Purchased power for railways

In a recent address before the Boston Chamber of Commerce, President Atterbury, of the Pennsylvania Railroad strongly indorsed the purchase of electrical power for the use of electrified railroads rather than entering the power business for supplying their own properties. Speaking of the magnitude of the work of changing the motive power of the railroad, he said: “We worked out a jointly owned power-plant scheme with the United Gas Improvement Company and the Philadelphia Electric Company but decided not to go into it. Why should we enter the power business? We have no warrant to go into that business which is an industry by itself. By the time we are ready to use it we shall be buying power cheaper than we can make it ourselves and thereby saving a capital investment of from $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 over a great number of years.”