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

by Adam Gowens Whyte

Although the earliest experiments in electric traction were made in the railway form, the first electric lines could hardly be regarded as railways in the ordinary sense. They were really light railways, in which the traffic conditions approximated to those of tramways. The routes were short, the cars small, and the traffic of modest dimensions. They contained the germ of both the tramway and the railway; but, in the case of the railway, many years of technical development had to pass before the problem of applying electricity to the handling of large masses of traffic under standard railway conditions was solved.

The fact that the first electric railway in the United Kingdom was constructed at the Giant's Causeway (in 1883) is significant. The Giant's Causeway is one of the few places in our islands where water power is available close to a district with a demand for traffic facilities. In 1885 another electric railway deriving its energy from water-driven turbines was built between Bessbrook and Newry. At that period it was considered that waterfalls provided the only really feasible source of cheap electricity on a large scale. Even yet the impression survives that electric power stations using steam cannot produce current so cheaply as those which 'harness' waterfalls. Many people, in fact, are inclined to attribute the comparative backwardness of electrical development in Great Britain, not to legislative conditions, but to the lack of large waterfalls.

There might have been more active progress in the pioneering days if the presence of water power at convenient points had encouraged electrical engineers to repeat the experiments at Portrush and Bessbrook. But at an early stage in electrical history it became clear to engineers that coal was just as feasible a source of cheap power as water. The idea that a waterfall provides power 'for nothing' is one of those superficial conceptions which make the hardiest of fallacies. To 'harness' a waterfall requires a heavy expenditure of capital on conduits, pipe-lines, dams, and other works. The interest upon that capital is a heavy item, apart from the cost of maintenance and repairs. Waterfalls are situated in mountainous country, generally remote from the centres of industry; the water-power station, therefore, has to face the cost of transmission mains and the loss of energy involved in conveying the power to the place where it is wanted. Further, waterfalls and the adjacent ground belong either to individuals or to the State; and payment is generally exacted for the right to use them.

All these items have to be covered in the price charged for current to the public or to railway undertakings. Nature may provide the 'head' of water 'free,' but man has to spend money in utilising it, just as he has to do in mining and in obtaining heat from the coal which is also provided 'free.' Anything which is obtained 'for nothing' is generally worth nothing.

The full economies of generating electricity by steam power are not, however, realised until business is done on a large scale. As the first essential of a successful electric railway is a plentiful supply of cheap power, development from the experimental stage of Portrush had to wait until engineers mastered the art of producing electricity from large generators. They gained the necessary experience with electric tramways and in electric lighting. We have seen how, as regards tramways, legislation delayed and hampered progress. A similar cause was at work in connection with electric lighting. In 1882 an Act was passed regulating electric lighting on lines modelled upon the principles of the Tramways Act, 1870. Capitalists declined to work under this Act; and it was not until after 1888, when the Act was amended, that any money could be found in Great Britain for electric lighting schemes. This delay was a serious handicap not only to electric lighting but to the business of British electrical manufacturing, as there was, comparatively speaking, no demand for electrical plant for over six years. Meanwhile, matters had been advancing on normal lines in other countries; and when the demand came at last, the manufacturers on the Continent and in America were the only ones organised and ready to meet it.

These points must be touched upon in order to understand why so long a period elapsed between the pioneer electric railways and the real electric railway movement as we know it to-day. They also serve to explain the prominent part which American and German firms took in electrical developments here. Engineering and legislative conditions combined to retard electric railway enterprise so that it did not begin to take firm root in Great Britain until about 1890, and did not attain to any conspicuous growth until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Until after 1890 the only electric railways in Great Britain taking power from steam dynamos were those at Brighton Beach, Ryde Pier (Isle of Wight) and Southend Pier, opened in 1883, 1886 and 1890 respectively. These were all, of course, of short length. The Brighton Beach railway, designed and constructed by Mr Magnus Volk, was a unique piece of work. The rails were laid on heavy concrete blocks below high-water mark; and the cars were platforms raised on a light iron structure. Power was conveyed to the cars from wires hung on posts like the standards of a tramway on the trolley system. The unusual sensation of travelling over the water was enjoyed by hundreds of people until the difficulty of maintaining the track (owing to the erosive action of the waves) led to the railway being abandoned and another line of more ordinary character being laid on the level of the undercliff roadway.

The first indication of the genuine electric railway movement was given in 1893, when the Liverpool Overhead Railway was opened. This line was constructed to afford communication along the line of docks fringing the Mersey. The track was carried on a continuous bridge in order to avoid obstruction between the docks and the streets behind; and being overhead, there were serious disadvantages attached to the use of steam locomotives. Electric locomotives were therefore employed.

In this case, it should be noted, electricity was not adopted because it was more economical or efficient than steam. The reason lay with the peculiar situation of the railway. A similar reason decided the promoters of the City and South London Railway to try electric locomotives on their line. This railway, which was opened in 1890, was the first deep level or 'tube' railway in the world. Moreover, it was constructed and equipped throughout by British engineers, and at a time when the art of tunnelling was much less advanced than it is now. In the later and more imposing development of tube railways in London, the foresight and enterprise displayed by the pioneers of the City and South London Railway are apt to be overlooked. It was, however, the success of the original line from the Monument to Clapham which made it possible to raise capital for the Central London Railway (opened in 1900) and for the extensive tube railway system organised by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London.