ELECTRIC TRAMWAY CARS.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1537, 11 May 1882, Page 4

E LECTRIC TRAMWAY CARS.

i * ( first application of electricity to the driving of tramway cax-s ,in this country ( was made on March 4th, at the works of the North Metropolitan Tramways Company, iLcytonstone. The car employed was one which had been the subject of a similar experiment in France. It was fitted with a large number of Fauve accumulators ranged under the- seats and communicating with a motor underneath, which, in its turn, by means of pinionwheels, acted upon the wheels of the car. The accumulators having been charged at a dynamo machine in the company's yard a number of ladies and gentlemen who had been invited to witness the experiment mounted upon the car, and had a few runs with it up and down a quarter of a mile of tramway in Union Road, to the amazement of the inhabitants, -who, for thp first time in their lives, &aw a tramcar full of people travelling at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour without any visible motive poM r er. As proving the applicability of electric force to locomotion, the experiment was an undoubted success. The accumulators, which weighed a ton and a half, exerted, with one charging, a foice equal to that of 25 horses for one hour — that is to say, five horses for five hours, and so on. In other words, the car could have run witli its full number of passengers for half a day, with an ample allow ance for va-ste of energy. The objection to this system as at present carried out re&l& on t\\ o grounds — first, that the oar w ith its load of acciumilators weighs as much as fho tons ; and secondly, that the pinion, wheels make a loud grinding noise, such as seriously to incommode the public. ' Both these defects the pmmotcis hope to be able to remedy by attaching the motor, which is practically a dynamo machine reveiscd, direct to the axle, thus dispensing with pinion-wheels and reducing friction. The attachment of the motor direct to the axle would necessitate in the case of traincars the use of driving-wheels small enough to make a largo number of revolutions per minute with a low rate of progression. In the case of railway trains it would enable a high rate of speed to be attained — probably 100 miles an hour — with driving-wheels of moderato size. The promoters are sanguine enough to believe that at no di&tant day they may be able also to introduce electric cabs and omnibus&cs, guided like velocipedes. All vehicles driven by electricity could, of course, with a little additional expenditure of force, be lighted by the same means. It only remains to add, with reference to the electric tramcar, that it can be worked, started, stopped, and reversed, by the moving of a small handle, and that the promoters calculate upon being able to work tramways with electricity at one half the cost of 'horsepower. The expeument was carried out by Mr Cadcliffc Ward on behalf of the Faure Accumulator Company.