Fighting for Control: Multiple Unit, the South Side Elevated Railroad, and the Formation of Sprague Electric Company
Fighting for Control: Multiple Unit, the South Side Elevated Railroad, and the Formation of Sprague Electric Company
This chapter examines Frank Sprague's development of the basic components of the multiple-unit (MU) system of railroad control during the period from 1895 to 1898. It explains that the MU system equipped electric traction for urban mass transit and discusses Sprague's founding of the Sprague Electric Company (SEC) as a way to commercialize the technology. The chapter suggests that the MU system was Sprague's most ambitious yet to engineer technology, and that the SEC was his most delicate feat of entrepreneurship.
Keywords: Frank Sprague, multiple-unit system, railroad control, electric traction, urban mass transit, Sprague Electric Company, engineering technology
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