Thomas Edison and the Electric Railway

Thomas Edison and the Electric Railway. . , Thomas Edison’s inspiration to perfect the electric railway arose when he stood in the fields of Wyoming in 1878. Gazing out over the vast fields waiting to be harvested, Edison realized that the transportation of the grain by steam engine would be expensive. Instead, light and inexpensive electric railways could be employed to carry the freight from the fields to the main railway lines (sic), In 1834, a blacksmith named Thomas Davenport built a small electric railway and is credited for receiving the first patent for an electric motor in America. Davenport’s engine carried its own batteries, which made it impractical and costly to operate., Edison chose to power his railway directly from a stationary power source (his “Longwaisted Mary Ann” generators), and to send power through the tracks. Edison was a proponent of DC power, so he ran a positive charge down one rail and a negative down the other. In 1880, he built a track measuring one-third of a mile in length. The track started in front of the laboratory, curved around a hill, and returned, following a U shape. It was narrow gauged and followed both sharp turns and steep inclines. Edison’s first locomotive was a four-wheel platform with a twelve horsepower motor., On May 13, 1880, Edison ran his locomotive for the first time. The train started slowly, but soon reached then end of the line. When the motor was put in reverse for the return trip, it broke down and the crew had to push it back. , By the time Edison’s locomotive was working reliably, Edison’s engineers designed three cars for it to pull. One car was a flat platform with two park benches on it. The second car was a freight car, and the third, called the “Pullman,” housed Edison’s electric braking system. Edison applied for patents for his “electromagnetic railway system” and his ingenious braking system in July., The New York Herald recognized the potential of Edison’s railway, proclaiming that it would be “most pleasing to the average New Yorker, whose head has ached with noise, whose eyes have been filled with dust, or whose clothes have been ruined with oil.”, Grosvenor Lowrey wrote of his ride on Edison’s railway on June 5, 1880: , “Goddard and I have spent a part of the day at Menlo, and all is glorious. I have ridden at forty miles an hour on Mr. Edison’s electric railway – and we ran off the track. I protested at the rate of speed over the sharp curves, designed to show the power of the engine, but Edison dais they had done it often. Finally, when the last trip was to be taken, I said I did not like it, but would go along. The train jumped the track on a short curve, throwing Krusei, who was driving the engine, with his face down in the dirt, and another man in a comical somersault through some underbrush. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and laughing, and declaring it a moist beautiful accident. Krusei got up, his face bleeding and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget the expression of voice and face in which he said, with some foreign accent: “Oh! Yes, pairfectly safe.’ Fortunately no other hurts were suffered, and in a few minutes we had the train on the track and running again.”, Edison continued work on the railway, but Edison’s attention was attracted by other inventions, and work on the electric railway soon ceased. Edison’s railway never fulfilled its original intention of transporting crops from the fields. Instead, trucks and tractors usurped that responsibility. However, the electric railway did find its place in cities, where it quickly replaced noisy steam engines. Today, down the hill from the site of Edison’s laboratory, electric trains pass by over 200 times each day, thanks to the Wizard of Menlo Park., Eagle Project of Johnathan M. Jessen , Troop 17 Metuchen/Edison, New Jersey ,