Multiple Unit Train Controls
Sprague's experience with elevator control led him to devise a multiple unit system of electric railway operation, which accelerated the development of electric traction. In the multiple unit system, each car of the train carries electric traction motors. By means of relays energized by train-line wires, the engineer (or motorman) commands all of the traction motors in the train to act together. For lighter trains there is no need for locomotives, so every car in the train can generate revenue. Where locomotives are used, one person can control all of them.
Sprague's first multiple unit order was from the South Side Elevated Railroad (the first of several elevated railways in locally known as the "L") in Chicago, Illinois. This success was quickly followed by substantial multiple-unit contracts in Brooklyn, New York and Boston, Massachusetts.
Read more about this topic: Frank J. Sprague
Famous quotes containing the words multiple, unit, train and/or controls:
“Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known.”
—Loris Malaguzzi (20th century)
“During the Suffragette revolt of 1913 I ... [urged] that what was needed was not the vote, but a constitutional amendment enacting that all representative bodies shall consist of women and men in equal numbers, whether elected or nominated or coopted or registered or picked up in the street like a coroner’s jury. In the case of elected bodies the only way of effecting this is by the Coupled Vote. The representative unit must not be a man or a woman but a man and a woman.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Put me on a moving train if I’m sick, and I’ll get well. It’s good for mind and body to get out and see the world.”
—Maria D. Brown (1827–1927)
“Ask anyone committed to Marxist analysis how many angels on the head of a pin, and you will be asked in return to never mind the angels, tell me who controls the production of pins.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)