|  Electric Third-Rail Railroading with an Old General Electric Locomotive  (The third-rail General Electric locomotive of 1904 is animated above)
A third-rail electric locomotive was tested by General Electric tested in 1904. It was a new model of electric locomotive with the power to replace the noisy, polluting steam engines thundering down a busy portion of a New York Railroad. The tests of the largest electrical manufacturer in the world at the time, as the advertisement below proudly boasts, proved its faster, cleaner, and quieter locomotive was a better choice for passenger service.
A picture of a page of The Four-Track News with a General Electric ad With regard to the projected service area and attributes of the new electric locomotive, the January 1905 issue of The Four-Track News reported:
“The first of the electric locomotives, which will be used on the New York Central, has been turned out at the shops of the General electric Company and the American Locomotive Works, at Schenectady, N. Y. These new engines will haul through passenger trains from Grand Central Station to Croton, on the main line (a distance of thirty-four miles), and to White Plains on the Harlem Division (a distance of twenty-four miles), performing the heaviest railway passenger service ever handled by electric locomotives. 
An image of an early 20th-century British electric locomotive, one side removed to show the interior “In general design these locomotives are double-ended and can be run in either direction with equal facility. The method of control is such that two or more can be coupled together and operated by a single engineer from the leading cab, the size of the train under control of one man thus being practically unlimited, so far as the amount of motive power is concerned.
“Each engine has four driving axles, every one carrying the armature of an electric motor having a normal rating of 550 horse-power, giving the locomotive a rated capacity of 2,200 horse-power, and a developing power of much more than that for the short periods, which is considerably greater than that of the largest steam locomotive. Drawing eight or more coaches an express speed of sixty to seventy miles an hour can be developed, and all the operating devices common to steam locomotives, such as straight and automatic air brakes, bell, whistle, headlights, electric air compressor and air sanding apparatus, are used on the new machines. The total weight is about ninety-seven tons.  A picture of the General Electric High Speed Locomotive, the winner of the Fast-Mail Race “Six miles of track on the New York Central, near Schenectady, have been equipped with the third rail for the purpose of making tests and the big electric locomotive, No. 6000, the first one of its class to be operated, has ‘made good’ every claim and every expectation. In the first tests, made before officials and electricians of the New York Central and a visiting party from the technical and daily press, the following speed was attained:
4 car train 370 tons 72 miles an hour
5 “ “ 400 “ 62 “ “ “
7 “ “ 500 “ 56 “ “ “
10 “ “ 600 “ 54 “ “ “
“One great point scored by the electric locomotive is the saving in weight. The modern steam locomotive, with the tender, weighs about 160 tons as against ninety-seven tons for the electric locomotive, to say nothing of the saving by dispensing with fuel and water. “Another strong point in favor of the electric locomotive is that it is almost noiseless and starts and stops without any puffing or hissing, and with an ease that is remarkable.”  Furthermore, the electric locomotive has the advantage over steam engine where cheap local electricity is available, and its lighter weight, with no heavy load of water and fuel, gives it the edge for climbing elevated terrain.  Electric railroads are used extensively in mountainous rural areas of Switzerland, where an abundance of water allows for the production of cheap hydroelectric power from electric generators in dams located nearby. Photo of an electric train on the Swiss Martiguy-Chatelard line However, that is not the case in most areas of the United States, a country largely dependent on fossil fuels. Beside the high initial cost of the electric locomotive and its complicated third-rail system here, electric railroads can usually only succeed in high traffic areas that generate enough income for the railroad to afford the initial installation, ongoing maintenance costs, and high electric bills associated with such areas that usually lack the availability of hydroelectricity. Furthermore, there are some other disadvantages mixed in with the positive aspects of the third-rail system. In the 1929 edition of Railways of To-Day, Cecil J. Allen pointed out that
“For train services of great frequency, for maximum reliability and for lower costs of maintenance when installed, there is little doubt that the advantage lies with direct-current electrification, in which the current is usually picked up from a third rail, laid either between or at the side of the running rails.” But, he went on to explain: “The objection to 'third' rail electrification is that very complicated track-work is necessary through switches and crossings, with a number of breaks in the continuity of the conductors where the rails actually cross, and that, in countries with heavy winter snowfalls, it takes a comparatively moderate fall to cover the conductors altogether. Even on our British lines, the formation of ice on the conductor, after a winter fall of rain, sleet or snow, has sometimes resulted in the train service being brought temporarily to a standstill.” A photo of a standard British steel type of snow scoop on a coal-fired steam locomotive A steam engine with rotary snowplow clearing rails on the Bernina Railway in Switzerland An electric train with a rotary-driven snowplow on the Riksgrans Railway in Sweden In great Britain, the standard type of snow plow, a steel ram mounted on a steam engine, like the one in top photograph of the group above, usually suffices for removing snow. However, in more mountainous countries, both steam and electric locomotives, with more powerful plows, are used to clear tracks of snowfall. The photograph in the center shows a locomotive clearing the snow with a rotary plow on the Bernina Railway in Switzerland, which reaches 7,400 feet above sea-level. This type of plow has cleared snow drifts 17 feet, 9 inches in depth and keeps the railroad open for traffic throughout the winter. A photograph of a British three-rail railway of the early 20th century No snow needed to be cleared from the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad on November 12th, 1904, when a race was run on its tracks six miles west of Schenectady. The Fast Mail, a 24-hour train between New York and Chicago, had left Schenectady after making a stop, and got under way at its regular speed. Then the new high-speed General Electric locomotive, No. 6000, pulling a train of 511 tons, started from a dead standstill, and in a few minutes, and with apparently the greatest ease, passed the steam engine already barreling along.  A photo of the 1904 train race, in the distance, on the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad tracks Curious onlookers watching the race, some shown on the right in the photograph above, are standing well away from the iron horses, perhaps because of the smoke and the danger of the third rail on which the electric locomotive was charging along. They may have seen the “DANGER, LOOK OUT FOR THIRD RAIL” sign shown in the photograph below. It is believed to be the first instance of the adoption of a warning for such a hazard on an American main line. A photograph of probably the first main-line railroad "DANGER, LOOK OUT FOR THIRD RAIL" sign The same issue of The Four-Track News cited above added:
“This sign is on the four-track line of the New York Central, a few miles west of Schenectady, where several miles of track are being devoted to experiments with the first of the New High Speed Electric Locomotives, that are to operate trains in the 'New York Electric Zone' of the New York & Central Hudson River Railroad.”
Note: The pictures above show the American electric locomotive (No. 6000) with two prominent electric headlights mounted on each end of its roof and the Swedish snowplow with a large searchlight, probably an electric carbon arc variety.
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