И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT 2. THE FIRST STEPS

IN ELECTRIFYING LONDON'S UNDERGROUND
Steam traction originally used on London's Underground could not meet the requirements of passenger transporta­tion due to discomfort which it offered to public because of smoke. That's why transport authorities wanted to find the way of solving this problem.

One of the plans proposed was for a tube in which trains were to be cable-operated. But the plan was never realized for at that time it was decided to adopt electricity as the motive power. Most specialists believed a new type of traction to be introduced would provide a higher speed and would be less costly than the cable.

Thus in 1890 the first electric underground railway was opened for public traffic. Its trains were composed of three trailers hauled at a speed of 11 ½ miles an hour by a 12-ton electric locomotive.

The electric locomotives on-ihe first underground rail­ways were smaller in size compared with locomotives of later days, but they stood to many years of hard work, hauling 40-ton trains and riding at speeds up to 25 mph.

These locomotives were simple in design and strongly built, with minimum of equipment which could give trouble. In short, they represented electric motors on wheels. It was these factors that were the main reason of their long life. The brakes installed were operated by compressed air.

The device called the "dead man's handle" used later was not known at that time, so a second man, called a "loco boy", was carried on the engine to take control of the train if the driver became ill or lost control of the train.

All the current supplied to the Underground was gener­ated at a specially built power plant. The current was taken along the tunnel by feeder cable.

The first electric underground railway was a great success and attracted so many passengers that it was decided to increase the fare during the peak hours; but this unusual measure was unnecessary for after the signalling was im­proved a more frequent service of trains was provided.