PRIME MOVERS—THEIR STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 3, 2 January 1906, Page 52

PRIME MOVERS— THEIR STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY.

A suggestive article in a recent number of The Engineer, which describes as a commercial war of great magnitude the struggle between steam, gas, electricity, and oil for supreme place as a motive power, the end of which is not yet in sight, might serve as a useful appendage to an article of a similar character which appeared in The Engineering Supplement of March 22nd last. In the latter the relative merits of the reciprocating steam engine, the steam turbine, and the gas engine were discussed ; m the former a more general survey is taken, and a companion article, dealing with the oft-told tale of the raid electric tramways keep making on railway profits, is akm to the subject in that the two indicate a sequence of events that may occur in the domain of traction. Steam as a tractive force is assailed by electricity ; now the latter in its turn has to withstand the claims of gas and oil, which also direct their powers against steam. D3spite the enemies with which it is beset, however, the steam engine is not to be imagined as a dead force, and, in fact, by superheating, it is endeavouring to hold its own ; the potentialities of steam, it may be added, are not anything like known, as one remembers The Engineer itself to have pointed out. Although the most economical steam engines, as this journal remarks, were beaten m ths past by the gas engines, which got clown to a consumption the equivalent of about lib of coal per l.h.p. per hour, the steam engines just managing to scrape through with about 50 per cent, more, the revival of superheating for steam engines enabled a consumption of iolb per i.h.p. per hour to be reached. We are reminded, however, that there is no finality m any one direction. A suction gas-producer engine, for instance, may yet take a great liner across the Atlantic, and beat the best results hitherto obtained by 20 per cent, if not by 50 per cent. Turning to electricity, the drift of competent opinion m certain directions, it is remarked, seems to indicate that it has seen its best day for lighting purposes, and that its future appears to he in the field of power distribution. But even here, m its use for tramway traction, The Engineer foresees its establishment being threatened by oil. It points to the success of the petrol omnibus, not only as a rival to the electric tram cars, but as inspiring the question that if petrol can propel an omnibus on the highway, how much better can it drive a tram car on rails ? Figures are quoted showing that the cost per route mile of the electric tramways of England at the beginning of 1904 worked out at an average of .£28,300 per mile, which, compared with the average cost of horse traction {£13^00 per mile), makes the extra cost of working electrical plant £14-800 per mile, the journal named asserts that if, instead of horses, petrol were employed, the cost of the rolling stock would be slightly increased, but the running cost per mile enormously reduced. It is submitted that electricity, as far as capital outlay is concerned, could not compete for a moment with petrol, and that there is reason for believing that the working expenses would also be very much less. Nor need petrol be the only oil used for tramway traction , some heavier oils might also be employed. Obviously, if oil is to supplant electricity m this way, there is a bad day in store for the municipalities, for the realisation of the prophecy means that their expensive electrical plants will be doomed to the scrap heap.