IEEE Electrification Magazine - September 2014 - 2

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

On the Rails to
High Performance
By Eduardo Pilo de la Fuente
and Jose Conrado Martinez

OME AUTHORS CLAIM THAT A SMALL TRACTOR MANUfactured by the company Siemens & Halske in Berlin,
Germany, in 1879 was the first railroad to operate with
electric power. However, although most of the railways in the United States use diesel traction, the first railway electrification of
importance took place in the first decade of the 20th century in the
city of New York. The New York Central railroad connected to the
Grand Central Terminal station, located in Manhattan, using a
3-km-long tunnel. In 1902, there was a serious train crash due to
the smoke of the steam locomotives that prevented the driver of
one of the trains from correctly seeing the signals. As a result of this
accident, New York City prohibited railway operation with steam
locomotives on the island of Manhattan, forcing New York Central
to electrify its suburban lines.
It was in Europe, where electrified railways experienced a larger
expansion. In Europe, the ac single-phase system was developed (a
three-phase ac system was also constructed but was finally discontinued) and, later, the two-phase system (known as the autotransformer system) became widely adopted. And it was in Europe (in
France and Germany) and Japan where the high-speed railways
(probably one of the most important steps forward in the last
decades) were developed. And, finally, it has been in Europe and
Asia where the high-speed railways have been massively adopted.
Electrical traction has some advantages compared to diesel
traction that make it very attractive: the possibility of building
trains designed for higher speed and power, better electrical performance, and less environmental impact. However, it calls for larger
investments in infrastructure (contact lines, substations, transmission, and distribution lines), which requires important economic
studies. In some cases, such as in high-speed lines or in railways
with dense traffic, the use of electrical traction is essential.
When examining the advances in electrical railways in recent
decades, it becomes very obvious that the development of the
power electronics and control technologies have been key factors to
achieve the performance railways can deliver today. The article

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Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2014.2338992
Date of publication: 29 September 2014

2

I E E E E l e c t r i f i cati o n M agaz ine / SEPTEMBER 2014

EDITORIAL BOARD
Saifur Rahman
Editor-in-Chief
Virginia Tech
Virginia, USA
srahman@vt.edu
Iqbal Husain
Editor, Electric Vehicles
North Carolina State
University
North Carolina, USA
ihusain2@ncsu.edu
Eduard Muljadi
Coeditor, Electric Vehicles
NREL: Wind Research
Colorado, USA
eduard.muljadi@nrel.gov
Herb Ginn
Editor, Electric Ships
Universitiy of
South Carolina
South Carolina, USA
ginnhl@cec.sc.edu
Robert Cuzner
Coeditor, Electric Ships
DRS Power and Control
Technologies
Wisconsin, USA
RobertMCuzner@drs.
com
Eduardo Pilo de la
Fuente
Editor, Electric Trains
EPRail Research
and Consulting
Spain
eduardo.pilo@eprail.com
Jose Conrado Martinez
Coeditor, Electric Trains
Directcion de Estrategia
y Desarrollo
Spain
jcmartinez@adif.es
Bulent Sarlioglu
Editor, Electric Planes
University of
Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, USA
bulent@engr.wisc.edu

Mohammad
Shahidehpour
Editor, Off-Grid
Illinois Institute
of Technology
Chicago, USA
ms@iit.edu
Steve Pullins
Coeditor, Off-Grid
Horizon Energy Group
Tennessee, USA
spullins@horizonenergy
group.com
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Christine Ross
Coeditor, Electric Planes
Rolls-Royce Corp
Indiana, USA
Christine.AH.Ross@
rolls-royce.com

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2014.2342771
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Electrification Magazine - September 2014
