Electric Traction.
Such centres may, before many years elapse, be found stretching out into the distant suburbs of cities, and linking town to town. This chiefly because electricity has become a formidable rival to steam in interurban locomotion. By the time this page is printed, the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad will have begun operating its suburban trains from New York by electricity. For this service locomotives built by the General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York, will be in commission. Each will develop 2,200 to 3,000 horse-power. In careful tests a locomotive of this kind reached a speed of fifty miles an hour in 127 seconds, whereas a “Pacific” steam locomotive required 203 seconds; an important difference, especially where stops are frequent. Each locomotive, with its train of cars, weighed 513 tons. The steam locomotive with its tender weighed 171 tons; its electric rival weighed but 100 tons. So much for the gain in leaving both furnace and boiler at home, while their power is received through a special rail at rest.
CHAPTER XXXII
A FEW SOCIAL ASPECTS OF INVENTION
Why cities gain at the expense of the country . . . The factory system . . . Small shops multiplied . . . Subdivided labor has passed due bounds and is being modified . . . Tendencies against centralization and monopoly . . . Dwellings united for new services . . . Self-contained houses warmed from a center . . . The literature of invention and discovery as purveyed in public libraries.