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The telephone lines also were affected by the tramway, and the tramway Company had to pay the cost of certain alterations which the Telephone Company had to make to their lines in order to avoid the inductive disturbances from the tramway currents.
Professor Ayrton on Electrical Disturbances. Proc. Inst. Elec. Engrs. May, 1897.
I am glad to say that the three important companies that have had Bills before Parliament this spring, for obtaining sanction to construct the City and West-End line, to run between Hammersmith and the City, Brompton and Piccadilly Circus line, which is to run from South Kensington to Piccadilly Circus, and the Bill for boring a deep tunnel under the present District Railway, through which express trains will be run electrically, as well as for converting into an electric railway, that portion of the Inner Circle that belongs to the District Railway Company, I am happy to say that the Engineers of these three Companies have been sufficiently convinced for the promoters in each case to have given a written undertaking that a completely insulated system shall be employed; so that, whether these lines be worked on the two or the three wire system, whether the current be direct or alternating, there are clauses in the Bills guaranteeing that the return shall be insulated throughout to the satisfaction of the City and Guilds of London Institute, and of the Science and Art Department. That, I think, is a great step in advance, not merely in the interests of science, but in the interests of the electric railways themselves.
Professor Perry. Same Proceedings.
But I do ask the members carefully to consider the amount of harm which non-insulated returns are capable of doing; to say if it is beyond the powers of an electrical Engineer, not the Engineer of a mere pioneer line in a new country, but rather of lines in a thickly inhabited district, where there are many pipes and telegraph and telephone lines which are likely to be interfered with to insulate his return conductor at a cost which will not seriously interfere with the new enterprise. As for my own views, I consider, with Professor Ayrton, that in the long run a tramway Company will find that it pays to insulate the return conductor, not only because there is less chance of a break-down; but that the actual cost of a well-arranged system will be less.