The story of electric traction really begins in the laboratory of Faraday. He was the first to produce mechanical rotation by electrical means; and, although he had no practical end in view, his investigations produced the germ of the commercial dynamo and thence of the commercial electric motor.

That germ, however, took about half a century to develop. It is true that in 1837 (about ten years after Faraday's discovery) Robert Davidson experimented with an electric locomotive on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway; it is also true that Jacobi, two years later, propelled a boat on the Neva with electric power. But these early attempts were not on a commercial scale. Not only was the motor a crude contrivance, but the method of producing the electric power was hopelessly extravagant.

At that period the 'primary battery'—similar in character to those still used for laboratory purposes, ringing electric bells, and so on—was the best available source of electricity. Such batteries generate current by the chemical consumption of zinc. In order to obtain sufficient power to move a boat, a large number of batteries had to be coupled together. They were expensive in first cost, expensive in the zinc which was their 'fuel'; and they became rapidly exhausted.

The essential step towards the commercial plane was taken when an efficient means was devised for transforming mechanical into electrical energy on a large scale. The first 'dynamo-electric' machines, invented about the middle of last century, were merely hand machines. Their power was limited by the strength of the permanent magnets employed in their construction; and although an increase in power was obtained by multiplying the number of magnets and driving by steam power, it was not sufficient for commercial purposes. In 1867 electro-magnets were first employed by Siemens and Wheatstone; and from this application there was developed a machine whose power as a generator of electricity was limited only by its size and the speed at which it was run.

It is unnecessary for our present purpose to enter into the technical details of the modern electric generator and the modern electric motor. The principles underlying them are quite simple, although the theory of their design and the practice of their construction and operation are almost a science in themselves. A dynamo or electric generator is a machine for transforming mechanical into electrical energy; an electric motor is a machine for transforming electrical energy into mechanical energy. If, therefore, we place an electric motor upon a vehicle and supply it continuously with current from a dynamo, the motor will rotate and can be used to propel the vehicle. That is the essential mechanism of electric traction.

The simplicity of the arrangement is enhanced by the fact that the dynamo and the motor are virtually the same machine. In the dynamo, a cylindrical 'armature' of coils is forced to rotate close to the poles of electro-magnets; the energy exerted in turning the armature against the influence of the electro-magnets is transformed into the energy of electric currents in the coils of the armature. In the motor, which also consists of an armature close to the poles of electro-magnets, the process is reversed. When a current is passed through the coils of the armature, the reaction between these currents and the electro-magnets causes the armature to revolve.

This reversibility of the dynamo was, according to a story frequently repeated, first discovered quite by accident. In a Paris exhibition a number of Gramme dynamos—or dynamo-electric machines, as they were then called—were being separately connected to lamps and other devices for showing the effect of electric currents; and when one was started up it was found that another was being driven at a rapid rate. Investigation showed that the second one had been coupled up to the first by mistake and was therefore being worked as a motor by it.

This was in the year 1879; and the story of the incident served to draw general attention to the discovery of a new and efficient means of transmitting power. Engineers recognised that in the steam-driven dynamo they had the means of producing powerful electric currents, while in the electric motor, connected by wires to the dynamo, they had the means of reproducing the power in mechanical form at a distance. There were, of course, losses of energy in the process. A certain percentage was lost in the dynamo itself, some in the transmitting wires, and some in the motor. But the all-round efficiency of the arrangement was much higher than that of any other system of transmitting power from one point to another several miles distant.

In order to apply this system to propelling vehicles it was only necessary to devise a continuous connection between the motor on the vehicle and the stationary dynamo. This was done on the first electric railway by means of a 'third rail,' substantially in the same way as is now familiar on underground and other electric lines. The third rail was a metal conductor supported on insulators and connected to the dynamo. The vehicle or car was furnished with a metal brush or skate which rubbed along the third rail as the car moved forward. The current thus collected was led through the motor (which drove the axle of the car through toothed wheels) and thence to the track rails, which conveyed the current back to the dynamo and so completed the electrical circuit. Messrs Siemens and Halske exhibited the first electric railway of this type at the Berlin Industrial Exhibition of 1879.

Another method of collecting the current was tried soon afterwards and formed the direct forerunner of the electric tramway on the now standard 'overhead' system. The disadvantage of the third rail system is that it involves an exposed 'live' conductor close to the ground. It is therefore quite unsuited for use on streets. Consequently the next step towards the electric tramway was to carry the electrical conductors overhead by supporting them on poles erected at the side of the track. The first installation of this kind was laid down at the Paris Exhibition of 1881. In that case the conductor was an iron tube with a slot along its lower side; and inside the tube was a 'boat' which slid along and was connected to the car by means of a flexible wire. A second tube, also with a boat and connecting wire, was provided to carry the return current. We shall see later how this arrangement evolved into the familiar 'trolley' system.

The mention of a slotted tube recalls the atmospheric system and, in so doing, emphasises the superiority of the electric system in simplicity, flexibility, reliability, and economy. Brunel's faith in the advantages of stationary engines and the transmission of power therefrom to moving trains would have been justified by the event if the pneumatic system of power transmission had been as practicable as the electric system. But there is an obvious contrast between the huge pipe of the atmospheric railway, with its impossible 'longitudinal valve,' and the small tube of the first overhead electric line or the third rail of the first electric railway. There is also a pathetic contrast between the prolonged struggles which Brunel and the inventors of the atmospheric system underwent before they were forced to acknowledge failure, and the rapid ease with which electric traction entered into its kingdom when the commercial dynamo and motor were first produced. The intrinsic difficulties which electric traction engineers had to meet were not serious. Designers passed, step by step, from the model electric railway at the Berlin Exhibition to public lines on a larger scale, and from the model electric overhead tramway to the 'street railway' or tramway which gradually supplanted the horse tramway. Each step consisted in an extension of the distance covered and an increase in the power required, coincident with a gradual improvement in the details of motors, dynamos, and transmission equipment.