Tube, Train, Tram, and Car; or, Up-to-date locomotion. Arthur H. Beavan
of the kind! One portion of a moderate-sized apartment is devoted to the “fitting” of the motor locomotives, and at the other end, enclosed within a low railing, resting upon a bed of great solidity, and occupying but little space, is the machinery in duplicate, as a safeguard against breakdowns.
It consists of a vertical compound engine, supplied with steam from an adjoining boiler-house, whose cylinder is coupled direct to the fly-wheels of the revolving dynamos that are partly sunk into the flooring. These, with their electro-magnets, are so shut in, and so little can be seen of the working, that it all looks very mysterious and incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
In large power-producing machinery an iron staircase leads up to a platform above the dynamos, giving access to the loftier parts of the apparatus, which then, in its general appearance and compactness, somewhat resembles a modern marine engine. On the walls are endless dials, recording the amount of current generated, localising the exact position of the trains on the line at any given moment, and checking the quantity of current picked up by each engine. There is absolutely no smell, no outward indication of resistless power, while almost Arcadian quiet reigns in the neighbourhood of the machines.
That these small dynamos are capable of driving heavy cars filled with passengers at the rate of many miles an hour seems incredible; but faith, “the evidence of things not seen,” must come into play.
The craving for mere size, however, will be amply gratified when the great power house at Chelsea, built to supply the Metropolitan, District, and other railways, is completed (vide Chapter V.).
But what on earth is a kilowatt, or a volt, an ohm, or an ampère?—expressions that are rapidly becoming as familiar as the word horse-power.
Well, “horse-power” was a term invented long ago by engineers, who blandly asked one to imagine that an ordinary horse was capable of lifting a weight of 33,000 lbs. (or some 14½ tons) one foot high per minute. Now, electricity is a very exact science. There is no mere theory about it; and a unit is a definite quantity of power, known in that science as a “kilowatt hour.” Thus, a kilowatt, or 1,000 watts, is the equivalent in measured work of 1⅓ horse-power, equal to the lifting of 44,000 lbs. per minute, or the doing of so many units of work, either electric lighting, heating, machinery driving, or traction.
VARIOUS FORMS OF ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION
Electricity as a locomotive force is being presented to the public in various forms. There is the ordinary railway, like the Underground, that, cleansing itself, amending its ways, and becoming converted to the new order of traction, has been granted a new lease of life. Then there are new lines laid down, intended from the first to be electrical, with specially designed cars, diving beneath the Thames, and connecting the north and south of London. These are our metropolitan pioneer electric railways. There is also the system of railways specifically and popularly known as Tubes, most important factors in the travelling world of modern Babylon. Another division is the system known as Overhead Electric Railways; that is to say, rails laid upon iron girders supported by columns above the roadway, a notable example of which is the Liverpool Overhead Electric Railway.
Electric tramways are with us in Greater London for good and all, with their network of lines in every direction. Some are locally worked by the various Borough Councils; others on a comprehensive scale by the London County Council, who now strongly advocate also another system, the Shallow-Underground, by which the cars run in a kind of open trench just below the surface in the middle of the street.
Next we have endless provincial and urban council electric tramways, including some very extensive systems for feeding the enormous traffic of cities and large towns in the Midlands and North of England.
Electric Light Railways, originally intended to be worked on rails laid down upon the ordinary highway, form a special class by themselves to serve short-distance traffic in country districts; but to all intents and purposes they are rural electric trams.
Lastly, we have motor-cars, carriages, omnibuses, cabs, vans, and cycles, that with electricity as their means of propulsion, will possibly ere long supersede every other form of traffic in our streets and along our roads and lanes.
To individualise these various outcomes of electrical traction spread over the length and breadth of Great Britain is impossible. Their names and their statistics are enrolled in Garcke’s Manual of Electrical Undertakings, a work that, like Kelly’s London Directory, grows bigger and bigger every year.
I propose, therefore, only to notice some of the principal ones; and, naturally, the pioneer railway lines should have the place of honour.
CHAPTER II
SOME PIONEER ELECTRIC RAILWAYS
“A worthy pioneer.”—Shakespeare.
THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY RAILWAY
IN the month of March, 1883, by the opening of the Giant’s Causeway, Portrush, and Bush Valley Railway, the sister island achieved the honour and glory of showing the way to the “predominant partner” in the matter of electrical traction enterprise; winning, however, only by a head, for in August of the same year the Brighton Beach Electric Railway was inaugurated.
Who amongst us can say they know Ireland well? To the average tourist it still remains an unexplored country. The travelling American, however, as a rule, does it from end to end. Commencing with Dublin, “doing” Killarney, and working round the magnificent west coast, he returns viâ the North Channel, always taking en route on the coast of Antrim the Giant’s Causeway, thundered upon by storms from the wild Atlantic. There, almost within hail of Britain, are those strange groups of basaltic columns so familiar to geological students, intensely interesting, invested with many an old and mystic Celtic legend, yet until recently difficult of access, as other striking regions in Ireland—an island abounding not only in awe-inspiring scenery, but in sequestered spots of sylvan beauty; a fair land of mountains and hills, lakes and waterfalls, crystal streams, and splendid harbours; truly called the Emerald Isle; where the grass is greenest, and rare coniferæ flourish; where the myrtle needs no shelter, and the arbutus blooms and fruits to perfection, and flowers are everywhere, for every little enclosure in due season glows with the brightest of flax and potato blossom; and lanes and open country are gay with star-like marigolds, shamrock, violets, honeysuckle, meadowsweet, catsear, scabious, large purple bugle, and such-like lowly but welcome plants.
FIG. 3. THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.
By permission of Thos. Cook and Son, Ludgate Circus
From Portrush it is easy to reach the Causeway, though once there, one often has to wait for favourable weather before proceeding to explore its cavernous wonders by water.
The present length of the railway is 8½ miles of single line, its gauge being 3 feet. It is worked partly by steam and partly by electricity on the overhead system, the current being derived from a generating station three-quarters of a mile away, where three hydraulic turbines, fed by an adjoining waterfall, operate the dynamo. Although the railway is out of the way and on a small scale, the attractions of the Causeway and the surrounding district result in a respectable passenger traffic of over a hundred thousand per annum.
THE BRIGHTON BEACH RAILWAY