The Pictorial History of Electric Locomotives
The Pictorial History of Electric Locomotives
A.S. Barnes and Company | 1970 | ISBN: 0498024660 | English | 230 pages | PDF | 51 MB
Electric locomotives and railways started very modestly in about 1880 and developed very slowly where steam traction was at the limit of its abilities—as on underground lines and on severe gradients of mountain railways. As the electrical industry developed it produced better machinery, higher voltages and bigger currents, especially in countries without native coal resources, and railway electrification seemed an attractive proposition. Extensive tests proved that ideas could be made to work and the railway electrification schemes of the Simplon, Gotthard and others were a great success. Later, it was seen that electric locomotives were not only cleaner and often cheaper to run than coal-fired steam locomotives, but that in some countries they relied on a cheap and limitless power source.