These are but the coal sources of electrical energy; and I have just stressed the importance of the steadily decreasing coal supply and a consequent steady increase in the price of coal itself. Even the vast and sweeping economies to be gained by the consolidation of steam power-stations as well as by the burning of coal at the mine-head are almost as nothing compared with those to be gained by a scientific grouping and use of the available and little used water-powers of the territory. It is upon this very phase of the situation that the super-power plan gains its greatest value. Do you recall how but a moment ago we saw that the operating economies of the Milwaukee out in the Rocky Mountains were based largely upon the use of water-power rather than upon the consumption of coal in its electric power-houses?
The hydro-electric resources of the super-power territory that have not been developed to their full capacity, if at all, comprise power-sites in the Adirondacks; along the Hudson, the Raquette, and the Black rivers; along the upper reaches of the Delaware and the lower ones of the Susquehanna and last—and greatest—that of the St. Lawrence River itself, taken just below Ogdensburg, New York. This last part of the project ties up very closely with the St. Lawrence Ship Canal project, an international scheme in which the United States and Canada shall share the cost and the benefits, both in power and in enlarged water traffic possibilities. It is estimated that more than 1,400,000 horse-power can be generated in this plan, of which one-half would be available for the use of this country. At present the whole St. Lawrence River canal scheme is under bitter political attack, which renders it unlikely that it will come quickly into effect. That it will not come eventually is hard to believe.
When all is said and done, however, this super-power plan, so sweeping as to be all but staggering to the imagination, and yet sponsored by the shrewdest and most far-seeing of American engineers, is based primarily upon the consumption of coal at the mines rather than in distant factory engine-rooms, central power-stations, or locomotive boilers. It is estimated that it can be operated at a saving of at least 30,000,000 tons of coal each year to the industries and railroads of the district which it embraces, or, at a modest average of eight dollars a ton of coal, $240,000,000 a year to commercial America. Shimmery copper wires will carry silently and continuously what will amount to at least one half of the coal tonnage not carried by the railroads for power and lighting purposes. A copper wire knows neither snow, blockade, nor traffic congestion. And railroad experts estimate the super-power plan as a saving of another $150,000,000 annually in coal freights. A total of more than a million dollars a day saved in just one corner of American industry is not to be sneezed at, even in these days when we talk so easily and carelessly in billions.
In this great single super-economy the railroads of eastern New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, southern New England, and northern New Jersey may easily share. In fact it is definitely planned that they shall share in it. The list of feasible users of this concentrated power includes the Fitchburg division of the Boston and Maine, all the way from Boston to Rotterdam Junction, New York (oddly enough the western half of this division, from Greenfield to Rotterdam, through the Hoosac tunnel, 104 miles, has for some time since been marked for electrification by the road’s own engineers); the connecting Delaware and Hudson from Mechanicsville, New York, to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; the New York, New Haven, and Hartford from the present terminal of the electric zone at New Haven through to Boston, both by the Shore line and the Springfield line (this predicates of course the electrical operation of the Boston and Albany all the way east of Springfield—and why not west of that point also is not easily discovered); the main line of the Erie, from Jersey City to Susquehanna, Pennsylvania; the Lackawanna, from Hoboken to Elmira; the Lehigh Valley from New York to Wilkes-Barre; the Central Railroad of New Jersey-Reading-Baltimore and Ohio group to Washington, to Hagerstown, Maryland, and to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; the Pennsylvania, from New York to a point just beyond Harrisburg—all of these main lines and a host of their branches. Such is the railroad portion of this embracing scheme. The only important road in its territory that is omitted from the electric program is the New York Central, which has such low grades and hence such economical use of power that the economy of electricity is least necessary to it. If ever it should desire to coöperate in the plan, it probably can gain the power for its main line—west of Albany, at least—from Niagara Falls, and for its network of busy lines in northern New York from the abundant water-powers of the Adirondack preserve or the huge St. Lawrence River international power project.
This all seems most logical. In the case of New England it so happens that the super-power plan—which is now seemingly certain of eventual execution—embraces just that section of the territory where there is the least surplus of water-power. The rough, wild rivers of the north of Maine, of New Hampshire, and of Vermont can and yet will operate almost all of the mileage of the railroads of those States; the distant mines in the Pennsylvania and the West Virginia hills will run the lines in the rest of New England. Power—power to move railroads—will cease to move across the most congested strip of North Atlantic seaboard in noisy and overcrowded and inefficient car-loads of coal. Power will come on the copper wire and will move the silent trains around Boston, New York, and Philadelphia—and many of them—some of them with big and efficient locomotives and others by sturdy small individual motors set within the car-trucks. The steam locomotive in this northeastern territory is nearly doomed. I think that eventually it will be doomed everywhere within the United States (our disappearing coal supply will be the chief factor in this), but first and foremost of all in the great congested areas which, having no coal of their own, live in constant and deadly fear that an overworked and overgrown railroad structure may yet fail to bring to them all that they need for their imminent necessities.
That such a step will bring eventual economies, vast economies, one can have no doubt. The New Haven for the nonce may be failing to make a profit on its elaborately electrified main line between New York and New Haven, to the power-station of which it must haul coal a long way and over congested rail routes. But with that unseen power stretched further and further upon its lines I have no doubt that adequate transportation service, freight and passenger, can again be given to the communities which it serves. What is true of the New Haven is equally true of the Albany, the Boston and Maine, and the other railroads of the New England area—after all, railroads of real inherent strength despite the great abuses which they have suffered. And what is true of all these railroads of New England is of course true of the railroads elsewhere within the nation, and true even if the economy be but the one of coal or oil consumption in a central power-station; far more true of course if water-developed electricity be found available. For notwithstanding the great developments of our water-powers that have been made in the last fifteen or twenty years, the experts of the geological survey down at Washington say that the undeveloped water-power of the United States is still approximately 54,000,000 horse-power. Much of this is of course in the West and the Far West where there is as yet but little traffic congestion upon the railroads. In such cases the gasolene-unit cars are ofttimes the best solution of the problem of the local passenger service.
There are instances too in the Northeast where single units are still the best solution of this most perplexing transport problem. And in the Northeast there is a considerable proportion of undeveloped water-power still remaining. But whether this be drawn upon chiefly, or the coal at the mine-head, the engineers of the super-power zone plan eventually will decide; the fact remains that here in a strip beginning at Washington and ending at Portland, Maine, and stretching from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles inland, is the scene of our greatest railroad congestion, and the scene where in any traffic crisis the possibility of breakdown becomes most imminent. Yet across this strip and through it the laggard steam locomotive still continues to draw long trains of coal—with 20 per cent. of it destined for his fire-box and the fire-boxes of his fellows. And this in an era which we have been pleased to call the age of electricity!
No matter from what angle one may view them, the possibilities of a far wider extension of electric motive-power on our railroads are fascinating indeed. Nor are they in this day and age to be regarded as particularly radical or revolutionary, or new and untried. Remember all the while, if you will, that the first important electrification of a section of standard steam railroad in this country—the Mount Royal tunnel section of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad through the heart of Baltimore—was nearly thirty years ago. Since that day a good many other like experiments, large and small, have followed in its wake. Other lands have both followed and preceded us. These other lands are not asleep to-day. Despite the terribly crippled condition of Europe to-day, elaborate plans are being made over there—particularly in France, in Switzerland, and in Great Britain, and even in Spain and in Italy. The British plans are still quite vague. The French are more definite. It is now planned to electrify at least 6000 miles of the 26,500 miles of French railway; a single system, the Paris-Orleans, has made definite preparations for bringing this power, the most of it water-generated, to more than half of its mileage, about 3250 miles all-told. In Switzerland work is already rapidly under way for transforming the entire Federal system of railways, approximately 1900 miles, from steam to electric power. It is to be a huge job, the cost of which is roughly estimated at $200,000,000. Little Switzerland shows great pluck in even tackling it. But when you ask the managers of their railways why they are undertaking it they shrug their shoulders and smile and reply:
“Think of the economies that it will bring us.”
Think of the economies it will bring us, us Americans. If a thing is good for a little republic overseas with but 3300 miles of rail trackage all told, how much better must it be for the big republic with 265,000 miles of line? Have the French or the Swiss railroaders more vision than we Americans have? I should hate to say that, particularly in the face of such a development as that of the Milwaukee, to say nothing of our great terminals in New York, in Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Have they more funds with which to tinker and to experiment? Of course not.