FIG. 39.—ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE OF B. & O. TUNNEL IN BALTIMORE.
In [Fig. 39] is shown one of the most powerful electric locomotives ever constructed. It was built in 1895 by the General Electric Company for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, to draw trains through the long tunnel from the Camden Street Station in Baltimore, for the purpose of avoiding smoke and gas in the tunnel, which is 7,339 feet long. The locomotive weighs ninety-six tons, or twenty-five tons above the average steam locomotive. It was designed to draw 100 trains daily each way, moving passenger trains of a maximum weight of 500 tons at thirty-five miles an hour, and freight trains of 1,200 tons at fifteen miles an hour. It has two trucks, and eight drive wheels of sixty-two inches diameter. There are four motors, two to each truck, each rated at 360 horse power.
Other important applications of the electric motor are, the propelling of automobile carriages, small boats, and fish torpedoes, operating steering gear for ships, passenger elevators, rock drills in mines, running printing presses, fans, sewing machines, graphophones, and in all applications where space is limited and cleanliness a desideratum.
According to Mulhall there were in 1890 in the United States and Canada about 645 miles of street railway operated by electricity. This about concluded the first decade of the life of the electric railway. Some idea of the rapid increase in this field may be had by the statement of the same authority that there were in 1890, at the end of this first decade, forty-five additional electric railroads in course of construction, aggregating 512 miles of way, which nearly doubled the previous existing mileage.
In 1898 it was estimated that there were in the United States 14,000 miles of electric railroads, with a nominal capital of $1,000,000,000, and employing 170,000 men. In the same year a single electrical contract was entered into between the Third Avenue Railroad and the Union Railway Company of New York, acting as one, and the Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company, amounting to $5,000,000. This was for the electrical equipment of their respective railway lines, and is the largest electrical contract ever made. The change in equipment from other motive power to the electric is rapidly going on in all directions, and the rapid succession of trains will doubtless cause it, for passenger traffic on short lines, to eventually supersede steam.
The eighth annual report of the General Electric Company shows for the year 1899 orders received for railway and other electrical equipment amounting to $26,323,626; goods shipped, $22,379,463.75; profit on same, $3,805,860.18. The growth of its business from 1893 to 1899 shows the following per cent. of increase: In 1893, 36 per cent. above 1892; in 1894, 126 per cent. above 1893; in 1895, 10 per cent. above 1894; in 1896, 60 per cent. above 1895; in 1897, 60 per cent. above 1896; in 1898, 21 per cent. above 1897; in 1899, 51 per cent. above 1898.
The capitalization in electrical appliances in the United States in 1898 is estimated at $1,900,000,000, most of which is devoted to industries in which the electric motor is used. The export of electrical apparatus from this country amounts to more than three million dollars annually, and it is said that there are eight times as many electric railways in the United States as in all the rest of the world combined.
The use of electrical current in twelve principal cities in the United States was distributed in 1898 as follows:
| Lamps, arcs, and motors in sixteen candle power equivalents. | |
|---|---|
| Boston | 616,000 |
| New York | 1,718,000 |
| Chicago | 1,278,000 |
| Brooklyn | 322,000 |
| Baltimore | 224,000 |
| Philadelphia | 488,000 |
| St. Louis | 303,000 |
| San Francisco | 231,000 |
| Buffalo | 125,000 |
| Rochester | 184,000 |
| Cincinnati | 201,000 |
| New Orleans | 81,000 |
Boston makes the largest use of electrical current in proportion to its population of any city in the world. Rochester is next. Both of these cities employ in electrical units of 16 c. p. equivalents, more than one electric lamp for every man, woman and child in their respective populations.