All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

Dawn of the Electric Traction Era 93 to its steam rival, seeing that its mechanism was covered by a semicircular bonnet somewhat reminis- cent of a boiler, while there was the usual driving cab. With this locomotive innumerable tests were made and high speeds were attained. Incidentally, mishaps and upsets were of frequent occurrence, the engine jumping the track at the curves whenever high speeds were attempted. In fact, Edison appears to have taken an uncanny delight in treating experts who were dispatched to Menlo Park to examine and to report upon his electric railway to unrehearsed and hair-raising thrills. There was a sardonic humour about Edison’s emphatic declaration concerning the railway being “ perfectly safe,” despite its twists, kinks, banks and bridges, as a derailment invariably constituted an incident in a trial-speed trip. The impressions of those who bought experience were invariably the same—they described the sensation as glorious, the control simple, and the speeds exhilarat- ing, but always closed their written opinions with the statement, “ and we ran off the track! ” It appeared as if the last-named result constituted an indispensable feature of the journey. However, no bones were broken upon the Edison demonstration electric rail- way, so that in the long run favourable reports of a guarded nature were invariably dispatched to those who desired information gathered on the spot. Of course, the derailments could be easily explained. They arose from the curves being too sharp and the locomotive being too “ stiff ” for the speeds attempted, both of which defects could be easily and completely eliminated in actual practice. Despite the elaborate trials carried out by Edison