Excerpt from Power Distribution for Electric Railroads This little book is written in the hope that it may be of service to those whose daily work is concerned with the art of transportation, in which electrical traction is to-day so potent a factor. The part it may play to-morrow only the prophet can say. The author has endeavored to set forth the general principles of the distribution of electrical energy to moving motors, to describe the methods which experience has shown to be desirable in such work, and to point out the ways in which these principles and methods can be co-ordinated in everyday practice. The art of correctly designing systems of distribution requires, more than anything else, skilled judgment and infinite finesse; it cannot be reduced to formulæ in which these terms do not enter as variables. The most that can be done is to sketch the lines of thought that, followed cautiously and shrewdly, lead to good results. For the most part apparatus is too mutable to describe exhaustively, unless one is writing history. The reader will therefore find little of such detail, save in the frontier region which lies between established tramway practice and that greater field that stretches toward unknown bounds. Along that frontier experiment has blazed paths here and there, and we must note them carefully. We can see whither they lead, but dare not say how far. The best advice that can be given to the engineer is to keep his eyes and ears open and never to let himself get caught out of sight of experimental facts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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