The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.
An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas turbines, are classed as diesel-electric or gas turbine-electric and not as electric locomotives, because the electric generator/motor combination serves only as a power transmission system.
The interurban is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms used outside it. They were very prevalent in many parts of the world before the Second World War and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution, when most roads between towns, many town streets were unpaved, and transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts.
Railway electrification is the use of electric power for the propulsion of rail transport. Electric railways use either electric locomotives, electric multiple units or both. Electricity is typically generated in large and relatively efficient generating stations, transmitted to the railway network and distributed to the trains. Some electric railways have their own dedicated generating stations and transmission lines, but most purchase power from an electric utility. The railway usually provides its own distribution lines, switches, and transformers.
Kálmán Kandó de Egerfarmos et Sztregova was a Hungarian engineer, the inventor of phase converter and a pioneer in the development of AC electric railway traction.
A rotary converter is a type of electrical machine which acts as a mechanical rectifier, inverter or frequency converter.
A traction network or traction power network is an electricity grid for the supply of electrified rail networks. The installation of a separate traction network generally is done only if the railway in question uses alternating current (AC) with a frequency lower than that of the national grid, such as in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
A traction substation, traction current converter plant, rectifier station or traction power substation (TPSS) is an electrical substation that converts electric power from the form provided by the electrical power industry for public utility service to an appropriate voltage, current type and frequency to supply railways, trams (streetcars) or trolleybuses with traction current.
Railway electrification systems using alternating current (AC) at 25 kilovolts (kV) are used worldwide, especially for high-speed rail. It is usually supplied at the standard utility frequency, which simplifies traction substations. The development of 25 kV AC electrification is closely connected with that of successfully using utility frequency.
Railway electrification using alternating current (AC) at 15 kilovolts (kV) and 16.7 hertz (Hz) are used on transport railways in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway. The high voltage enables high power transmission with the lower frequency reducing the losses of the traction motors that were available at the beginning of the 20th century. Railway electrification in late 20th century tends to use 25 kV, 50 Hz AC systems which has become the preferred standard for new railway electrifications but extensions of the existing 15 kV networks are not completely unlikely. In particular, the Gotthard Base Tunnel still uses 15 kV, 16.7 Hz electrification.
The Los Angeles Railway was a system of streetcars that operated in Central Los Angeles and surrounding neighborhoods between 1895 and 1963. The system provided frequent local services which complemented the Pacific Electric "Red Car" system's largely commuter-based interurban routes. The company carried many more passengers than the Red Cars, which served a larger and sparser area of Los Angeles.
The Visalia Electric Railroad, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), began as an electric interurban railroad in Tulare County, in the U.S. State of California. The railroad was incorporated on April 22, 1904. Passenger service was discontinued in 1924, and the electrification was removed in 1944. Subsequent operation was by diesel locomotive. The railroad was closed in 1992.
Amtrak's 25 Hz traction power system is a traction power network for the southern portion of the Northeast Corridor (NEC), the Keystone Corridor, and several branch lines between New York City and Washington D.C. The system was constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1915 and 1938 before the North American power transmission grid was fully established. This is the reason the system uses 25 Hz, as opposed to 60 Hz, which is the standard frequency for power transmission in North America. The system is also known as the Southend Electrification, in contrast to Amtrak's 60 Hz traction power system that runs between Boston and New Haven, which is known as the Northend Electrification system.
The Illinois Traction System Mackinaw Depot is a former in use 1909 to 1953 Illinois Terminal Railroad interurban passenger depot in Mackinaw, Illinois that still stands. The Illinois Terminal Railroad ran an over head trolley wire powered railroad from Peoria on the north to St.Louis on the south with branches to Champaign and Urbana. The brick depot and rotary converter "substation" was built in 1909 and designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style. The station served regularly scheduled electric interurban passenger trains and electric locomotive powered freight trains. The Illinois Power and Light Company also used the building as an electrical substation from 1927 until 1955. Very high voltage alternating current was converted to 600 volt direct current for use by the interurban line's locomotives and interurban cars. Wires entered and left through the large holes in the upper portions of the depot. The station was one of several properties owned by the IT at Mackinaw along with adjacent mainline track and a number of rail sidings, but the other buildings and the track have since been demolished leaving the depot as the only surviving landmark from the era of electric interurban trolley service in the central Illinois area.
Ivy Substation is a 99-seat theatre in Culver City, California which formerly housed power equipment for the nearby electric railways and Ivy station. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
The Southern Pacific Red Electric Lines, also known simply as the Red Electric, was a network of interurban passenger train services operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the Willamette Valley of the U.S. state of Oregon from 1914 to 1929. The service got its name from the bright red color of its cars. Despite its short history, among West Coast interurbans it was unique, and it was considered the finest such system in the Pacific Northwest. It was the only major electric interurban railroad converted from steam to electric passenger use. It was also one of few systems using all-steel equipment, and one of the largest 1500-volt systems in the country.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad pioneered electrification of main line railroads using high-voltage, alternating current, single-phase overhead catenary. It electrified its mainline between Stamford, Connecticut, and Woodlawn, New York, in 1907 and extended the electrification to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1914. While single-phase AC railroad electrification has become commonplace, the New Haven's system was unprecedented at the time of construction. The significance of this electrification was recognized in 1982 by its designation as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
The Pacific Electric Sub-Station No. 14 is a former traction substation in Santa Ana, California. It was built by the Pacific Electric Railway to provide electricity to run the railway's streetcars in central Orange County, California. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The Seebach-Wettingen railway electrification trial (1905-1909) was an important milestone in the development of electric railways. Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon (MFO) demonstrated the suitability of single-phase alternating current at high voltage for long-distance railway operation with the Seebach-Wettingen single-phase alternating current test facility. For this purpose, MFO electrified the 19.45-kilometre-long Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) route from Seebach to Wettingen at its own expense with single-phase alternating current at 15,000 volts.
