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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 6 (October 1, 1932.)

Rail-cars and Operating Economy

Rail-cars and Operating Economy.

Railways the world over are effecting valuable economies through the utilisation of light railcars, in place of the conventional steam units. In Ireland an interesting development is the replacement of steam-operated passenger trains by electric battery-driven trains on the Dublin-Bray section of the Great Southern line.

These trains consist of a two-car unit operated by means of a Drumm storage battery. The cells are housed in four boxes suspended from the underframes of the car. Current is supplied from the full battery at 500 volts, and is controlled by electropneumatic operated switches and contactors in series-parallel. Electric drive is applied to the centre truck by a 200 h.p. motor on each axle. Two charging stations have been installed, one at Dublin and the other at Bray. At these stations the train batteries can be charged whenever desired.

Each articulated two-car unit weighs 70 tons, and has accommodation for 140 passengers. Trains make an average run of 300 miles per day, and the only special attention necessary, beyond re-charging at intervals, is the topping-up of the battery cells with distilled water. Battery-driven trains of this character are something of a novelty: it will certainly be interesting to see how they work out under regular service conditions.