retroelectro
To this point, most electric systems of the day were only meant to replace the horses with an engine in order to continue using the streetcars that horses once pulled. Sprague was poised to revolutionize the industry with his ‘under-running trolley’ idea. 1888 - Richmond Union Passenger Railway Working with investors and other engineers, the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company gained a contract to build an electric streetcar system in Richmond, Virginia. This was noteworthy because of the area's topology. There are reports of the earlier animal-pulled streetcars being called ‘horse-killers’ because of the steep inclines.
West End Railway of Boston Soon after the opening, Sprague met with the head of the ‘West End Railroad’ of Boston, who wanted to install cable cars (like the ones used in San Francisco) in Boston, being skeptical that an electric streetcar could work in a high traffic environment. Sprague rigged the system to prove that his system could operate dozens of cars simultaneously. He instructed the engineers to load slugs in the fuses and increase the generator's power to five hundred volts. [5] Then, with the wave of a lantern, he had twenty-two streetcars on the far end of a line designed for only four streetcars moving along one after another. In his book ‘The Growth of Electric Railways’, he says when they started, the lights all went dim, and the voltage dropped to two hundred volts, but soon all of the cars overcame their initial inertia, and they were soon merrily running along. This test was conclusive, and the fate of the cable in Boston was Settled. From this point, to 1890, some reports say that Sprague had purchase orders for upto two hundred streetcar systems throughout the county.
Earliest type of Sprague motors used in Richmond.
Other electric streetcars couldn’t manage the hilly terrain and steep inclines, while Sprague’s unique design for independent direct drive of each streetcar could. Each streetcar had its own motors underneath the passenger cab. From August 1887 to February 1888, Sprague, with his engineers and laborers, built the Richmond
Union Passenger Railway. When it first opened, the track was twelve miles long and had forty cars, making it the longest electric railway in the world. Each of the forty cars could run independently and navigate the ten-degree inclines through the city. The Richmond Union Passenger Railway included many new innovations. Two of the most pivotal were the ‘trolley pole’ and the ‘trolley wheel’. Before this, electric streetcars would use electrified rails or an overhead wire to carry current. The trolley pole differed in that it would run underneath the overhead wire, making each car easy to remove from the line at any point by simply pulling down the trolley pole. The electric power was produced by a local generation plant, powered by coal and steam.
Example of a competitor’s streetcar by Van Depoele.
Other streetcars of the time would have the motor on the front, with a heavy chain connecting the motor to the axle. Sprague’s design placed the motor underneath the streetcar, connecting it directly to the wheels, delivering more torque and horsepower than any competitor could with a similarly sized motor. All of this came together the Summer of 1888 when the Richmond Union Passenger Railway opened and became the ‘first successful electric railway’ in history. It would continue to operate from 1888 to 1949.
Catalog page from the age selling parts for streetcars.
Sprague’s unique undercarriage motors made the steep inclines a trivial task.
we get technical
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