Читать книгу Intellectual Property Law for Engineers, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs - Howard B. Rockman - Страница 27

Frank J. Sprague, born in 1857, is known as the father of electric traction vehicles. Sprague studied at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, which offered what was, at that time, probably the best training in the country for an electrical engineer. He graduated the Naval Academy in 1878 with high honors. In 1883, Edward H. Johnson, who was a business associate of Thomas Edison, persuaded Sprague to resign his naval commission to work for Thomas Edison. One of his contributions to the Menlo Park Edison laboratory in New Jersey was the introduction of mathematical methods in the work performed at the laboratory. Before he arrived, Edison’s team conducted several costly trial‐and‐error experiments. Sprague’s approach was to use mathematics to calculate the optimum parameters, thus saving much needless tinkering. Sprague also developed a mathematical determination of electrical distribution useful in planning and balancing the distribution circuits of Edison’s central electricity plants. However, in 1884, Sprague decided that his interests in the exploitation of electricity should be directed more towards power generation elsewhere, and he left Edison to found the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company. By 1886, Sprague’s company perfected two important inventions. The first was a constant‐speed non‐sparking motor with fixed brushes. The second was a regenerative braking system that uses the drive motor to return power to the main supply system. His motor was the first to maintain constant speed under varying load, and was ultimately endorsed by Edison as the only practical electric motor available. His regenerative braking system was important in the development of electric trains and electric elevators.

Most importantly, Sprague’s inventions included improvements to designs for electric streetcar systems that collected electricity from overhead lines. An electric street car is a vehicle that runs on track laid in the streets, operated usually in single units and most usually driven by an electric motor. A streetcar is of lighter weight as compared to conventional trains and is designed for the transportation primarily of passengers, but occasionally can be used to carry freight. Streetcars operate within, close to, or between nearby towns and/or cities on tracks running primarily on the streets.

The first mass transportation vehicle in the United States was called an “omnibus.” Pulled by horses, it had the appearance of a stagecoach. The first omnibus operated in America up and down Broadway in New York City in 1827. The first important improvement over the omnibus was the streetcar, which was also pulled by horses. However, instead of running along a regular street, streetcars rolled along special steel rails placed in the middle of the street. On January 17, 1871, a San Francisco citizen, Andrew Smith Hallidie, patented the first cable car, which used metal ropes by which cars were drawn by an endless cable running in a slot between the rails. The cables passed over a steam driven shaft in the power house. The cable systems involved laying expensive infrastructure, and were inefficient to operate because only 18% of a cable car system’s stationary engine power was applied to moving the cars, the remainder of the energy being consumed by moving the weight of the cable.

The early streetcars also sometimes used mules for motive power. Mules were thought to provide more hours per day of useful transit service than horses, and were especially popular in southern U.S. cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana, as well as in Mexico. By the mid‐1880s, there were 415 street railway companies in the United States, operating over 6,000 miles of track, and carrying 188 million passengers per year using animal‐drawn cars. In the nineteenth century, Mexico also had streetcars in around 1,000 towns, many being animal powered. Although most animal‐drawn lines were closed in the nineteenth century, a few lasted into the twentieth century and later. Toronto’s horse‐drawn streetcar operations, for example, ended in 1891. In New York City, the regular horse‐powered service lasted until 1917, and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, until 1923. The last regular mule‐drawn cars in the United States operated in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas, until 1926.

The obvious advantages of a system that eliminated animal drive power included doing away with the need to feed the animals, and, more importantly, cleaning up their waste after they ate. In Chicago, for example, there were an estimated 6,600 horses owned by the street railways in the 1880s, dumping a considerable amount of manure and urine on the streets. Further, many horses were killed in the Chicago Fire of 1871, and then an influenza‐like equine epizootic decimated the surviving horses the following year. In 1867, some street railway systems tried to replace horses with small steam locomotives, but the public objected to the smoke, noise and sparks that they generated.

Some early streetcars also depended on power supplied by storage batteries; however, these proved to be very expensive and inefficient. Invention of the dynamo or generator led to the application of electric power by means of overhead electrified wires, and to streetcar lines which subsequently proliferated in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world. Prior to Sprague, there had been early experimental electric railways. Most of these were erected as electrical exhibitions at fairs and expositions as tourist attractions, and were usually dismantled after the exhibitions closed.

In 1888, Sprague developed streetcars that collected DC electricity from overhead wires, using a spring‐loaded trolley pole that had been invented in 1880. The trolley pole comprised a bent piece called a “bow,” or a collapsible and adjustable frame called a “pantograph,” which was used in foreign countries as compared to the single‐trolley pole in the United States. The ground return was through the iron street rails. Sprague’s trolley pole traveled along the wire above the streetcar. The Sprague system motors were mounted beneath the cars, and centered on the axles, with both motors operated by a single control switch inside the car. Variable speed of the motors was obtained by varying the resistance of the field winding of the motors traversed by the current. Power was supplied through the overhead wire and the trolley pole. Many of these features were also used on subsequent light railways. General Electric and Westinghouse adopted many streetcar features on their railroad equipment.

After testing his trolley system in 1887 and 1888, Sprague installed the first electric street railway system in Richmond, Virginia. This was the first large‐scale and successful use of electricity to operate an entire system of city streetcars. Overhead wires were installed over the Richmond city streets, and a spring‐loaded streetcar pole would contact the electric wire. Back at the power house, steam engines turned huge generators to produce the electricity required to operate the streetcars. The name “trolley cars” was soon developed for the streetcars powered by electricity. The Richmond electric streetcar system, 12 miles long and with 40 cars, was in operation by February 2, 1888, and had a significant impact upon the burgeoning electric trolley industry in the United States. Sprague’s use of a trolley pole for DC current pick‐up from a single line, with ground return via the street rails, was the pattern that was eventually adopted in many other cities. The hills of Richmond, Virginia, which included grades of over 10%, provided an excellent proving ground for acceptance of Sprague’s new technology. The Richmond electric streetcar system remained in service until November 25, 1949.

By January 1889, Boston had the first electric streetcars in the United States, which would be the first to operate underground 8 years later. Boston’s last carriage‐drawing horse was retired in 1987. Within a year of the Richmond system, electric power began to replace the more costly horse‐drawn cars in many cities. By 1890, over 200 electric street railways, half incorporating Sprague’s equipment and 90% based on his patents, had begun operation or were planned on several continents. In 1890, the General Electric Company, which manufactured most of Sprague’s equipment, bought Sprague’s electric streetcar business. Sprague left to establish the Sprague Electric Elevator company, and developed and installed electric elevators in several New York buildings before selling that business to Otis Elevator Company.

By the 1920s, most United States municipalities had abandoned horse‐drawn cars for electrically powered streetcars. The rapid growth of streetcar systems resulted in the ability of people to live outside of a city and to commute into the city for work on a daily basis. The success of streetcars also gave rise to inter‐urban lines, which were basically streetcars that operated between cities, and also served in remote rural areas.

The electric streetcar continued to be improved. Tiny, four‐wheeled cars were replaced by heavy, eight‐wheeled cars, providing a much greater carrying capacity. Wooden car bodies were replaced by steel ones. In time, the electric streetcar became the primary means of urban transit.

Sprague’s later experience with elevator controls led him to develop a multiple unit system of electric railway operation, which accelerated the development of electric streetcar operation. In a multiple unit system, each car of the train carried electric traction motors. Using relays energized by train‐line wires, the engineer or the motorman commanded all of the traction motors in the train to act together. For lighter streetcars, there is no need for a locomotive, so each car in the train can generate revenue. Sprague’s first multiple unit order was from the Southside Elevated Railroad, the first of several elevated railways locally known as the “L” in Chicago. This success was followed by substantial multiple unit contracts in Brooklyn (New York) and Boston (Massachusetts).

Sprague’s electric traction inventions allowed a significant expansion in the size of cities, while his elevator developments later on permitted greater concentration of workers in commercial sections of urban areas, and increased the profitability of commercial buildings. Over a hundred years later, his inventions also resulted in the development of light rail and rapid transit systems that still function on the same principles today.

Today, only Toronto still operates a streetcar network essentially unchanged in layout and mode of operation as originally constructed. St. Charles streetcar line in New Orleans is generally viewed as the world’s oldest continuously operating streetcar line.

Between 1895 and 1929, almost every major American city had at least one streetcar labor strike. Sometimes they lasted only a few days; however, more often, the strikes were marked by almost continuous and sometimes violent conflict. At times, the strikes amounted to prolonged riots and civil insurrection. The 1929 New Orleans streetcar strike was one of the last of its kind. The rise of private automobile ownership took the edge off the impact of the strikes.

Here is where the history of streetcars gets interesting, at least to me. As the twentieth century moved forward, the heavy expense of track construction and maintenance ultimately rendered streetcars uneconomical. In the United States, streetcars began to be supplanted by automobiles and buses in the 1930s, which trend accelerated during the 1940s and 1950s. Readers who are aged 70 years or older may wonder what happened to all the trolley cars that they rode when they were younger.

There is no question that the rail trolley car systems of the early twentieth century have been almost entirely supplanted by the operation of buses and a few light rail train systems these days. Many commentators write that the Great Depression of the 1930s resulted in the closure of many streetcar lines in North America, but the onset of WWII delayed the closure of some streetcar lines as civilians used them to commute to war‐related factory jobs during a time when rubber tires and gasoline were rationed. After WWII, automobile use continued to increase, and was assisted in the 1940s and 1950s by the passage of the Trans‐Canada Highway Act of 1948. Also, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 in the United States was enacted. Some commentators have stated that declining ridership and traffic jams caused on city streets by streetcars are often cited as reasons to shut down the remaining streetcar lines in various cities. However, while these facts may or may not be true, the demise of city streetcars systems was aided by several companies in the United States who took unlawful measures to increase the sales of their products.

The abandonment of city streetcar systems in the mid‐twentieth century led to accusations of a conspiracy that a combination of automobile, oil, and tire manufacturers purposefully shut down streetcar systems to further the use of buses, gasoline, and rubber tires, which products the alleged conspirators were selling.

On April 9, 1947, nine corporations, including National City Lines, Pacific City Lines, General Motors, Firestone Tire Company, Mack Manufacturing Corporation, Phillips Petroleum, Standard Oil of California, and Federal Engineering Corporation, along with seven individuals, were indicted by the U.S. Justice Department, criminally charging them with, among other things, conspiring to monopolize certain portions of interstate commerce in the public transit sector, in violation of Section 2 of the United States Sherman Anti‐Trust Act. The defendants were charged, more specifically, with having conspired to monopolize the portion of interstate commerce in the United States consisting of the sale of buses, petroleum products, tires, and tubes used by local transportation systems in those cities in which two of the defendants, National and Pacific, owned, controlled, or had a substantial financial interest in the streetcar systems. The indictment stated that the supplier defendants, which were Firestone, Standard Oil, Phillips, General Motors, and Mack, would furnish capital to defendants, National and Pacific, and these two latter companies would purchase city streetcar companies, dismantle the streetcar systems, and then cause their operating companies to purchase from the supplier companies substantially all their requirements of tires, tubes, and petroleum products. Or the city transit systems were converted from trolleys to buses. It was also alleged that the money made available by the supplier defendants would be utilized by National and Pacific to purchase control of, or a financial interest in, local public transportation systems in various states. It was also alleged that National and Pacific and their operating companies would not renew or enter into any new contracts for the purchase or use of products, such as tires, tubes, oil, and buses, other than from the supplier defendants once the conversion was completed.

The facts upon which these allegations in the indictment were based are that, as of April 1, 1939, one of the defendants, National City Lines, Inc., had risen from a humble beginning in 1920, operating two second‐hand buses in Minnesota, to ownership or control of 29 operating transportation companies located in 27 cities in 10 states across the United States. When the indictment was returned in 1947, defendants Pacific and National had expanded their ownership or control to 46 transportation systems located in 45 cities in 16 U.S. states. The supplier defendants were manufacturers and marketers of buses, tires, tubes, and petroleum products, necessarily used by the local operating bus companies of National and Pacific City Lines.

National and Pacific City Lines and their suppliers entered into various oral and written agreements where the operating companies for the transit systems, National and Pacific, purchased preferred stock from the supplier defendants at prices in excess of the prevailing market prices, amounting to over US$9 million. The money received from the sale by National and Pacific of such stock was used to acquire control of, or a substantial financial interest in, various local transportation companies throughout the entire United States. The respective supplier defendants then entered into separate 10‐year contracts with National and Pacific, under which all of the buses, tires, tubes, and petroleum product requirements of the National and Pacific operating companies were purchased from the supplier defendants, with an agreement not to buy any of these products from any party competing with the supplier defendants. Existing purchase contracts of all the operating companies with competitive suppliers were terminated at their earliest possible time, and the operating companies began equipping all their units with defendant supplier products, including buses, to the exclusion of any products competitive with them. National and Pacific also agreed that they would not renew or enter into any new contracts with other competitors of such products, or change any then existing equipment or purchase any new equipment using any fuel or means of propulsion other than gasoline.

National City Lines had been organized in 1936 as a holding company to acquire and operate local transit companies. Pacific City Lines was organized to acquire local transit companies on the Pacific coast, and began business in January 1938. There was another company, American City Lines, that was organized to acquire local transportation systems in the larger metropolitan areas in various parts of the United States in 1943, and American merged with National in 1946.

In a decision rendered by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on January 31, 1951, upholding the previous District Court’s and jury’s conviction of the defendants on charges of monopolization, the Appellate Court found that, in 1938, National City Lines conceived the idea of purchasing transportation systems in cities where streetcars were deemed to be no longer practical, possibly due to the Depression and a trend at supplanting streetcar systems with passenger buses. National City Lines’ capital was limited, and its earlier experience in public financing showed that it could not successfully finance the purchase of an increasing number of operating companies in various parts of the United States by normal financing means. As a result, National City Lines devised the plan of procuring funds from manufacturing companies whose products National City’s operating companies were using constantly in their bus operating business.

National approached General Motors, which manufactured and delivered buses to the various sections of the United States. National also approached Firestone, whose business of manufacturing and supplying tires also extended throughout the United States. In the Midwest, where a large part of its operating subsidiaries were to be located, National City Lines solicited investment of funds from Phillips Petroleum, which operates throughout the Midwest but not on the east or west coast. Pacific City Lines undertook the procurement of funds from General Motors and Firestone, as well as from Standard Oil of California. Mack Truck Company was also solicited for funds. The Court of Appeals held that evidence was clear that, when any one of these manufacturing suppliers was approached, they appeared interested in helping finance National and Pacific under the condition that it should receive a contract for the exclusive use of its products in all of the operating companies of National and Pacific, so far as buses and tires were concerned, and, as to the oil companies, in the territory served by the respective petroleum companies.

It appears from the Appellate Court opinion that the District Court jury was justified in inferring that the proposal for financing came from National City Lines, but that the proposal of exclusive contracting was created by the suppling companies. Eventually, each supplier entered into a written contract of long duration, whereby National and Pacific City Lines, in consideration of the supplier’s help in providing financing, agreed that all of National’s and Pacific’s operating subsidiaries should use only the supplier’s products.

Based on these facts, the Court of Appeals of the Seventh Circuit upheld the conviction of the defendants on charges of monopolization. Another factor in the case was that, after National City Lines and Pacific City Lines purchased the various streetcar operating companies, they ripped up the rails in the different cities, tore down the electric lines, and dismantled and even sometimes burned the streetcars. Usually, the systems would be converted to buses within 90 days of National or Pacific’s financial involvement. The first electrified surface transportation system that was demolished and replaced by buses was in New York City.

Strangely enough, however, even though the federal government won the lawsuit against these defendants, no meaningful penalty was imposed on anyone other than small symbolic fines, such as a US$5,000 fine levied on the companies, and a US$1 fine on the individuals. Commentators have noted that it is possible that, at this time, the Truman administration decided it required the undivided assistance of General Motors in fighting the ongoing Korean War and also in pursuing the Cold War against the former Soviet Union. Maybe the government at that time, decided that the support of large corporations was a higher priority than having electric mass transit systems operating in major population areas. Thus, it appears that there may have been economic reasons for the demise of electric streetcar systems; however, in the opinion of this writer, this natural progression was greatly assisted by the “conspiracy” discussed earlier.

In the 1920s, many American cities and towns were connected by a network of electric railroads and interurban electrified trolley cars. Within the cities, electric street railways, trolleys, and elevated trains moved large numbers of people easily and inexpensively. Between 1920 and 1955, General Motors, through National City Lines and Pacific City Lines, bought up more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities, allowing them to deteriorate and then replace them with rubber‐tired, diesel‐powered buses, which some writers say are more expensive, less efficient, and much filthier than electric rail systems.

Cities where electric rail systems were eliminated and replaced through this conspiracy to monopolize included New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles. The only large city in California where National or Pacific did not take over the transit company was San Francisco, whose transit system was owned by the city.