RAILWAY ELECTRIFICATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3348, 14 October 1911, Page 9

RAILWAY ELECTRIFICATION.

MR MURRAY’S INQUIRIES IN GERMANY.

The Premier of Victoria and Mr Harper, electrical engineer to the Melbourne City Council, have returned to London from their visit to Germany, where thev spent about a week in studying electric traction. Their inquiries were made chiefly in Hamburg, Rotterdam and Berlin. . . . The prevailing opinion m Germany, Mr. Murray states, Is now in favor ox the single phase alternating system, which is being applied to the Berhn suburban railways, with a view or ultimately extending it to ail the railways of Prussia. In Hamburg, for four years, an electric suburban railway, designed to test the single phase system, has been at work, and at first various difficulties were met with, and were subsequently overcome. Mr. Murray says it is a good deal in favor of the system that so careful a people as the Germans have accepted it after considerable experience. He notes, however, that other electric experts say there are no advantages to be got from the single phase that cannot be got from the direct current, and he has not made up his mind as to cither system. As against the German example, we have the American. In the United States, after long experience, the direct current is generally used’, and in some places where the atlernating current was at first installed the direct lias been substituted for it. While the two systems, he says, costs nearly the same, those in favor of the direct current claim that the equipment for it is cheaper. As a general result of his European inquiries, Mr. Murray has no doubt that there will be very extensive conversions of steam railway into electric ones in the near future. He recognises that the matter is becoming urgent in Victoria. In order to move large numbers of passengers expeditiously and economically, he says it is necessary that our suburban lines should be electrified as soon as possible, whatever system may be adopted.