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.