I have this photo of an electric train from 1884. "As operated at St Louis Expostion 1884.....Compliments of Wellington Adams. Dr. Arthur Wellington Adams founded Adams Electric in St Louis & was about to build an electric road to run 100 miles an hour from Chicago to St. Louis. A company had already been formed and construction work commenced. b. 21 Jun 1856, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York d. 19 Dec 1898, St. Louis, Missouri Does anyone know if this is the oldest electric train?
My sources indicate that the world's first main-line electrification was on the B&O, in 1895, through the city of Baltimore, and particularly through the 1.25-mile Howard Street tunnel, where they had a lot of smoke problems from the steam locos. The world's first electric locomotive to haul an actual load (passengers) was at the 1879 Industrial Exhibition in Berlin. The next year Thomas Edison had an experimental line running, and a small locomotive was purported to go as fast as 40 mph. Northern Pacific was interested in this and wanted to test it on a 50 mile stretch of line. That project didn't go anywhere because of financial problems at NP. Edison bounced back with a 450 yard circular track demo at the 1883 Chicago Railway Exposition. It carried 20000 passengers in total in the 3-foot gauge line.
