ELECTRIC LIGHTS ON RAILWAY TRAINS IN GERMANY AND AUSTRIA. (From United States Commercial Agent Harris, Eibenstock, Germany.)" The various attempts during the past few years to introduce electricity as a means of light on railway trains, and the many experiments connected therewith, have proved that only a very limited. number of the different systems now in use may be termed a technical and economic success. A railway train running at a high rate of speed presents many difficulties which are easily overcome in the application of electricity from stationary plants. These obstacles accumulate when we take into consideration that an even volume of light must be provided for the same train, not only when it is in motion, but when it is stopping at stations as well. Theoretically, this To the casual observer it would seem that any arrangement which will admit of all the lamps of a whole train being lighted up from some one central dynamo must in the nature of things be the most practical method which might well be adopted. could only be possible when based upon the assumption that a railway train would always be made up with the same number of cars, and that the central accumulators had been tested and finely gauged to a train the length of which is invariably the same. The best solution of the problem has been found in the method which enables each carriage of a railway train to be lighted separately and independently of the others. For example, in the Dick system, explained below, each car is supplied with a small dynamo which is attached to the axle of the car wheels. This dynamo drives the necessary current for creating light into the lamps while the train is in motion. Simultaneously, a small battery is charged with electricity from the same dynamo. This battery then serves the purpose of keeping up. the current while the train is stopping at stations. Generally speaking, however, the lamps should be fed as long as possible directly from the dynamo in order that the battery may be spared. During stops and when the train is going at a slow rate of speed up steep grades, the lamps are always fed from the battery. The accumulators are charged while the train is in motion, and this is the case by day as well as by night. The different systems of electric railway lights now either in use or being experimented with in Europe are known by the following names: Auvert. Stone. Moskowitz. Jaquin. The Dick system has been adopted by the Oesterreiche SchuckertWerke, in Vienna, Austria, and this company has fitted up a large number of railway carriages with this apparatus. The machinery and apparatus of the Dick system are divided into four parts, namely, dynamo, storage battery, apparatus safe, and circuit wires, installations, etc. Dynamo.-Figs. 1 and 2 show the dynamo from two different sides, while figs. 3 and 4 show how it is attached to the axles of the car wheels, whereby the current is generated by means of friction. The average number of volts produced by the velocity of from 700 to 2,400 revolutions is 45 amperes. The weight of the dynamo is 440 pounds. Battery.-Two batteries (fig. 5) of medium size will supply 22 lamps, each having a lighting capacity of 8 candles, during a period of five hours without being recharged from the dynamo. The batteries are protected by safes (fig. 6), which may be placed in any convenient part of a railway carriage. Exact instructions are posted on the door of each safe for the benefit of the porter or others whose duty it is to look after the apparatus. EIBENSTOCK, GERMANY, August 4, 1903. ERNEST L. HARRIS, Commercial Agent. |