Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1893 — THE TROLLEY FOR CANALS. [ARTICLE]

THE TROLLEY FOR CANALS.

The Idea to Be Tented In New York Thin Year. Baltimore SunThe Legislature of New York appropriated JiO,ooo to be used in experiments to test the practicability of applying the trolley system to moving canal boats. It is announced that the Superintendent df Public Works will shortly proceed to make the experiments. The matter is an interesting one in more places than lin New. York. The transportation of : Coal. Iron ore, and ..other heavy freights, When time .ja noh import*, ant, demands cheap rates.’ 411 In many

th© Kwuntpy industries are dependent ■onrateo which will enable them to compete with others more favorablygituated. The amount of freighting of a higher or moreprofitable class has so greatly increased Within recent years that many of the principal railroads have not sufficient facilities for the heavy freight at the low rates which competition demands. If the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, for instance, would put the freight on coal at anything like what it was twenty-five years ago, it would close every mine in Maryland. If the tariff on bituminous coal should be removed or greatly reduced, it would be essential to the prosperity of the George’s* Creek region to find .some cheaper method of transportation to the seaboard than any now existing. It is possible that the trolley system may be the solution of the great problem. It is true that some practical men declare the scheme chimerical. They contend that the proper way to deal with the Erie canal is to increase the depth to nine feet and use steam. No great improvement or invention in all probr bilitv has ever been made that some practical or scientific man has not declared it to be impracticable. A few years ago, before the Great Western made its pioneer trip, Prof. of Yale College, demonstrated by mathematical calculation that no vessel could carry sufficient coal to propel it across the Atlantic. Other instances of this charactei’ will recur to all. Gov. Flower is decidedly of opinion that the application of the trolley to the Erie canal will produce great results. He estimates that it will require $1,000,000; to equip the canal with the electric system, and that it will cost from $l5O to S2OO to provide each boat with a dynamo. He estimates that it would require a power house at intervals of thirty miles, or twelve in all, and that there is ample water power to operate them. It now qosts the boatmen an average, he says, of $2 a day for their motive power, and he thinks that this can be reduced by the trolley to 60 cents. He also estimates that an annual saving of SBOO,OOO would be effected by no longer having the towpath to keep in repair. The speed of boats, the Governor thinks, can be increased from five to six miles per hour. In this, however, he would probably be disappointed, as any considerable increase of speed would wash thebankssaway. Everything which can be done with the trolley on the Erie canal can be done, on the Chesapeake & Ohio. The length of our canal is about half that of the Erie, and if Gov. Flower’s figures are correct it would take about $500,060 for the equipment. Water power is convenient and abundant, and a power house at Great Falls might not only supply the canal with the required electric current, but aprofit might be made by supplying Washington. At other points along the line of the canal the water which falls over the dams ■ won’t propel the machinery; in some places, as at Harper’s Ferry, the power is magnificent. ‘