Electricity on the Erie Canal

On Wednesday, Sept. 25, in the presence of the Governor, many of the State officers, representatives of trade associations, and of the Chamber of Commerce and Produce Exchange, and scientific experts, the first test of such use of electricity as may ultimately be of the highest importance to the people of this State will be made on the line of the Erie Canal, in the vicinity of the city of Tonawanda. The experiment is supplemental to, and in fact, very different from that one which was made in November, '93, upon the Erie Canal, near Rochester, in the presence of Governor Flower, George Westinghouse, jr. Nikola Tesla, Dr. Coleman Sellers, and many other men distinguished in affairs and in science. That was the demonstration made under the supervision of Frank W. Hawley to show that it was possible to use a trolley system for the purpose of towing canalboats. So far as the capacity of that system to do that work was concerned the experiment was a success, but some other considerations made it seem probable that another than the kind of trolley system then used must be devised if perfect satisfaction and commercial success was to be gained.

Ex-Mayor Abram S. Hewitt, who is a scientist and a mechanic of no small capacity, became first scientifically and afterward commercially interested in a system which he felt sure would prove the perfect method of applying electricity as a motive power for canalboats. It overcame apparently all of the objections of the common trolley system, and it had many advantages which that did not possess. A day or two age, Mr. Hawley made a contract with Mr. Hewitt's company to set up this system for a distance of four miles along the banks of the Erie Canal at Tonawanda.

A brief and non-technical explanation of this system may be of some interest. Upon either side of the canal there are erected iron poles some fifty feet apart, which are firmly secured at the bottom in cement so that the requisite strength may be obtained. Along these poles are strung two wires, one beneath the other. The upper wire is one and a half inches in thickness, the lower wire one and a quarter inches. Through the upper wire passes the electric current received from the transforming station, and upon that rolls a wheel geared so as to fit the wire. From this wheel hangs a car large enough to contain a Tesla motor and a seat for an engineer or driver. This car is so adjusted that when the engineer turns the rheostadt or lever then a circuit is established with the upper wire, and the Tesla motor operating the car is propelled. It makes a complete metallic circuit, for the electricity is not returned through the rail as it is in the trolley system, but returns to the transforming station very much as is the case in a long-distance telephone. By an ingenious contrivance the car passes without contact the poles which support the wires.

The engineer, having mounted to the car, seated in it something as an aeronaut is seated in a balloon car, he is ready for business. A canalboat comes along, the Captain flings his tow line to the engineer, who fastens the line to the electric car, and then, everything being ready, he turns his lever, the circuit is established, the motor starts and the canalboat is towed away — towed exactly, so far as the boat itself is concerned, as it has been towed since the day of canal construction, because it is by tow line attached to something upon the shore which has propelling force. The advantage of this system over the one which was first proposed is that it makes it unnecessary to change the canalboats in any way. In the first system proposed it was necessary to have a motor in the canalboat, excepting that one boat thus equipped might be able to tow several others.

These tests at Tonawanda will be continued until navigation is closed. The results of them will be set forth in appropriate publication, so that every voter in the State may be well informed about these things. It is expected that a speed of as much as fifteen miles an hour may be obtained, although that is a matter which is subject to State regulation, and it may be that the authorities will decide that the boats ought to be towed at no greater speed that six miles an hour. Whatever the speed agreed upon, the engineer can easily regulate it and maintain it after he has regulated it.