Power economy in electric railway operation — Coasting tests on the Manhattan railway, New York

The power required for the operation of electric railways can be predetermined with great accuracy providing the cars or trains are operated in the manner assumed in the calculation of the speed-time and power curves employed for this purpose. Unfortunately, the cars are seldom operated as they should be, and though allowance for this variation is made engineers have long recognized that a material saving in power could be realized in electric railway operation if the motormen could be induced or trained to operate the trains in a manner approximating the speed-time curve used in the preliminary calculations. It is proposed in this paper to describe some tests made on the Manhattan Elevated Division of the Interborough Rapid Transit Co., New York, in which a clock was used to record the amount of coasting employed in the operation of trains, the object of this device being to obtain from the motormen a better manipulation of the trains with the resulting economy in the use of power.