MOBILE POWER HOUSES

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 126, 24 November 1932, Page 13

MOBILE POWER HOUSES

OIL-ELECTEIC SYSTEM

FAR CHEAPEST TO RUN

"(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, 22nd November,

. An oil-electric locomotive and three mobile pows houses—the largest yet produced in Europe—were inspected yesterday by Mr. Walter Runeiman, President of the Board of trade, at the Newcastle works of the Armstrong, Whitworth Company. They will be shipped to Buesos Aires for the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway.

The units demonstrated had each a brake horse-power of 1700. The locomotive is the second' largest in the world, and weighs 148 tons. It is geared for both heavy freight trains in harvest season and for fast passenger work with a speed of 70 miles an hour. The mobile power houses each weigh 130 tons, and are for use with eight coaches of 80ft length with a seating capacity for 1000 passengers; The units supply electric current to motors on their own axles and on the bogies of the carriages.

Mr. Runciman in a speech said that oil-electric traction was an adaptation of power which could bo put to use not only by the great railways, bjit also by the great manufacturers. A Diesel-elec-tric coach had recently completed sixmonths' running on the London and North-Eastern Railway service. It had covered 25,000 miles without a hitch. The. cost of fuel, lubricating oil, and running maintenance worked out at less than one penny per coach mile, and this was far cheaper than anything so far ■known.