The full financial results obtained on this railway have not so far been made public; but it is sufficient for our purpose to note that the Company, after more than a year's full trial, extended the system to the Crystal Palace and to Croydon. Further extensions are, it is understood, contemplated over the suburban lines to Sutton and elsewhere; and in course of time the conversion of the main line to Brighton will be undertaken.
Here we touch upon the most interesting aspect of this demonstration of electric traction on the single-phase system. The system was adopted in the first instance because the third-rail system would lead to complications and dangers which could not be permitted at crowded railway termini shared by all kinds of traffic, suburban and main line. But the advisers of the Company had also in view the possibility of development beyond the range of suburban traffic. They therefore sought a system which, while comparable to the third-rail continuous current in the handling of suburban business, would be adaptable to main line conditions, where infrequent stops and long runs at high speeds are the rule.
The adoption of electric traction on such a route as the Brighton main line would be a benefit in several ways. It would lead to a faster express service, as the high overload capacity of the electric motor enables it to take small account of gradients. It would also lead to a more frequent service, as the electric system is free from the conditions which force a steam railway to try to concentrate traffic on a limited number of long trains. Further, it would, by reducing the time lost in stopping and starting, bring the average speed of stopping trains much closer to that of express trains. All these improvements—assisted, probably, by lower fares—should lead to a great increase in the volume of traffic, thus reproducing the characteristic results of electric traction on suburban lines.
[1] An admirable explanation of alternating currents will be found in Mr Frank Broadbent's Chats on Electricity. (Werner Laurie, 1910.)
CHAPTER XV
CURIOSITIES OF ELECTRIC TRACTION
Like many other industries, electric traction has had its history brightened and made picturesque by curiosities of invention. Locomotion has, in fact, been a favourite field for the freak inventor; and some of his efforts with electric cars have been as weird and as fatuous as the most remarkable of perpetual motion devices.
One of these electrical monstrosities was, indeed, a kind of perpetual motion arrangement. It was invented about the year 1890 and consisted of a car equipped with accumulators which supplied power to a motor which drove a hydraulic pump, which in turn worked a dynamo supplying current to motors driving the axles of the car, and also to the accumulator for re-charging purposes. The inventor was so sure that he had got the better of the law of the conservation of energy that he provided his car with pointed ends, fitted with revolving fans to break down the air-pressure, in order that a speed of 125 miles per hour might be achieved. His name was Amen; and it provides a fitting comment upon his scheme.