Chapter 262: Tram

Gao Da was very encouraging of novel ideas, such as installing light bulbs in automobiles and carriage compartments.

Only constant exploration and hypothesis can drive technological progress; if one remains stagnant in a particular industry or field, technology can only stand still.

To support the development of the power industry, and also to demonstrate the greater utility and value of electricity, Gao Da invested a large sum of research funding into the Royal Academy of Sciences, with the express purpose of exploring more uses for electricity and making its application rich and varied.

Imagination is very important for scientific research. It is precisely because of their great imagination that scientists of this era discovered one novel technology after another, driving the technological progress of this era and indirectly creating the prosperous technological society of later generations.

Without the groundwork laid by the scientists of this era, the science of later generations could not have developed so rapidly. What Gao Da could do was give these scientists more support, allowing them to exert enough imagination to create achievements far exceeding the historical level of the same period.

Under Gao Da's large capital investment, the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Power Laboratory also established many scientific research projects related to electricity, with each project assisted by relevant experts from the power industry.

Gao Da also paid attention to some of the research projects established by the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Power Laboratory; generally speaking, these scientists had quite wild imaginations.

Although electricity currently only demonstrated its use for lighting, the Power Laboratory and the laboratories of the Royal Academy of Sciences had already initiated projects including, but not limited to, electric locomotives, small-volume high-power electric motors and generators, and more effective energy-storage batteries.

Electric trains were temporarily impossible to realize, as current electricity could not support the transport of large objects. But smaller-volume, higher-power generators and motors were theoretically achievable in a short time.

Including more efficient batteries; with the development of the power industry, it was very necessary to develop a battery that could store more energy and be less prone to wasting it.

There was currently no capability for large-scale electricity storage, which also meant that if a power plant's output was excessive, much electricity would be wasted.

As Spain's power plants became more numerous and various types of generators became more powerful, the problem of electricity waste would also become increasingly serious.

If there were a way to effectively store electricity, it could ensure that power plants could provide electricity to factories and residences even when they were unable to operate.

The impact of power outages might not be great in this era, but in the era of later generations where electricity had penetrated every household, the impact would be quite significant.

Fortunately, electricity was currently only popularized in the two cities of Madrid and Barcelona, and electricity was also warmly sought after in these two cities, so there was no need to worry about the problem of electricity waste for the time being.

Gao Da also proposed an idea to Gramme and Tesla: to store electrical energy as other forms of energy and release it when needed.

This was actually a very simple system. Using electricity to store water from a low elevation at a high elevation was a disguised form of electricity storage.

When more electricity was needed, one only needed to release the water from the high elevation to the low elevation, and the movement of the water would generate power to drive the operation of the generators, thereby producing new electricity.

This method of energy storage was one of the more common methods of electrical energy storage in later generations, and the benefits were self-evident.

First, this kind of electricity storage had no pollution, and large reservoirs could also ensure that the water usage of surrounding areas was guaranteed during drought periods.

The disadvantage was that large-scale pumping and power generation equipment had to be built, and the site selection for the reservoir was also very important to avoid potential disasters during the water release process.

Fortunately, these problems were solvable for Spain. Gao Da also handed this task to Tesla, asking him to design a relatively perfect hydroelectric system to help Spain complete the process of electricity storage and generation.

What Gao Da did not expect was that the Power Laboratory soon brought the latest progress on these research projects.

Gao Da had originally thought that the simpler small-volume, high-power generators and motors had not been realized, but instead, a variant of the electric locomotive, the tram technology, had been roughly researched.

The so-called tram was actually a train using electricity as power running on urban tracks.

In fact, it was not a train, but just a passenger carriage similar to a train carriage, plus a traction unit providing power.

Such urban rail transit tools were born as early as 1807, and the birthplace was, of course, the British Empire.

However, what was used to pull the train carriages at that time was actually one or more horses. In other words, such urban rail transit tools were just horse-drawn carriages in a different form.

Horse-drawn carriages could run wantonly on the road, while such rail transit tools could only move on fixed urban tracks.

Compared to horse-drawn carriages, horse-drawn trams had some advantages. For example, with fixed tracks, horses could run wantonly without worrying about colliding with pedestrians.

The disadvantage was that such horse-drawn trams were slower, as the weight of the carriage itself was already very heavy, and it still needed to pull people and cargo.

The tram invented by the Power Laboratory actually used electricity to replace horses as power, using several bulky electric motors as power output.

Electric locomotives had many advantages over ordinary locomotives, the most important of which were low pollution and low noise.

After all, it was urban rail transit, so pollution and noise had to be avoided as much as possible. This was also the reason why rail transit in various countries preferred to use horses as power rather than locomotives.

As early as last year, Germany's Ximenzi Company had corresponding tram track technology. But the tram power demonstrated by Ximenzi Company at that time was too poor, with an average speed of only 13 kilometers per hour, and it could only seat a few people, which was clearly not commercially viable.

Among the technologies exchanged between Germany and Spain, Spain had obtained such immature rail transit technology. After improvements by Tesla and the Power Laboratory, the current tram power had been significantly improved, and the average speed had also been increased to about 20 to 25 kilometers.

Trams were still very important for the development of cities, with a role no less than that of buses and subways in later generations.

Of course, the transport capacity of trams was certainly not comparable to subways, with a passenger capacity similar to that of a bus.

On March 27, 1880, Gao Da saw Spain's first tram at the Power Laboratory and personally experienced this improved tram.

In addition to a significant increase in speed, the volume of the tram's head had also become much smaller. Currently, from the appearance, the tram still looked very much like a train.

A speed of 20 to 25 kilometers per hour was already quite sufficient for a tram; after all, this was a vehicle running on tracks on city roads, and the speed should not be too fast.

The tram tracks were on the road; before the tram arrived, the public on the road needed to yield the tracks for the tram to pass. And after the tram passed, the tram tracks could be used by people to walk on, just like the road.

The first impression the tram gave Gao Da was that it was very fast and could effectively improve the mobility efficiency of Spain's urban population.

After confirming that such trams could be put into the market, Gao Da did not hesitate at all and immediately decided to build trams in Spanish cities with a population of over 100, 00, so that the Spanish public could enjoy such a convenient mode of transport.

Of course, if it were all built by the Spanish government, this would definitely be a huge expense.

Trams were not a particularly important means of transport, so Gao Da naturally allowed domestic and foreign capital to participate, letting everyone eat meat and drink soup together.

As long as the tram was popular, the public riding the tram would generate revenue. This revenue would be fed back to the investing capitalists; the capitalists could make money, the public could enjoy a convenient mode of transport, and the Spanish government could accelerate the population flow and economic growth of various cities—this was simply a win-win-win deal.

For Spain, which had already attracted European attention with the Madrid City That Never Sleeps, how to introduce foreign capital to invest in trams became simple.

On March 29, 1880, the Spanish government announced that a tram exhibition would be held in Madrid on April 16 to announce to domestic and foreign media another major breakthrough by Spain in the field of electricity.

The reason for such a grand display, besides wanting to introduce foreign capital to promote the development of Spain's trams, was that Gao Da also wanted to fleece other countries a bit more before their tram technology became as mature as Spain's.

Although the tram technology of Ximenzi Company was indeed immature at present, historically, commercially viable trams were only built in 1881.

This also meant that if Spain did not hurry, trams in other countries would also quickly catch up, and there would be no profit to be made at all.

But through this tram exhibition, more countries could be attracted to pay attention to Spain's power technology. As long as they were interested in tram technology, Spain had various ways to exchange it for other technologies or obtain funds from them.

Obtaining technology and funds from other countries to develop Spain's technology—this was beneficial no matter how one thought about it, and Gao Da would naturally not let it go.

Sure enough, because of the precedent of the Madrid City That Never Sleeps, European media were quite concerned about the exhibition Spain wanted to hold.

From the announcement of the exhibition to its holding, there was more than half a month, and this time was enough for the media of surrounding countries to rush to Spain to visit the so-called exhibition.

Perhaps the only ones who could not make it were the Russian media in Eastern Europe, but Russia's economy itself was the worst among the five major European powers, and the attention of Russian capital was not very important to Spain.

Previously, the Madrid City That Never Sleeps had not attracted much attention from Russian media, let alone the current tram exhibition.

Spain only needed to attract the attention of capital from the four major powers—Britain, France, Germany, and Austria—to introduce enough funds to build its own rail transit.

Time flew by, and soon it was April 16, the day of the exhibition.

Those attracted were not only domestic and foreign media, but also many members of the public who were interested in it, most of whom were local residents of Madrid, and many were Spaniards who had rushed over from surrounding areas.

Of course, there were also many Portuguese who were interested in this. After the railway connection between the two countries, the flow of people had become a little more frequent.

Although a considerable part of them were Portuguese who were curious about Spain, there were also many who genuinely wanted to immigrate to Spain.

It was just that Portugal did not attach much importance to population scale, and coupled with Spain's own powerful strength, the Portuguese government dared not have any complaints about this.

The exhibition displayed not only the latest trams, but also Spain's high-power generators, high-power motors, and various samples of light bulbs of different wattages.

To ensure the smooth progress of the exhibition, a circular track about one kilometer long was built on-site, the purpose of which was precisely to test the speed and stability of the tram.

Under the eyes of many members of the public and the media, the tram ran stably at a speed of about 22 kilometers per hour, without any problems occurring midway, which made the foreign media marvel and the domestic Spanish public excited.

In addition to the tram attracting much attention, the high-power generators and motors that had not been publicly announced also attracted the attention of many media.

They took photos and recorded these emerging power equipment and products one after another, and some newspaper offices were already conceiving the latest newspapers, all to seize the opportunity and get the headline.

Spain possessed the patented technology for carbon-filament light bulbs, and even beyond carbon-filament light bulbs, Spain had also applied for relevant patents for some metal-filament light bulbs with longer lighting times.

Although patent technology in this era did not have much protection, it was enough to prove that Spain was the inventor of the relevant light bulb technology.

Most countries would not abide by such patents; for example, the United States, because it was separated from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean, had many American companies plagiarizing the patents of European companies, and they were not afraid of foreign companies thousands of miles away.

Even if European companies discovered that their patents were being infringed, they had no way to deal with it. If they fought transnational patent infringement lawsuits, it would not only take a lot of time, but they might also lose the lawsuit in the end.

Do not underestimate the power of American capital. Especially those capitalists with relatively large influence—it was very difficult to fight lawsuits against them, and even if one could win, one would be dragged out for a long time, causing damage to the company's interests.

Since the Madrid City That Never Sleeps, Spain had once again become a country of great concern, and Madrid had repeatedly made the front-page headlines of newspapers in various countries.

Spain's own newspapers excitedly hailed Spain as the strongest in the field of electricity, and some small newspapers, for the sake of a gimmick, even brazenly stated that Spain would lead the electrical era and create a glorious history far surpassing that of the Empire on which the sun never sets.

Gao Da did not stop the flattery of these newspapers. It was very necessary to appropriately increase national pride, so that Spaniards could be more enthusiastic about serving the country.

Of course, excessive flattery was unnecessary. When Spaniards discovered that such flattery was ultimately just empty talk, they would not only be disappointed in Spain's future but also disappointed in the government and the royal family.

To avoid such a situation, Gao Da specifically instructed the propaganda department to closely monitor the news reports of domestic newspapers and avoid the phenomenon of excessive boasting.

It was fine to boast about one's own country, but there was no need for baseless boasting. Gao Da believed that Spain could remain at the forefront of the world in terms of electricity, but to say that it was comprehensively leading other countries and creating a greater history was a bit of an exaggeration.

(End of chapter)