NEW TYPE OF ELECTRIC RAILWAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1920, Page 7

NEW TYPE OF ELECTRIC RAILWAY.

At a time when many countries are tending towards regulations for the standardisation of electric traction equipment on railways, a British engineer comes forward with a proposal for a radically new type, applicable in particular to railways in countries overseas, where electric power is not available along the route. His suggestion is that the trains should be hauled by locomotives of a special design, the engines being oil engines of an improved type and driving oleotric generators, whi'-h supply current to motors geared to the driving wheels. This arrangement gives great efficiency in the engine and very flexible speed control. In' addition it is proposed that each locomotive should be in electrical contact with ar: overhead wire, and that the rails should bo bonded to form a continuous electrical conductor. When a locomotive is standing at a station ilie generator continues to run, and thus supplies current to the overhead line. Again, when a train is running down hill, the motors generate electricity, and feed into the line also. The power thus supplied, is used to assist other trains in surmounting gradients at high speed. By this means, which really affords an interchange of power between trains, the engines need not he so heavy or powerful as is required where each unaided has to haul the heaviest train up the steepest gradient. As crude oil is used on the locomotives, and as a high efficiency is claimed, the arrangement offers peculiar advantages in lines running through undeveloped territory where coal and-water are scarce, llany of the advantages of electrification are retained without the disadvantage attached to large and costly generating stations on land, with long transmission mains to feed the line at intervals.