A Novel Electric Vehicle.
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Alternative Current Supply from Trolley Wire or Storage Cells.
The arrival in England is expected shortly of a mwelty in commercial vehicles from America. It takes the form ot an electrically-driven lorry, in the construction of which several startling innovations are to be found. It was designed primarily tor use in connection with electric tramway systems, for the purpose of local parcels delivery and express business. Exhaustive tests in Philadelphia have demonstrated that its use need not be restricted to these purposes, however, as it is claimed that it should find a large sphere of usefulness as a breakdown wagon for tramway systems, for ambulance work or mail services.
The lorry is equipped with a trolley pole, and a special electric motor, for use with the high voltage current derived from the overhead wires of a tramway system, in the streets where those wires exist. As will be seen from our illustration, the lorry does not run on flanged wheels; but it has the same gauge. In the case, therefore, of a broken overhead feed wire, a wagon built on this system and equipped with a tower could reach the section of the line where a breakdown has occurred by using the current so far as it is available. In streets where there are no overhead wires, or where the current has been cut off from a section, the lorry is driven by a low-power motor, for which the current is obtained from a storage battery ; that is, by the same method by which the ordinary electrically-propelled vehicle is operated. The system is the invention of a Mr. Russell Thayer, of Philadelphia, and the photograph taken in front of the Em pire Theatre, which we reproduce, is of the electric vehicle built by the Lansden Company, of Newark, New Jersey, for the Trolley Electric Vehicle Company, of America, whose headquarters are at Drexel Buildings, Philadelphia, Pa. An example of the vehicle is shortly to be shippedto London for the purpose of demonstrating the good qualities it possesses, and it is expected that an English company will be formed to operate the vehicles.
In the case of electric tramway companies whose systems are worked by overhead wires, we can conceive that these vehicles would be economical in. use, where it is possible for the users to avail themselves of the current supplied by the wires, and, no doubt, the trams overtaken by the lorry would be passed without much difficulty, but it is doubtful whether these vehicles would find an extended sphere in London, where the conduit system is so much in vogue. In the large American cities, where the tramway systems, or street railways as they are styled, are very widespread, and almost entirely worked on the overhead system, the new electric lorry should be able to make lengthy and commercially valuable journeys by the sole use of the trolley pole and wire, but the fact that the business heart of London is not served by tramways at all would, in our opinion, militate greatly against the success of this ingenious method of locomotion. It may, however, have useful applications before it in this country, under special circumstances, but probably only as part of tramway organisation for repair or similar purposes.