AN INTERVIEW WITH EDISON.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2797, 11 March 1882, Page 2

AN INTERVIEW WITH EDISON.

trunk lines. They would be just the | 'thing for Australia, where, as I understand, plenty of wheat is grown, where the distances to market are great, and where the railway traffic, except in the wheat season, is small. This is the plan to be'adopted on the Northern Pacific — §ft.’ Bin. guage, iron rails .16!b. to the yard. This will bo quite heavy enough, as the electric engine will not w eigh more than three tons instead of 20, 30, ■or- 40 ;tonp, ■- ntr the' locomotive steam engine often weighs. The trains to carry not more than 30 tons of paying freight each net, or an equivalent of passenger’cars."’ One man’ only will be required >,for each train, and he can be trained all he needs to know in two hours. Any * man ; who can drive two tnulds can be taught in two hours to drive one, of these engines. The skilled labor vill be required at the These will be ten miles apart. Hero the electric force will be generated l and .ssnt alongithe ,lines to move the ! train along. The speed I have calculated foi* on the' ’Pacific wheat lines is eight miles an hour ; but in Australia if; you oatried’ passengers the speed could be increased t 6 40 miles an 'hour with the same ’engine;.and’ rblling-’stock. I have already run an electric engine at the rate of 100 miles an hour. The cost of such, lines—rolling-stock, engines, and sta.Upnp complete—will be about $3150 per ’mile on the Pacific ;. say $35.00, or £7OQ .per;..mile,in Australia, if tlie country be not hilly. lam certain electric-railways, -to'answer all the purposes ;I- have named, eonld be built in Australia for tlie -price stated. The stationary engines at the stations .will beso ! horse pbwer, and I- : estimate that for every 20 ; librae po\Ver used by the motor, on the /railway,. 30 horse power '‘Will bijive.; to be plit into the stationary enginei" - , :

A correspondent of the “Australian Register ” gives the following account: of his interview. with Mr Thomas; Edison, whom he descibes as the: greatest genius of the day j To the question, “ Is it hot true that you are now laying down * mains ’ to supply a portion of the city of New York—a mile square—with electric light and electric motive power?” Mr Edison replied : “ Yes, quite true, All arrangements will soon be completed,- 60 per cent, of the residents in that square mile having agreed to take the electric light. It will be supplied to them just the same as gas—by meter. The large wires are nearly all down —under the streets—the connections with every house are approaching completion, and the electric light will be supplied in every room. The residents will pay for what they use and no more. They can turn off the electricity at the meter if they like, and they can turn it off and on in each room and at each light. The electricity Will he generated at one central station, and supplied direct to the consumers’ through tho.underground mains. Everything precisely the same as gas, except that the light will be, more brilliant—really sixteen candle-power to each lamp —and that the price will be a little cheaper perhaps. We think, however, that if wo charge the same as gas onr electric lights will be preferred. If not we can fight the gas companies in regard to price, and can beat them out and out. There is no doubt about that. I went into it most carefully before I promoted the Edison Electric Illuminating .'Company, which is doing the, work in the square mile block now. We are to have 1140 consumers, 14 miles of mains, and 16500 lights in that one 'district, besides which we have arranged to sell 400-horse pow;er in meters, varying from 5-horsri power to one-tenth of a horse power. This motive power will .be supplied the same as the lighting,and paid for by the meter. I anticipate a great consumption of electric motive power in small factories, : printing offices and such places, where force is only wanted for'a short time per day, and where it is desirable not to allow power to run to waste.” I may here say in parenthesis that tie Edison Company’s offices are lighted with the electric lights split '.up into sixteen-candle lamps, and distributed in all Ifclnds of ■ .candelabra, and. in single, double, and triple lights, and that the effect is wonderful. The lights are perfectly steady, which is much more than could be said of the electric lights before the British Association at their jubilee at’ York. They- - are turned od and off just, the same as gas Oxcept that no match is required to light the carbon inside the lamp. The carbon is simply a split piece of bamboo cane, perhaps three inches long, arid bent Into something like the shape of a horseshoe. It is on the whole of this surface that the electric light plays or rests, for it is a misnomer to speak of so quiet a thing as at play. Many people, I am told, mistake the light for; gas. The electricity is generated by a’ fifteen horse-power steam-engine in . the cellar of the house ; but, as already stated, Mr Edison’s idea when supplying light on a gram! scale is to have a central engine und dynamo house, and send the electricity thence in all direction, and into a thousand houses.

On the subject of electric railways Mr Edison was particularly confident. He said the success of them was assured already. His own at Menlo Park had satisfied him of the feasibility of making electric railways pay, and he was now building one three miles long instead of the old one, Which was only a quarter of a mile. A few months hence, perhaps by February next, he hoped to have the motor completed, and to run it on his own railway to make tests —running cars backward and forwards, weighing the coal at the stations, and calculating the wear and tear, the differences of power required on varying gradients, and the loss of power under certain circumstances. Mr Edison added “ I like to start on the basis' of economy, which, must come sooner or later. I hare already! got an offer from the Pennsylvanian Railroad Company offering their line on which to run my electric Motors, and I have got an order from tho chairman of the Northern Pacific Railroad to commence an electric railway on a largo scale to open up tho vast wheatfields which abound there. Those railways will go right and loft into these oceans of wheat fields, and act us feeders to the wain