220 POWER DISTRIBUTION FOR ELECTRIC RAILROADS. 
wire hung from it in the ordinary manner. It is a very 
neat and cheap arrangement where only a trolley wire of 
moderate size has to be carried. For either this or bracket 
construction fifty poles per mile are sufficient, costing, laid 
down, say, $125. Setting in country districts ought not 
to cost more than $1.50 per pole, bringing the pole line in 
place to about $200 per mile. 'The trolley wire would cost 
about $275 per mile, and suspension wire, insulators, 
brackets and so forth, about $200 additional, making 
about $675 per mile for overhead structure and material. 
For bonding the track and suspending the trolley wire, to- 
gether with incidental expenses, $300 to $400 per mile is 
sufficient. 
Bringing these items together we may say roundly 
that with rigid economy $9oo to $1000 per mile will pro- 
vide the electrical structure and connections for such a 
road as that under consideration. , Taking the larger figure 
we see that the electric narrow gauge track can be built 
complete ready for traffic for about $4500 per mile. 
For a ten mile road, the car equipment should be, say, 
two motor cars with an extra motor in reserve and four 
freight skips and a couple of freight cars of a larger size. 
The whole outfit should not cost over $5500 delivered and 
ready for action. 
Now for the station and other equipment. A genera- 
tor of, say, forty kilowatts, and a fifty horse power engine 
and boiler equipment is sufficient. Boiler and engine 
should be of the simplest kind and the whole plant as com- 
pactly arranged as possible, since it should ordinarily be 
operated by a single capable man. Engine, boiler and 
generator set up ready for operation should not cost in the 
aggregate more than $4000. This is enough to provide a 
thoroughly well built, durable equipment on which the re- 
pairs should be very light. 
A combined power station and car house, with iron 
stack for the boiler, should cost complete not over $2000, 
and $500 more would provide waiting rooms and freight 
platforms at the ends of the line.