By 1888, there emerged another technological advancement in mass transit: the electric streetcar. The first successful revenue-drawing, electric-powered street railway ran in Richmond, Virginia; however, there had been many previous attempts by inventors and entrepreneurs in cities from Cleveland, Ohio to Portland, Oregon to establish streetcar electrification. But it was Frank J. Sprague who finally perfected the technology.
The Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company
In 1883, 28-year old Frank Julian Sprague left the Navy to work for Thomas Alva Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey. There, Frank J. Sprague began experimenting with locomotive electrification. In 1880, Thomas Edison had created a 10-hp., four-wheeled, electric-powered passenger car that could achieve speeds up to 40 mph.
Edison and Sprague had similar interests in electricity, but Edison's focus was on lighting instead of transportation. When Frank Sprague wanted to focus on streetcar electrification in earnest, he left Menlo Park to form his own business - the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company – in 1884.
From New York to Richmond
Over the next four years, Frank J. Sprague experimented with elevated rapid transit trains, primarily in New York City. After many trials with electric motors of his own design, Sprague coupled one to a streetcar on an abandoned, elevated track located between two buildings at a New York sugar refinery. By combining previous streetcar motor and electrification efforts with his own unique motor design, Frank J. Sprague successfully tested a model that performed consistently and reliably.
Following this successful test of the Sprague motor on an elevated track, Frank J. Sprague signed a contract in Richmond, Virginia to electrify 12 miles of street-level streetcar track. Although Sprague is regarded as "the father of the electric streetcar", he admitted that there were already a number of other electric streetcar lines running throughout the United States. But none had the success and reliability of Sprague's unique motor design. Sprague's motor prevented the internal gears from stripping so quickly as the streetcar took the many jolts of a ride. This significantly reduced the amount of mechanical failures that proved so costly for other electric railcar companies.
Editor's Note: Part 5 of this multi-part series will run in two weeks.
Previous Blog Entries in This Series
The American Streetcar (Part 1)
From Stagecoach to Streetcar (Part 2)
From Horse-Drawn Streetcars to Cable Cars (Part 3)
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