Patton Motor Company
rolling stock manufacturer
The Patton Motor Company was a street car manufacturer in Chicago.
History
The Patton Motor Company was based in 340 and 342 Dearborn St., Chicago, where it manufactured around 1898 patented electric street cars. These were used as a feeder for trolley lines, for nightwork or for long distance work. They were particularly adapted for service where, because of operating expense, the trolley equipment was unsatisfactory. They required no poles, no wires, no power house, no bonding of rails but only ordinary track. The company guaranteed to provide street car service under average conditions for less than two cents per car mile for power.
A gasoline engine was used to drive a dynamo, which in turn operated the electric motor. The principal claim of the inventor was the use of a storage battery, which accumulated the power of the dynamo, when on a down grade, or at rest, and which was automatically connected in to assist when the work was heavy.
The gasoline was stored in a tank in the roof of the car. The tank capacity of 23 gallons (87 litres) was sufficient for 150 miles (240 km).
The public source identifies “Patton Motor Company” as rolling stock manufacturer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Patton, Motor and Company.
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This entry incorporates text from “Patton Motor Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.