High-speed direct-current locomotive built by the Westinghouse Company
for the terminal service of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in New York
Two triple-phase locomotives of the Great Northern Railway helping
a double-header steam train up the grade into the Cascade Tunnel
The outer shell of the New Haven’s freight locomotive
removed, showing the working parts of the machine
Similarly, the Erie Railroad disposed of a decaying branch of its system, running from North Tonawanda to Lockport, to the Buffalo street railroad system, although reserving for itself the freight traffic in and out of Lockport. The Buffalo road installed the overhead trolley system, and now operates an efficient and profitable trolley service upon that branch.
Perhaps it was because the Erie saw the application of these ideas, and decided that it was better to take its own profits from electric passenger service than to rent its branches again to an outside company; and perhaps because it also foresaw the coming electrification of its network of suburban lines around New York, and wished to test electric traction to its own satisfaction; but five years ago it changed the suburban service of its lines from the south up into Rochester from steam to electric.
It is now preparing to continue this work further. The Pennsylvania, while its great new station in New York was still a matter of engineer’s blue prints, began practical experiments with electric traction in the flat southern portion of New Jersey. It owned a section of line ideally situated in every respect for such experiments, its original and rather indirect route from Canada to Atlantic City, which had since been more or less superseded by a shorter “air line” route. The third-rail was installed, and the new line became at once popular for suburban traffic in and out of Philadelphia and for the great press of local traffic between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Of the success of that move on the part of the Pennsylvania there has never been the slightest question. Regular trains have been operated for several years over this route at 60 miles an hour, and not the slightest difficulty has been found in maintaining the schedules.
But nowhere has the substitution of electric locomotive for the steam worked greater comfort for the railroad passenger—to say nothing, of the raising of that somewhat intangible factor of safety—than in long tunnels. The Baltimore & Ohio, which was a pioneer among the steam railroads in the use of electric locomotives, began to use them in 1896 in its great tunnel that pierces the very foundations of the city of Baltimore. That system, once adopted, became permanent. What was at one time a fearful summer experience between Camden Station and Mount Royal Station in that city has become merely a pleasant novelty upon the trip.