POSSIBILITIES IN RAILWAY SPEED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1693, 22 October 1887, Page 3

POSSIBILITIES IN RAILWAY SPEED

When George Stevenson asserted his ability to run passenger coaches at a speed it twelve to fifteen miles an hour, roientih'o and practical men deemed him fit for a lunatic asylum, bat time has shown that trains may be run at a muoh greater velocity without materially adding to the dangers of railway travel. The flight of the fast express oa the Pennsylvania railway is a marked example of the possibilities m tho way of sustaining high rates of speed. This road now ruus the fastest train m America. Nine hundred

and twelve miles, including eeveu stoppages are accomplished m 25£ hours, and the average time is 36.30 miles an hour. A portion of the distance is ran at the rate of 75 miles an hour the driving wheels of the locomotive on this train make 268 £ revolutions a minute. William Vanderbilt's spurt of 81 miles m 61 minutes on the New York Central is declared to be tha highest rate of speed ever attained In the country, but this speed was not a surprise to good engineers, many of whom are firm In the belief that 100 miles an hour will yet be accomplished on Amsrioan roads. •

Thirty-one years ago Colonel Meiggs read a paper before the New York Farmers' Oiab on ' Fctare travelling,' m which he expressed the belief that railroad oars coald be safely propelled bjr iteam at the rate of 300 tnilea an hoar. He said : 1 The Emperor of Rustia has taken the fir«t great atep toward what I deem the ultimatum of railroad travel. Instead of oat Ing what I call a mere drill through the country and going around evarything • m the way for a straight line, he has oat a broad way for 500 mile*, from St. Petersburg to Moscow, Be has made it •11 the way 200 feet wide, so that the engineer sees everything on the road. This is a part of the fotare : The rail, road from point to point with a mathematical line ; the rail) ten times stronger than ara now used ; the locomotives on wheels of far greater diameter ; the gaage of a relative breadth ; the signals and time perfectly settled, the roads on both sides during the transit of trains having the gates of the walls all oloied. Then, Instead of travelling 100 miles an hour, we shall more safely travel 300 miles an hoar. One of the latest efforts at improvements m locomotives ib that of a French man named Estrade, who has constructed an engine which he calls La Parisienne, which when watered and fired weighs foity-two tons Its driving-wheels, six m number, are 8$ feet m diameter. The j cylinders are on" the outside, with ralv© boxes on the top, The diameter of each cylinder is 17$ inches. The engine iB built for high speed, and will carry a pressare of 200 pounds to the square inch above the atmosphere, or an absolute pressure of 215 pounds. Estrada's engine is designed to run at the average rate of seventy -eight miles an hour