Abstract
ALTHOUGH the date of opening of the electrified route between Manchester and Sheffield has not yet been fixed, orders have been placed for seventy electric locomotives. This follows on the orders for eight multiple-unit trains between Manchester and Glossop. During the last two months a number of new electric services in Kent have been opened. According to the Beama Journal of August, the Southern Railway now possesses 3,189 electrically operated passenger vehicles, of which 603 cars have equipment designed for a maximum speed of 75 miles per hour and the remainder of 60 m.p.h. These speeds appear slow when compared with the rated speeds of Continental expresses. It must be remembered that the Southern Railway undertaking is a huge suburban network, in which high average speed is of the greatest importance. The problem of the London–Brighton railway is very different from that of the line joining Milan and Brescia. For the latter route an electric locomotive with a commercial speed of 94 m.p.h. has just been designed. In preparation for the forthcoming electrified link between Berlin and Munich, the German State Railways have accepted a locomotive with an ordinary speed of 112 m.p.h. and a possible maximum of 140 m.p.h. The use of locomotives of this type will, it is believed, reduce the journey time between Berlin and Munich from eight to five and a half hours.
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Railway Electrification at Home and Abroad. Nature 144, 506 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144506b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144506b0