File:The Street railway journal (1902) (14575084619).jpg

Identifier: streetrailwayjo191902newy (find matches)
Title: The Street railway journal
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors:
Subjects: Street-railroads Electric railroads Transportation
Publisher: New York : McGraw Pub. Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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comotive is used on heavy grades, but on more mod-erate ones the cars are operated by their own motors. The loco-motive not only serv es for the above-mentioned purpose but isdestined also to haul freight trains of 20 tons total weight overthe lower part of the road at a speed of about 11.5 km an hour. Burgdorf-Thun Railway.—The Burgdorf-Thun Railway, whichwas opened in 1899. is not exactly what you would call a trunk-line. Yet it is of normal gage and forms a very important linkbetween three of the main steam lines of Switzerland. The ser-vice conditions are the same as encountered on the other Swiss-ailways and it uses the same size and shape of rolling stock as themain steam roads. The total length of the line is 40.3 km (25miles). The main reason for adopting electric traction was thatthe timetable could be arranged much more conveniently than forsteam traction. With the steam there would have been five trainsper day in each direction, costing per year at the least 52,000 francs
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land, may claim the honor of first putting alternating current intoactual use for traction on a commercial scale. The tramways ofLugano, the first three-phase railway, were opened for traffic in1895. The transmission voltage is 5000 volts at 40 cycles. Trans-formers reduce this to 400 volts. Two trolley wires of 6 mmdiameter 25 cm apart are used and the rails serve as third con-ductor. Speed of car 15 km (9.3 miles) an hour. Two trolleys,one 1 yard behind the other, make contact with the two lines.Motors are started by means of a reversing switch, and their speedis controlled by means of a resistance in the rotor circuit. Threetransformer stations of 180 kw. each 2 km, 5 kin and 8 km re-spectively from the beginning reduce from 5400 to 540 volts.The high-tension lines follows a separate route. The trolley lineconsists of two wires of 8-mm diameter, suspended by means ofcross-wires from wooden poles every 25 m, the rails forming thethird conductor. The locomotive weighs 10.5 tons. The

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