Street Railway

an omnibus line running on a metal track. The street cars are an improvement on the bus line. The earliest street cars, like the first passenger cars, resembled old-fashioned stage coaches. Horses, locomotives, cables, and electricity are the forms of power in use. Compressed air has been tried, but it is not efficient. The labor of drawing cars is too severe for horses. No humane person desires to see a faithful horse slipping and straining on a cobblestone pathway.

The cable car is propelled by an underground steel cable. The cable is endless. It is supported on pulleys and passes over great drums that are turned by powerful engines. In one sense, the cable is a great belt, only that it is a round half-inch wire rope instead of a flat belt. The cable runs ceaselessly. The car is provided with a lever-like grip with which the gripman seizes the cable when he wishes the car to go. When he wishes to stop, he opens the grip, lets go of the cable, and applies a brake. A hundred cars may be clinging to the cable or letting go at the same moment. With a cable there is no such thing as backing up. A cable system is safest on a level street. In going up a hill, there is a chance that the grip may slip or let go, in which case the car may dart down the track to the destruction of everything in its pathway. Another objection is that the cable is likely to get out of order. On the other hand, the cable system is considered economical, especially where many cars are to be drawn from end to end of a course with few curves or sharp bends.

The most popular power is electricity. We speak of electricity as a power, but in reality it is developed by some real power, as steam or a waterfall. In an electric system the electricity is developed in a powerhouse. It may be conveyed by a third rail laid on the ground between the rails proper. It may be conveyed by a wire like the cable in an open underground conduit, or, as is usually the case in America, it may be carried by an overhead copper trolley wire.

The car is provided with an electric motor. The current is taken from the overhead wire by a trolley. It passes through the motor and through the car wheels into the rails beneath. The motor propels the car. The same current operates usually a number of electric lights. Electric street railways are popular. They are prompt, clean, well lighted, and quiet. They are free from annoying odors. They are not likely to get out of order. Cold weather only increases their efficiency. The electric system is the best yet devised.

The following table of statistics relative to American street railways is gleaned from a bulletin of the United States Census Bureau issued January 19, 1909: