Glass insulators to be used as third rail insulator

EDISON'S ELECTRIC MOTOR.

The Invention Nearly Ready for the

Experimental Test.

[From the New York Telegraph.]

In the center of the largest department in the Edison Machine-works, in Goerck street, stands a mammoth piece of mechanism on four wheels, which embodies it its construction some novel and remarkable features. A large force of skilled workmen have been engaged in building it for some months, and they are now putting the finishing touches prepatory to the experiments which are to test its powers and its capability for performing the work for which it is intended. When completed it will be an electric motor and passenger car combined, and it it designed to supersede the use of steam on the elevated railroads. It is the first machine of its kind that has ever been built in this city, the Daft motor, which is now undergoing experiments on the Ninth avenue elevated road, having been constructed in Greenville, N. J. Within a few days the new machine will be placed on the tracks of the Second Avenue Elevated Road for experimental purposes. The central rail, which will receive and conduct the electricity, is in position between Grand and Fourteenth streets, and only awaits the arrival of the glass insulators from the factory in Pittsburg to be ready for its destined mission. The third rail will at once be extended to the general or central station, which is located on East Twenty-third street. In this central station are five dynamos of forty-five horse-power each, and the electric energy from this point will be transmitted to the center rail for the propulsion of the trains. The motor has been constructed under the immediate direction of Thomas A. Edison, Stephen D. Field, Superintendent, Charles Batchelor, and H. E. Walter as Electrician and Assistant Superintendent/ It will be a passenger car, with self-propelling powers and will be started, stopped, lighted, heated and controlled by electricity. The cars may be run either singly or in a train, and in either case one engineer can control and direct its movements. The Daft motor conveys the idea of an ordinary locomotive acting as a separate traction power, while travelers in the Edison motor will find themselves speeded along by an invisible power, as the electric machinery is attached to the track underneath the platform on which they stand.

THE NEW MOTOR DESCRIBED

Electrician Walter explained to a reporter the intricacies of this remarkable invention. "To an ordinary observer," he said, "the motor will appear but little different from the passenger cars now in use. its dimensions and the accommodations for passengers will be the same. Each car will be an motor in itself. It takes from 12 to 16 horse power to run a car on the level at twenty miles an hour. We are prepared to apply a maximum power of seventy horse on each car, of 280 on a train of four cars. It will not be necessary to use such an amount of power, but these figures go to show that we will be able to run faster than the present trains at a vastly smaller expenditure of fuel and money.

"How is the electric energy applied?"

"The current is conducted from the generator to the central rail, which will run between the present tracks, by the Edison system of wires; from the central rail the electricity will be carried into the motors through plates of sheet copper, which we call brushes, and fromthe motor it will be sent back through the axle and wheels of the two cars to the outside rails, from which it is returned to a wire back to the central station. The current forms a continuous circuit. The grand principle of the invention is that the motor runs all the time except when reversed to go the other way. Power is applied by friction touches consisting of discs of iron pressed together, the friction of which tends to pull other plates around. The electrified force is applied on the wheels through a simple system of brakes, which one man can easily handle. The energy on the car is almost the precise measure of the work the car does, for the loss of the fluid by escape will be very small."

"Of what material is the central rail composed, and what are its formations?"

"It will be the same size and of the same materials as the rails on which the trains now travel. A thin copper strap connects each rail to the next one, being clamped by the fish plates. The rail is insulated by glass chairs at a distance of ten feet apart to prevent the breakage of current, on the same principle as the aerial telegraph wires." The tide of electricity which courses continuously through this rail is the power which attracts the train along."

"Is iron the best conductor for use as the central rail?"

""Iron has not one-seventh of the electric conducting power of copper, but our rail is of such large section that the resistance offered is is no more than if a three-quarter-inch copper wire were used. Iron is so much harder metal than copper that we consider it the best material to use."

ADVANTAGES CLAIMED FOR THE MOTOR.

"What special advantages are claimed for the motor?"

"The noise which the present engines make and the smoke, dust and bad odors which they emit will disappear altogether. The present cost of coal is probably five times as great as that which will be required to run our generators. There will be a saving of labor also, as there will be no use for firemen on the trains, and but one engineer will be required on each no matter how many cars may be rub."

"Where will the engineer be stationed?"

"The train can be operated from either end of any of the cars, but the engineer will naturally take his place on the front platform. Four horizontal wheels on strong iron rods will stand on each end of the car, two on either side. One is the ordinary brake-wheel now in use, the second works the air or electric brake; the third starts, stops, or reverses the motion of the engine, and the fourth supplies the friction by which the speed is varied and regulated."

"Will not these brakes obstruct the passage of persons to and from the cars?"

"They will not occupy more space than the brakes now is use. After we shall have made our experiments, however, it is probable that electric buttons or handles will be substituted for the wheels. The brakes not in use will be kept locked, so that mischievous or ignorant persons can not interfere with them."

"How will the weight of these self-moving cars compare with that of those now in use?"

"Aside from the motors attached to the trucks the weight will be the same. We can use one or two motors as we desire, the weight of each being about one and a half tons. The locomotives now in use weigh eighteen tons, and, of course, they will disappear. An ordinary train, therefore, with two motors attached to each car, will weigh less by many tons than trains now weigh."

"What would be the result suppose a workman laid hi hand by accident upon the central rail?"

"He would receive a shock that he would be likely to remember, but he would not be killed."

"How many generating depots is it proposed to establish between the Battery and Harlem River?"

"The one we now have will meet present requirements. We can increase its boiler capacity to 2,000 horse power and in a corresponding degree. If necessary, other stations can be built along the line."

Before the close of this week it is expected that the new motor will be seen on the track ready for experimenting. Among the problems that will first receive attention will be the regulation of speed and the measuring and tabulating of electric traction power. The steam whistle which is now used occasionally at night and in foggy weather is missing from the motor. Its place will probably be supplied by powerful electric bells. The the question of adopting one of the various systems of heating and lighting the cars that have been invented will be considered, adn the inviible element will be called into requisition to perform these services.