AUSZUG | eb - Elektrische Bahnen INT 2/2015

1 Editorial 113 (2015) INT 2 eb – Elektrische Bahnen interesting facts about the electric traction ermany is the first country in which the electric traction was turning up: In 1879 ran in Berlin inside exhibition grounds the first electric railway of the world. In 1881 the first electrically operated tramway circulated in Lichterfelde, today a district of Berlin. In 1882, the world-wide first electrical colliery railway was put into operation in Freital near Dresden. The first motor for single-phase alternating current was de- veloped in1889 and in 1903 high-speed tests with a three-phase A.C. traction were undertaken on the military railway line Marienfelde-Zossen. Finally in 1905 the line Murnau – Oberammergau in Bavaria being the first line in Germany electrified with alter- nating current AC 5,5 kV 25 Hz was opened for the public transport. It is fully justified to say that Germany is the mo- ther country of the electric traction. Company names as AEG und Siemens are tightly linked to this history. Therefore it is not astonishing, that already 112 years ago in 1903 the first edition of the ma- gazine Elektrische Bahnen was published and since then follows and documents the development of the electric traction. No other magazine is dedicated with a comparable technical depth to the operation and the engineering of the electric railways. Over time a technical archive was built up which covers comprehensively themes of the branches electric power supply of railways including catenaries and the technology of rolling stock and secondary tech- nologies, both for direct current and alternating cur- rent railways for short and long distance traffic. This archive helps to answer corresponding questions. For quite a lot of questions raised nowadays, at least partly answers can be found in older editions of the magazine. With this, the reporting is not limited to Germany. From the beginning, the reports on elec- trical traction covered the whole of Europe as well as America. Today the world of rail looks somewhat different: meanwhile the biggest high speed networks with electric traction are located in China as well as the sub-urban networks in the mega-cities whose size reaches or outpaces the rail systems of European ur- ban cities or of New York. In a short period of time in these regions a development took place for which in the “old” railway countries much more time was needed. Nevertheless, China relied also on the Euro- pean experiences and some of these connections are demonstrated in eb. For subscribers, in the meantime a voluminous ar- chive is available. At present, more than 60 annual volumes are accessible. This allows conducting ex- tensive researches. This edition is by this time the third edition purely in English. It contains translated articles, which were mostly published during the last year in the normal editions of the magazine eb – Elektrische Bahnen . By this, the articles become accessible to a bigger num- ber of readers. The selection of subjects focuses on the AC railways for main line services. Dr. Steffen Röhlig Chief Editor G