A HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN MILES AN HOUR.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 139, 20 April 1901, Page 1

A HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN MILES AN HOUR.

(Daily Mail Berlin Cqrrespqndeat.)

I have recently had an interesting "conversation with Messrs Siemens ana Halske, the eminent electric, engineers, who were m§ §qme very valuable information. "Concerning the much - talked -of project of electric traction, we pari tell you this much : —We ourselves made, some years ago, very extensive experiments with electric railway engines of , very high speed. We have a railway line of our own between LichterfelcJg and Teltow, near Berlin, across tho fields. We have successful, but w§ are hampered by the shortness of our line." It' is only- JiwQ kilometres lons, and the trains have to stop just when thf-p get up full speed. We have engines of 10,000 volts that might go a§ almost any speed, but when it comes tq sixty kilometres an hoar they have to pull up for want of space, or, rather, foe want of rails.

-'* We have obtained the support of the Government and of financial house in Germany, also of the Minister of W a| ? and the Minister for Railways. .Wje h*ve founded a society aud a committed for the study of the project. Members of the society comprise all the great manufacturers and bankers in ths empire, among them Rrupp, Van dec Zypen, and the Deutsche Bank; they all nelp towards the gre*t expense of the expeiiment. Thirty-seven thousand five hundred pounds have been and beyond that we can get any sume, of money that are required. .'.' Tne Minister of War haß put at our disposal the military railwa7 lin« between B«r|in and Zossen, which is thirty-three kilometres long. Tne Minister of Railways lends u* engiae? and waggons, and tlie War uiflaa supplies ua with soldiers to guard the line on account of t:h.e very necessary thing,-

" Our electric railway engines are 19 run at a speed of 200 kilometres miles) an hour, whereas the fastest traiuf in Germany at present run at eighty tq ninety kilometres. Two of these are now being finished. They are of two .< distinct kinds, so that we can make experiments with both to ste which if the batter type. One of them our owa firm is building ; the other is to b§ built by Mr Van der Zypen in Cologne. , " Both will ba ready in June or July, and in the late summer or in early autumn we will make the experiments. We are now about to build a huge accumulator 99. our military line tg provide the necessary electric power. Probably the electric dynamo which Messrs Borsig exhibited in Paris will be pub down and connected with our own dynamo. "We are also* considering scheme of oonneutji g up our own jeleotrio works in Nieder-Sbtionweide with ths enterprise, at a cost of about £2BOO.