Mr. Love: The wire that runs from the conduit is thoroughly encased, but we have got to have a point of contact. Mr. Maxon: Exactly! Mr. Love: But these line conductors are encased. It would be impossible to take a contact from a covered wire. We have got to have our wires naked at the point of contact. But the method of concealing the wires, that is my invention-the conducting wires are concealed and encased. Mr. Maxon: You must have an exposed point, in order to make a contact. Mr. Love: Of course, you have got to have a contact, that is right. Mr. Lawless: Only one question. In case of a heavy rain-fall, and there are parts of the road situated where the side streets slope and form a hill in the direct line of the electric line. I understand that water is a great conductor of electricity. You take a heavy day's rain, and it might prove a serious trouble. I would like to know from you what effect the flow of water down these side streets into the slots and coming in contact with the conductor would have upon the electric current. Mr. Love: We are running upon low potential. In place of carrying one thousand volts on one wire, I carry three hundred and fifty volts on each wire, really giving me one thousand and fifty volts, so that a wire seven-sixteenths of an inch in diameter would hold the electricity. In place of the electricity going into the water, it would remain in the copper; it has more affinity for copper than water. Mr. Lawless In case of a continuous flow of water through the slot rail in your conduit, would not that interfere with the electric current? Mr. Love In case of a continuous flow, we propose to have a drain to the sewer to carry the water off. Mr. Lawless: There are some cases where you cannot do that. Mr. Love I have provided thoroughly for that, sir. When we come to such a place as you speak of we have an overhead wire stretched on poles, and we cut the current off the submerged part. Now for crossing a bridge or a number of railroad tracks, we use an overhead system; by means of the lever we lift the contact carrier out of the conduit and make our connections from the overhead wires, which are in reach of the motor man. Mr. Love: The electrical railway, besides its pecuniary advantages, presents greater safety in handling the cars and greater comfort to the passengers than any other system. It is possible to reverse the driving gear and so make any permitted speed safer to foot passengers and vehicles than by either the horse or cable system, where it is impossible to do anything more than put on the brakes. The motion of the car, too, is entirely free from jerks, both in starting and while in motion, as the power is applied gradually and the motor has no dead centres to make irregular motion. Sixty cars propelled. by electricity will accomplish the work of eighty horse cars. REMARKS OF MR. THOMAS C. BARR ON A STORAGE Mr. Thomas C. Barr, of Philadelphia: I desire to state for the benefit of the gentlemen present, on the storage battery question, that we experimented with a car so operated on our road over about four miles of track for at least two months. The car was run sixteen miles a day; it was operated in the afternoon. It was a twenty-two foot car, weighing in the aggregate, trucks, batteries, car and all, fourteen thousand eight hundred pounds, of which four thousand eight hundred pounds was the weight of the batteries. This car was operated and managed by the Electric Car Company of America. In order to get the best results, and as we anticipated introducing electricity as a motive power on our line, it was necessary, to give the experiment a full opportunity for success, to relay our line, which we constructed with girder-rail and cross-ties every two and a half feet; a construction that would practically carry from fifteen to twenty tons weight. The car would seat thirty-four passengers, and would carry crowded one hundred and twenty-five, so that the aggregate weight when the car was crowded would be in the neighborhood of thirty thousand pounds; possibly more. As I said, we ran the car two months, and it was very satisfactory. The car ran smoothly and nicely; and it moved off gently and firmly after a stop without any jerky movement of any kind that would be noticed by any of the passengers. The car was taken off only by reason of the fact that a large sewer was being constructed through the central part of our street, causing us to run over a siding; and we were afraid that the weight of the car would interfere with the work. As to the cost of operating that car, we cannot give that to you satisfactorily, by reason of the fact that the power for charging the batteries was leased at a high figure. It took three and a half hours to charge a battery which operated the car for sixteen miles. We would roughly estimate it at possibly a cost of fifty or sixty cents for the sixteen miles. Taking eighty miles as the day's work for the car, with eighteen hours' work for our men, it would make the cost of operating that car for a day in the neighborhood of nine dollars; but I presume we could reduce that materially by operating our whole line with electric cars. The nine dollars would, of course, include the wages of our men as well as the cost of charging the batteries. We found that the car ran so smoothly that a high rate of speed could be attained and not be noticed by those on the street or by passengers. This car was operated on a level, there being no grades on our road; we had, of course, some four curves at the terminus of the road which the car ran around without any difficulty at all. The same car was operated in the works of the electrical company with one charge, some sixty-three miles. This, of course, was very satisfactory when you take into consideration the character of the car, weighing as it does about fifteen thousand pounds. In operating the car over your road where it is necessary to stop at almost every crossing, you will find that the power necessary to start the car at every crossing is wasted to a great extent; in other words, you can operate the car over a level without stops, at practically about ten or fifteen per cent. expenditure of your power, but when you come to each crossing and have to stop and start continually, the expenditure of your power will run up in the neighborhood of eighty or ninety per cent. This not only wastes the power, but causes a great strain on your motors as well. Taking it altogether, the experiment was very satisfactory, so far as the operation of the car was concerned. We have looked into the matter very thoroughly, and have determined that in order to operate a street-railway line with electricity, it is necessary to have each car separate and independent of the others, in order to get the best results. We have devoted our attention to the storage or secondary battery system. We are waiting until such developments are made that the system is brought down to such a point that it will be financially practicable to equip our line. The only difficulty that stands in the way at present is the actual cost of the cars with the storage battery cells and the cost of reconstructing the road; and I have no doubt that in a very short time this system will be brought down to such a point that a car much less in weight can be operated by a battery, so that the cars can be operated over our present construction, thereby saving that expense; and also save the expense of the storage batteries. These, unfortunately, are controlled by companies which ask a royalty or percentage, and which make the cost so high that it practically makes your car cost more than you want to put into a plant of that kind. I can say to the gentlemen of the Convention that I think the day is not far distant when the storage battery will be a thing of the past, and the primary battery will be in practical operation, reducing the weight one-third and the cost proportionately; and thus enable us to run our cars without reconstruction of the roads and at less expense. Mr. Wright I would call upon Mr. F. E. Cobb, of the West End Street Railway of Boston. The President: We should be pleased to hear from Mr. Cobb. Mr. Cobb: Mr. President, in the first place, I am not a delegate; in the second place, I am afraid I am a good deal more fluent as a listener than a speaker; and thirdly, not having any memoranda here I should not like to say anything from memory or hearsay, which might go to the credit of one party and the discredit of another. Mr. Bracken, of New York: If you will allow one who is not a delegate to make a suggestion, it would be that we invite Mr. Mailloux to speak upon this question. He will talk interestingly and will give us all some practical information. Mr. Mailloux, of New York: I came here for the purpose of listening and learning something. I think I may feel an inclination to say something by and by; but am not quite ready now. If the meeting will be so indulgent as to dispense with my services until the others have had their say, I shall be very glad to say a few words. REMARKS OF MR. F. J. SPRAGUE ON ELECTRIC RAILWAYS AND MOTORS. Mr. F. J. Sprague, of New York, Vice-President, Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company: I feel somewhat at a loss in addressing you upon this subject. I do not wish to urge any particular methods of working, except so far as they bear my name. By that I mean I do not present either the storage battery, the overhead, or the conduit system alone. Each of these three systems has its merits, and each of the three will succeed, as each of them has its own independent field of work. There are some planes where the cost of each of any two of these systems meet. The experiments which have been carried on during the past year have proved what electricity can do. We have been, possibly by good fortune, perhaps by hard work, somewhat prominent in carrying out these experiments. One year ago to-day we did not have an electric road running in the United States, except one car in the East Boston Sugar Refinery. On the second day of last February, the Richmond road, of which I spoke to you at the meeting last year, was opened. This is a road which, whatever its defects, stands to-day somewhat historical in the fact that it is the largest, and the first large successful electric railway in existence. When the contract was made a year and four months ago, not a foot of track had been laid, and we did not know what we had to meet in the grades or curvatures on the road. The specifications did not give the grades with any accuracy and only in a very general way. We took the contract simply because we saw an opportunity to develop on a large scale the possibilities of electric traction by our overhead single wire system. Twelve miles of track, including switches and turnouts, with twenty-nine curves were laid; straight grades were met as high as ten per cent., and grades on curves of forty-foot radius as high as seven, eight and nine per cent., giving a straight track equivalent of at least thirteen per cent. On the second of February the road started, and since then. it has made nearly five hundred thousand miles, and carried nearly two million passengers. The road is no longer under our control; it has been bought and paid for. The cars have been run as high as eight thousand miles without being sent inside of a car shed. This is extraordinary in view of the fact that the cars have no proper care, but are for the most part housed in the streets. The moters have been run without any covers on them; they have been run until you could hardly identify a motor, it was so covered with dirt and slime. Yet, under all these disadvantages, these motors have, as I said, many of them, made records as high as eight thousand miles without even being properly cleaned. The motors which are in use in Richmond were never designed for the work they do. They were designed to operate up to seven or seven |