Electrical engineering in land transportation: In retrospect and in the future

A SUPERFICIAL SURVEY of electrical engineering accomplishments in the field of land transportation during the past 25 years would seem to indicate that they have not kept pace with the progress made in the power generation, transmission, illumination, communications, and other fields of application of electrical engineering. In all of these other fields of endeavor, the contributions of electrical engineering toward progress have been noteworthy and visible. During the past two decades, however, the achievements of the many noted electrical engineers who were identified with the field of electrical engineering and transportation during the years 1910 to 1935, seem to have been discarded and forgotten with the advent of the diesel-electric locomotive and the gasoline engine.