The Equipment and Working-Results of the Mersey Railway Under Steam and Under Electric Traction.” by JOSHUASHAW, M
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Proceedings.] SHAW ON THE MEKSEYr*RAILWAY. 19 9 November, 1909. WILLIAM CAWTHORNE UNWIN, BSc., LLD., F.R.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. (Paper No. 3794.) “ The Equipment and Working-Results of the Mersey Railway under Steam and under Electric Traction.” By JOSHUASHAW, M. Inst. C.E. DURINGrecent years, one of the problems which hashad to be considered by both railway and electrical engineers, has been the substitution of the electrical system of traction on existing railways hitherto worked by steam. Upto the present, the number of railways in England in which this substitution has been made is very limited, and consequently little is generally known as to what the actual effect of the change has been on the working-results. In this Paper the Authorpresents to The Institution some comparisons of the equipment and working-results of the Mersey Railway when operated first by steam and later by electricity. TRE MERSEYRAILWAY, The railway, extending under the River Mersey, connects Liver- pool and Birkenhead on opposite banks. A map of the line and of the district which it serves is given in Fig. 1, Plate 1. The railway was described in two Papers read before The Institution in 1886, the year in which the line was opened for traffic as a steam railway. The original route extended from James Street Station,Liverpool, to Green Lane Station, Birkenhead, a length of 2 miles 11 chains ; but extensions have since been made, increasing the total length to 4 miles 62 chains. The railway commences under the terminal station of the Cheshire Lines Committee in Liverpool, and runs under the River Mersey to Rock Ferry, where a junction is made 1 Francis Fox, “The Mersey Railway”; and W. E. Rich, “The Hydraulic passenger-Lifts at the Underground Stations of the Mersey Railway.” Minutes gf Proceedings Inst. C.E., vol. lxxxvi, pp. 40 and 60. c2 Downloaded by [ University of Saskatchewan] on [20/09/16]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. 20 SHAW ON THE MERSEY RAILWAY [Minutes of withthe London andNorth Western and Great Western Joint Railway. FromHamilton Square Station a branch-line runsto Birkenhead ParkStation, and connects there with theWirral Railway which runs to New Brighton and West Kirby. All the stations are below the street-level, at the depths given in Table I. TABLEI. Feet. CentralStation, Liverpool ......... 30 James Street,James 9, ........ 89 H amilton Square, Birkenhead Square, Hamilton ........100 Central Station,Central ........ 20 Green Lane, 9, ........ 25 Rock Ferry, ........ 20 Park, ,> ........ 25 The two deep-level stations, James Street and Hamilton Square, are provided with hydraulic passenger-lifts, the remainder having stairways only. One large tunnel, 19 feet high and 26 feet wide, takes both lines of rails. The two deep-level stations are 30 feet high and 50 feet 6 inches wide. Underthe main tunnel in the river section is a heading ranging from 7 to 8 feet in diameter, for dealing with the drainage-water ; and at theside of the main tunnel another heading, 7 feet in diameter, was constructed for ventilation purposes. Underthe originalconditions the railway had manyfeatures prejudicial to the commercial success of the undertaking, some of which were :- The steep gradients, necessitating the use of exceptionally heavy locomotives. A section of the gradients is shown in Figs. 2, Plate 1. The difliculty and cost of efficient ventilation. The necessity for continuous pumping. The necessity formaintaining a lift-service at two of the stations. These items caused the working-expenses to be extremely heavy, and the difficulty of maintaining efficient ventilationhad a very serious effect on the revenue of the Company, causing many of the cross-river passengers to leave the railway and use the ferry-service which is maintained by the Birkenhead Corporation. Thesteadily decreasing traffic (indicated atthe beginning of Fig. 3, Plate 1) made it quite evident that some radical change would have to be carried out in order to recover the traffic which was being driven away. The question of adopting a different form of traction was under considemtion for many years, the only schemes which could be considered being the electric and cable systems ; Downloaded by [ University of Saskatchewan] on [20/09/16]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. Proceedings.] UNDERSTEAM AND UNDERELECTRIC TRACTION. 21 and finally, in 1900, the Company obtained parliamentary powers to work the railway by electricity. In the following year a contract was entered into for the conversion of the line, and the work was commenced in December, 1901, electric working being inaugurated on the 3rd May, 1903. When the electrical works were available, the question as to the best method of making the actual change from steam to electric working was carefully considered, and it was finally decided that it wouldbe much more satisfactory to have a complete and rapid change, than to bring the new service into operation gradually and run a mixed service of steam and electric trains during the transition stage. The last steam trainleft Liverpool at 12.15 a.m. (its ordinary time) on the morning of Sunday the3rd May, and at 6 a.m. the same morning the 3-minute service of electric trains was inaugurated. It was run light until 1 p.m., when the railway was opened to the public at theusual time, ELECTRICALEQUIPMENT AND WORKINU. Rolling Stock and Train-Service.-The traffic-conditions of the railway call for a service from 4.45 a.m. to 12.15 a.m., a total of 19g hours per day. The peaks of the traffic occur between 7.30 and 10.30 a.m. from Birkenhead to Liverpool, and between 4.30 and 7.30 p.m. in the reverse direction. With steam working thetrains consisted normally of seven four-wheeled conches hauled by a 66-ton locomotive, the number of trains per hour being varied to meet the traffic-requirements. With electric working the intervalbetween trains remains constant throughout the day, the peaks of the traffic being met by increasing the number of coaches per train.The interval is 3 minutes through theriver section, with alternate trains running to Park and Rock Ferry, thusforming a 6-minuteservice on each of these routes. The train-service commences in the morning with two-car trains and is increased to four- and five-car trains about 7.30 a.m. for the heavy morning traffic, after which it is reduced again to two-cars until the evening heavy service. The time allowed at the terminal stations is 3 minutes, and thebuilding up andreducing of the trains has to be carried out within this time. The average time taken is about 2 minutes per train, which includes shunting and thecoupling up of brake and electrical connections, There are 374 trains each way daily, a total of 748, out of which 114 make connections with steam trains at Rock Ferry, and 117 with steam trains at Park, the remaining 517 being purely local. Downloaded by [ University of Saskatchewan] on [20/09/16]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. 22 SHAW ON THE MERSEY RAILWAY [Minutes of The electric rolling stock provided for working the service consists of twenty-four motor-cars and thirty-three trailer-cars, as described in detail in Table 11. , TABLE11. Number of Cars. Tons. cwt. Motor-cars . 12 First 362 15.9 46 1-25 ,, ,, . 12 Third 363 B0 14.7 1-36 Trailer-cars . 11 First 192 56 7.05 2.83 ,, ,, . 17 Third 192 64 6.1 3.24 3.03 19,) *... 5 Compo.' 192 60 6.6 In the following Table the twotrain-services are compared as regards the number of trains, mileage, and seating-capacity :- TABLE~~~.-WEIGHTS OF TRAINS,MILEAGE, AND SEATIN~APACITY. 1 Light Traffic. /I HeavyTraffic. Steam. Steam. Electric. - Electric. ~ Weight of train (unloaded) . Tons 1373 564 l1370 1224 Number of seats per train . .. 310 110 310 250 Weight per seat . Cwt. 8.9 8.9 10.259.8 Number of trains per hour . .. 8 20 12 20 Train-miles ,, I, . .. 50.7 127.2 78.3 127.2 Ton-miles ,, ,, . .. 6,984 10,785 7,18615,582 Seat-miles 1, ,, . .. 15,717 13,992 j 24,273 31,800 Not only has the frequency of the service been greatly improved, but the speed of the trains has been increased and the length of time taken for the journey has been reduced. This is shown in Table IV. During heavy traffic in steam working, several trains were run to and from Rock Ferry as expresses, without stopping at Hamilton Squareand Green Lane, which enabled themto accomplish the journey in the same time as is now taken by the electric trains when stopping at every station, Since the Paper was written these composite trailers have been converted, two into first-class and three into third-class coaches.-AUTHOR, Jan. 1910. Downloaded by [ University of Saskatchewan] on [20/09/16]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. ~roceedings.1UNDER STEAM AND UNDER ELECTRIC TRACTION. 23 TABLE IV.-RUNNING-TIMYYAND AVERAQESPEEDS WITH STEAM AND WITH ELECTRIC TRACTION. Distance Steam. Electric. Stations. between __ Stations. Lunning Speed. Speed. Times. >! ~ _- Miles l Miles Chains. )er hour. Mins. >er hour. LiverpoolCentral and James Street 44 14.6 16 18.8 James Streetand Hamilton Square 94 20.1 23 28‘2 HamiltonSquare and Birkenhead) Central. .......I 42 12.6 12 18 BirkenheadCentral and Green Lane 35 17.5 la 17.5 GreenLane and Rock Ferry . GO 16.3 22 20 Totaltime and averagespeed for 21.1 mainline, excluding stops . .jj 275 16.6 94 Hamilton Square and Park @ranch- 22.4 line). ........ 22.4 32 Averagespeed for whole railway, 22.2 excludingstops ..... 17.7 .