Electricity in Locomotion / An Account of Its Mechanism, Its Achievements, and Its Prospects

The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature
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ELECTRICITY IN LOCOMOTION
AN ACCOUNT OF ITS MECHANISM, ITS ACHIEVEMENTS, AND ITS PROSPECTS
BY ADAM GOWANS WHYTE, B.Sc. Editor of Electrical Industries and Electrics
Cambridge: at the University Press 1911
TO EMILE GARCKE
With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521.

In the following pages an attempt is made to give a clear picture of the part which electricity has taken and will continue to take in the development of locomotion.
Some of the aspects of electric traction are highly technical; others are purely financial. It is impossible to understand the achievements and possibilities of electricity in locomotion without a certain amount of discussion of both these points of view; but it is not necessary to go deeply into either in order to catch some of the enthusiasm which inspires the electrical engineer in his efforts to extend electric traction everywhere on road and rail. The hopes of electrical conquest extend, indeed, to locomotion on the sea and in the air as well as on the land. At the root of these hopes there lies a firm faith in the superior economies and flexibility of electricity as a mode of motion.