NEW STEAM RAIL-CAR

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3017, 30 March 1926, Page 1

NEW STEAM RAIL-CAR

FOR PALMERSTON-FOXTON SECTION.

We take the following from the “Railway Officers’ Advocate,” under date February 20th. Up to the present, the car has not made its appearance on the line: — The self-contained steam railway carriage to be used on the Foxton section of the Government railways was landed in Wellington in sections and assembled at the Petone railway workshops, under the supervision of Mr. Foster, director of the Clayton Wagon, Ltd’s works at Lincoln, England. The staff of the workshops lost no time in putting the carriage together, and after several trial runs were made in the yards, several tests were made on the line to Paekakariki and to Upper Hutt. These were highly successful, and those on board were loud in their praise of the make and efficiency of the innovation.

This car was constructed to the order and specification of the Now Zealand Government. The vehicle has been designed as a means of handling passenger traffic on main lines during non-rush periods, and as an instrument for the exploitation of branch line services where competition with road-passenger transport on economical lines is called for. It combines the best practice in railway-carriage manufacture, and in steam engineering. Passenger comfort is adequately provided for in the design of the body the suspension system, and the driving bogie incorporates only features which are of proved reliability for railway service. The driving bogie wheel base is 7ft., the training bogie wheel base is sft Gin. and the distance between bogie centres is 42ft. Curves of three chain’s radius can thus be negotiated with ease and safety. The overall length of the coach is 55ft., the width Bft 2gin., and the height lift s£in. The underframe and roof framing are of rolled steel sections, while the exterior body and roof panels are charcoal-fin-ished plates riveted to the framing. Seating is provided in the passenger compartment for fifty-seven passengers. The seats are comfortably padded and sprung, and are upholstered in dark green buffalo hide. The floor of the passenger compartment is covered with dark brown linoleum, the .ceiling white enamelled, and the body, sides, doors, and partitions are finished in dark polished mahogany. A luggage rack is provided. The car is equipped with Stone’s system of electric lighting, the dynamo being driven by belt from one of the axles of the trailer bogie. The brakes, which are of conventional railway pattern ,are applied to all wheels, either by steam or by a hand-oper-ated screw.

The power unit consists substantially of the standard engine and boiler as fitted to the Clayton un-der-type steam road wagon, some of which are in use by the Wellington City Corporation, but modified in detail for application to the steam rail car. The'boiler is of the vertical water tube type. Fuel consumption is about 4.81 b per mile. Under average conditions about four gallons of water is needed per train mile. The complete driving bogie may readily be withdrawn from the ear and an identical bogie fitted in its place. All controls are duplicated at the rear end, so that the car may be driven with equal facility in either direction, thus dispensing with the necessity of turntables at termini. The driving compartment is lined throughout with steel plates. Unloaded, the car weighs 20 tons 10 cwt., and when fully provisioned with water and coal its weight is 23 tons 10 cwt.