Suburban Railway Research Articles

Abridgment of auxiliary circuits for high-voltage D-C. Motor car equipments

The increasing demand for frequent and rapid transportation on both suburban and other railways has brought to the fore the multiple unit motor car. The steps taken in the development of the auxiliary equipment for the multiple unit motor coach are quite interesting, and have been made the subject of this paper. The first part of the paper is devoted to cars equipped with apparatus for converting the high-voltage d-c. overhead-line current to the voltages required for operating standard auxiliary equipment. The second part is devoted to auxiliary equipment suitable for operation on the higher d-c. voltages now being used in more and more electrification projects. Although this paper refers mostly to development work carried out in Europe, it is nevertheless believed to be of interest to American engineers as the basic principles underlying this development are also applicable to American multiple unit cars.

Railway Electrification: a Complete Survey of the Economics of the Different Systems of Railway Electrification from the Engineering and Financial Points of View

THIS book gives a survey of the economics of the different systems of railway electrification from the engineering point of view. It is pointed out that for the last thirty years electricity has been successfully employed all over the world to operate tramways. At the beginning of the century it was adopted for elevated and tube railways. Then came the electrification of the suburban railways, and finally, mainly on the Continent and in the United States, the electrification of the main line railways. It is universally admitted that electrification of the main line railways in Great Britain is feasible; the only question about which opinions still differ is the financial one. Were it not for the War, at least two British main lines would have been rapidly extending their systems of electrification. Apparently they have adopted a policy of waiting, and so we are continuing to burn an unnecessary quantity of coal. Many who have considered the problem with great care are in favour of electrification. This book is written for engineers and contains much valuable data from the point of view of the economics of the problem, but we think that the author could have made out a stronger case for electrification. There are not many cases-we know of none-where a railway once electrified has gone back to steam locomotives, but we do know that the electrical staff on most of the English railways is in ludicrous disproportion to the mechanical engineering staff. In Chapter ii. the author states that it can be proved mathematically that the best site for a power house from the point of view of transmission costs is the centre of gravity of the load. This theorem has been recently proved to be erroneous. It requires the unwarrantable assumption that the percentage loss of power in the minimum case is the same for all the distributing mains.

On a bore for brewing water near Craiglockhart

This bore has recently been put down by Mr R. Henderson, Edinburgh, for Messrs T. & J. Bernard, Ltd., Edinburgh Brewery, Gorgie, to obtain water for brewing. It is situated on the north-east side of the Suburban Railway, about midway between Craiglockhart and Morningside Stations. The water will be conveyed by means of a pipe to Messrs Bernard's premises at Gorgie, about one mile to the north-west of the bore. The bore is in rocks of Upper Old Red Sandstone age, while Messrs Bernard's Brewery is situated on Wardie Shales. The Colinton Fault passes between the brewery and the bore-hole, letting down the Wardie Shales against the sandstones of the Upper Old Red Sandstone. The latter are exposed in the railway cutting about 130 yards west of the bore. They are much broken and faulted, and have a general dip to the north-west at 20 to 30 degrees. The surface of the ground at the bore is about 250 feet above ordnance datum. The bore was made by means of the rotary drill, using chilled shot. Its diameter at the surface is seven and a half inches, and at the bottom six inches. Its total depth is 300 feet. Forty-five feet of superficial material was passed through before solid rock was reached. The solid rock is mainly sandstone, with thin sandy and clayey shale bands, all reddish or chocolate-coloured. The sandstones have white patches and some beds are impure and clayey. Some are open-textured and gritty, but on the whole

Automatic substations for supplying 1500 volts: Direct current to Suburban railways

Automatic substations for supplying 1500 volts: Direct current to Suburban railways

Automatic Substations for Supplying 1500 Volts Direct Current to Suburban Railways

The engineer in applying automatic substations to an existing electrified traction property is often forced to make the most of a poorly designed or antiquated distribution system. By comparison, the problem of designing the distribution system for the electrification of a steam railroad is often very simple. The choice of proper converting equipment is perhaps not so easily made. The author brings attention to a number of important points which should be given careful consideration by those contemplating electrification.

Joint Meeting of British and French Electrical Engineers

DURING the joint meeting of the British and French Electrical Engineering Institutions, held in Paris on May 21–24, a wide range of subjects was discussed. The greater part of the time was devoted to electric railway traction. The electrical equipment of purely urban and suburban railways has already become almost a mere question of economics and technical detail; the broader engineering and scientific problems are solved. So far, however, the replacement of the steam train by the electric train on main lines has only been limited, and this is a work for which the electrical. engineer is making ready. Its consideration cannot be deferred until the improvements in the economy of generating and distributing electrical energy, and converting it into mechanical energy on the train, are such that there can be no other reasonable method than to burn the coal at the pit's mouth instead of the locomotive furnace; for in the meantime the “electrification” of suburban lines must continue, and the railway engineers naturally desire to equip their lines on some system which will lend itself to main line traffic as well as suburban, without extensive alterations being necessary when the second part of the problem is taken in hand. For this reason, the presentation and discussion of six papers on electric railways by French electrical engineers of high repute was particularly well timed.

Central Utilities Commissions and Home Rule: A Paper before the Madison Literary Society, May 9, 1910

The term “public utilities” embraces all properties devoted to a use in which the public has an interest. As currently employed in this country today, it includes water, light, heat, power, and telephone plants; urban, suburban and interurban electric railways; steam railways; the telegraph, express companies and several minor organizations connected with transportation. In a narrower and more local use of the term, its scope is restricted to water, light, heat, power and local telephone utilities, and urban and suburban electric railways.Central utilities commissions are administrative bodies appointed or elected for the purpose of carrying out legislative acts with reference to public utilities. In the widest sense of the term a central commission is a federal or national commission, of which the Interstate Commerce Commission is the best-known representative. Central Commissions, in the narrower sense of the term, are illustrated by state utilities and railroad commissions. Like many other terms central and local have relative meanings with shifting and overlapping circumferences.

Electrification of Suburban Railways

Electrification of Suburban Railways

Electrification of Suburban Railways

Electrification of Suburban Railways

Eminent Domain. Electric Suburban Railway. Necessity of Taking. Statutes. In re Rhode Island Suburban Ry. Co., 48 Atl. 591 (R. I.)

Eminent Domain. Electric Suburban Railway. Necessity of Taking. Statutes. In re Rhode Island Suburban Ry. Co., 48 Atl. 591 (R. I.)

Electric Traction and its Application to Suburban and Metropolitan Railways

Electric Traction and its Application to Suburban and Metropolitan Railways

On the succession of the Lower Carboniferous Series to the west of Edinburgh, with special reference to the district around Cramond

In a former paper on the lower carboniferous rocks of the district, read before this Society, I showed that the beds were bent into two anticlinal folds running north and south. The eastern anticline passes from the shore at Leith southward through St Andrew Square on to the foot of Blackford Hill, while the western anticline passes from the shore at Granton quarry through the south end of Corstorphine Hill on to Wood Hall, near Juniper Green, on the Water of Leith. I sought to show also that the syncline between these two arches was at its northern end occupied by the Wardie shales, while a much higher set of rocks covered these shales at the southern end of the syncline, namely, the sandstones of Redhall and Hailes, with the shales which overlie them. I also showed that these lower carboniferous rocks were cut through by a great fault running south-west and north-east, passing from the north-west face of Craiglockhart Hill to the north side of Edinburgh Castle, and from thence eastwards to the north end of Arthur Seat. This fault is well exposed in the Suburban Railway cutting at Meggetland, where beds of the Granton sandstone group can be seen lying nearly vertically against the red sandstones that form the base of the lower carboniferous series. On tracing this fault south-westwards it seems to skirt the south side of the Water of Leith above Colinton, and crosses that stream somewhere in the neighbourhood of Currie, whence it runs on

Excursions [1884-1888

1884. 1. Glen Deans. Leader , Mr Mathison. 2. Largo District. Leader , Rev. E. Kennedy. 3. Sections on Suburban Railway and Salisbury Crags. (Joint Excursion with Glasgow Geological Society.) Leader , Mr Henderson. 4. Elie to Ardross. Leaders , Messrs Kinnear and Anderson. 5. Hawick District—Slitrig Valley. Leader , Mr Wilson. 1885. 1. Bathgate District. (Joint Excursion with Glasgow Geological Society.) Leader , Mr Young. 2. Polton for Bilston Burn. Leader , Mr Henderson. 3. Water of Leith from Currie to Slateford. Leader , Mr Henderson. 4. Parallel Roads of Lochaber and Ben Nevis. Leader , Mr Jolly. (Joint Excursion with the Glasgow Geological Society.) 1886. 1. Torbanehill and Bathgate. Leader , Mr Horne. 2. Loch Maree. Leader , Mr Jolly. (Both Joint Excursions with the Glasgow Geological Society.) 1887. 1. Bone Fissure at Dreghorn. Leader , Mr Macfie. 2. Burdiehouse. Leader , Mr Henderson. 3. Cousland. Leader , Mr Henderson. 4. Beith. (Joint Excursion with the Glasgow Geological Society.) Leader , Mr Craig. 5. Longniddry. Leader , Mr Fraser. 6. Pentland Hills. Leader , Mr Henderson. 1888. Joint Excursion with the Glasgow Geological Society to—1. Camps Quarries. Leader , Mr Conchie. 2. Oakbank Oil Works. Leader , Mr Fraser.

On rock sections exposed in cutting for the suburban railway: with observations on the geology of the district around Edinburgh

The sections to the south-west of Edinburgh in a cutting made for the Suburban Railway are as extensive and interesting as any that have ever been exposed in our neighbourhood. The Suburban line branches off from the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway about a mile west of Haymarket Station, and is carried by an embankment southwards over the road from Gorgie to Edinburgh to within a hundred yards of the Slateford Road, at which point the first excavations begin. The sections here exposed consist of a series of sands, gravels, and clays, with boulders of greenstone and other rocks. The cutting through these deposits extends southwards for about 300 yards, to the point at which the new line passes under the Caledonian Railway, and where the first exposure of the older rocks is observed. The present paper deals with these older rocks only. The section is continued in a south-west direction for about 1200 yards, passing through a descending series of Lower Carboniferous strata. The first series of rocks met with on the south-east side of the Caledonian Railway bridge is a set of dark-coloured shales and thin grey sandy beds, with a dip to the north-west by west of 45°. They extend south-east for about 120 feet, and are underlaid by an immense mass of intrusive doloritic greenstone, 150 feet in extent. This mass appears to dip conformably with the sedimentary strata in contact with it, but its intrusive character can be readily made out by the altered and indurated

On sections exposed in cutting the Suburban Railway

Mr H enderson is engaged working these sections more fully out, as well as several recently exposed. The whole subject will be fully considered in a paper to be read before the Society next session.

Summer Excursions of the Society 1882

1. 10th June. Oakbank Shale Pits and Paraffin Oil Works. Leaders, Messrs Calderwood and Mitchell. 2. 17th June. Pentland Silurians. Leader, Mr John Henderson. 3. 1st July. Joint Excursion with Glasgow Geological Society to Carluke, to visit Sections, and also Dr J. R. Hunter’s Museum. Leader, Dr Hunter. 4. 22d July. Fife Coast from Aberdour to Burntisland. Leader, Mr Henderson. 5. 29th July. Edinburgh Suburban Railway Cuttings. Leader, Mr R. A. F. A. Coyne. 6. 11th and 12th August. Joint Meeting of Northern Scientific Societies at Inverness.