Mark Brader:
The book includes a long footnote which says, among other things,
that the first use of the Ganz system in commercial service was on
the Valtellina line near Lake Como in September 1902; and that
technical details of the system and an illustration of a Valtellina
line locomotive can be found in "History of the Electric Locomotive"
(1969) by F.J.G. Haut.

Looking around on the Web for photos showing such a locomotive,
I only find this one, although it's on several web pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ka...an_mozdony.jpg

So I suspect it's the same one as in Haut's book. Anyway, the
interesting thing is the collector that contacts the overhead wires,
which looks more like a big bow collector than anything else --
one collector contacting both wires. Obviously there must have
two separate contacts on that horizontal bar, with insulation
between them.

Also note how high the arm is above the locomotive. You'd never
fit that thing into a Metropolitan or District tunnel. They must
have had a different sort of collector in mind.

This page shows that photo and a couple of other ones of the Ganz
3-phase system, before moving on to related subjects. They all
appear to have those high collectors.

http://erojr.home.cern.ch/erojr/cont...pe/kanprot.htm
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "What Europe needs is a fresh, unused mind."
| -- Foreign Correspondent

My text in this article is in the public domain.