Chapter II: Preface: vi

CHAP.

I. The Wheel and the Public 1

II. Early Tramroads and Railways 4

III. The Birth of Electric Traction 12

IV. The Essential Advantages of Electric Traction on
Tramways 19

V. The Mechanism of an Electric Tramcar: the Overhead
System 29

VI. Conduit and Surface-Contact Tramway Systems 37

VII. The Backwardness of Electric Traction in Great Britain 46

VIII. Electric Tramway Stagnation. The Trolley Omnibus 55

IX. Regenerative Control 67

X. Accumulator Electric Traction. The Electric Automobile 70

XI. Petrol-Electric Vehicles and main Marine Propulsion by
Electricity 82

XII. The Pioneer Electric Railways 92

XIII. Electric Railways from the Engineering Point of View 107

XIV. Electric Traction on Main Line Railways 116

XV. Curiosities of Electric Traction 124

XVI. The Future 138

INDEX 142