Electric motor
Elektromote - originally written Electromote - was the name of the world's first forerunner of today's trolleybuses . This was an electrically powered wagonette . This was demonstrated by Werner Siemens on April 29, 1882 on a 540-meter-long test track in the then still independent villa and tenement settlement Halensee near Berlin , today part of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district .
The test vehicle already had the drive and power supply of a trolleybus and is therefore the world's first representative of this transport system. The first company based on this technology with scheduled passenger transport was not opened until 1900 by the Parisian Compagnie de Traction par Trolley Automoteur , while the first bus in the world equipped with an internal combustion engine was built by Carl Benz in 1895 and used by the Netphener bus company .
The term Elektromote is derived from the English term electric motion for 'electrical movement '. During the development of the system, Werner Siemens was in close contact with his brother Carl Wilhelm Siemens, who had emigrated to England .
prehistory
At the Berlin trade fair in 1879, Werner Siemens - or his company Siemens & Halske - presented the world's first electric train . In May 1881 the world's first permanently operated electric tram finally opened in Lichterfelde near Berlin . After the two above-mentioned railways still received their traction current via the insulated rails of their track , the engineer then presented a two-pole overhead contact line for railways at the International Electricity Exhibition in Paris in August 1881 . Immediately afterwards, Siemens concentrated on demonstrating an electrically powered road vehicle to the public. Previously it had only horse buses and steam buses or steam car , although Gustave Trouvé in 1881 be battery operated Trouvé Tricycle introduced. This makes the electric vehicle the second electric car in the world .
Test facility in Halensee
The construction of the corresponding test facility in Halensee also began in the course of 1881. Again, a site in the immediate vicinity of the capital was deliberately chosen. However, the idea for the project of an electrically powered road transport vehicle is much older, as early as 1847, the year Siemens & Halske was founded, Werner Siemens mentioned the wish in a letter:
"When I have time and money, I want to build myself an electromagnetic cab that certainly won't leave me in the dirt ..."
At the same time, his brother Carl Wilhelm also dealt with this idea, he wrote in 1880:
“Another arrangement by which an ordinary omnibus might be run upon the street would have a suspender thrown at intervals from one side of the street to the other, and two wires hanging from these suspenders; allowing contact-rollers to run on these two wires, the current could be conveyed to the tram-car, and back again to the dynamo machine at the station, without the necessity of running upon rails at all. "
The Elektromote test track ran northeast of Halensee station and was completely flat. It began in Strasse 5, today's Joachim-Friedrich-Strasse, crossed Kurfürstendamm in a southerly direction - after about half of the route - and ended in Strasse 13, today's Johann-Georg-Strasse. The area near the Ringbahn was still undeveloped at that time, so the test route was on a dirt road. The facility served purely experimental purposes; public transport was never intended. The technical execution and management of these test drives were in the hands of the then Siemens chief engineer Carl Ludwig Frischen .
After just a little more than six weeks, the trial operation was stopped on June 13, 1882, and the test track was dismantled by June 20, 1882. The system proved to be suitable in principle, but was initially not further developed due to the generally poor road conditions at the time. Above all, these had a negative effect on the smooth running of the pantograph . In addition, at that time Siemens primarily devoted itself to the further development of the electric tram . The Siemens brothers did not live to see the breakthrough of their invention, Carl Wilhelm died in 1883, Werner in 1892. It was not until the electric tram-omnibus of 1898 that Siemens & Halske presented a vehicle for electrical operation away from any rail infrastructure. However, this was a hybrid form of tram and battery bus that managed without a two-pole overhead line. The first trolleybus in regular service, however, did not run until 1900 on the occasion of the world exhibition in Saint-Mandé near Paris .
A few days after the electric vehicle went into operation, Siemens also started a second electrical test operation on May 1, 1882. The line operated by the Berlin Horse Railroad from the street station on Spandauer Strasse to the Spandauer Bock excursion restaurant also received a two-pole overhead line, the current of which was drawn via attached contact carts. Since this type of contact line did not allow switches, the system was later changed to a slotted pipe contact line.
Description of the plant
The two-pole catenary consisted of copper wires and was suspended from 50 steel catenary masts. Werner Siemens had these produced in London at his brother's company, the Landore Siemens Steel Company . The power-generating center consisted of a steam engine that was connected to an electric generator , the system was housed in a shed next to the track. This was located south of Kurfürstendamm, in the acute angle between Joachim-Friedrich-Strasse and Johann-Georg-Strasse.
The traction current was taken by a four-axle, eight-wheeled contact car, which drove on the catenary wires. A flexible trailing cable pulled the contact trolley along the catenary similar to a trolley . This construction, called “trolley” in English, later established the English name “trolleybus” - even if trolleybuses are now equipped with pantographs . The cable led to a wooden mast mounted in the middle of the car and supplied two electric motors with a direct voltage of 550 volts . The two motors each had an output of 2.2 kilowatts and acted on the rear wheels via a chain drive .
The test vehicle itself was a light and open four-wheeled carriage - also known as a 'hunting carriage'. It was equipped with iron-tyred wooden spoke wheels. As was common at the time, the rear wheels were significantly larger than the front wheels. In addition to the driver, the vehicle offered space for eight people, who sat on two longitudinal bench seats for four passengers each. However, the top speed of the electric motor has not been recorded. The car weighed a total of 1.5 tons, of which 1.1 tons were accounted for by the two main engines located under the driver's seat.
See also
- Trackless railway from Niederschöneweide – Johannisthal (1904–1905) in the former rural communities of Niederschöneweide and Johannisthal
- Gleislobus Steglitz (1912–1914) in the former rural community of Steglitz
- Trolleybus Berlin (1933–1965) in the western districts of Spandau and Steglitz
- Trolleybus Berlin (1951–1973) in the eastern districts of Mitte, Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg
literature
- Ludger Kenning, Mattis Schindler: Trolleybuses in Germany, Volume 1 , Kenning Verlag, Nordhorn 2009, ISBN 978-3-933613-34-9
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ With electricity on the road - From the electric vehicle to the eHighway. Siemens Historical Institute, accessed June 14, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c Trolleybus history - current collector design
- ↑ On track - Siemens presents the world's first electric train. Siemens Historical Institute, accessed June 14, 2019 .
- ↑ From the first electric tram to the Transrapid: Milestones in the field of rail and automotive technology. ( Memento from March 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Thoughts from Werner von Siemens ( Memento from December 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Berlin trolleybus test operations on www.berliner-verkehrsseiten.de
- ↑ a b c Omnibus history: The first trolleybus in 1882
- ↑ Trolleybuses at www.omnibusarchiv.de
- ^ H. Bombe: Tram test operation Westend - Spandauer Bock . In: Berlin traffic amateur . Volume 5, 1955, pp. 2 .
- ↑ a b Kenning