulty whatever in maintaining twenty-nine out of thirty cars in operation; and out of forty cars there should be thirty-six ready for actual operation. I have told you the Richmond machines are overloaded. Nobody knows that better than I do. The machines which were built for seven horse power are obliged to operate up to ten or twelve horse power, and consequently are greatly overloaded. The Richmond motor is only one type of machine to meet one condition of travel

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