SLEEPER ADZING MACHINE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5377, 21 June 1878, Page 5

SLEEPER ADZING MACHINE.

A new invention, called the Sleeper Adzing Machine, has just been brought out (says the Melbourne Age.) The machine is for, preparing railway sleepers to reoeive.the rail. To do this to suit the specifications of the South Australian and New South Wales Government lines, it is necessary to cut four outs across the sleeper and remove the parts between the two outer cuts to a level of 1-26 inches. This is now accomplished by the machine atj one operation, in a far more true and perfect manner than it could be performed by manual labor, and at a fraction of the cost, The machine exhibited for trial has been manufactured by Messrs, Wright and Edwards, from the designs of Mr. Swinbourn, of the Melbourne Steam Sawmills, to the order of Messrs. Barry, Brooks, and Fraser, for the Port Augusta Railway, S.A., for the construction of which they are the contractors. It is so constructed that it will travel along the line, being made on its .own wheels, receiving the sleepers from'. one side of the line and depositing them on trollies ; out to the gauge and ready for laying. At the trial it was proved that the machine was capable of cutting and adzing at the rate of 500 sleepers per hour ; and further, that the sleepers, if twisted to an extent of five-eighths of an inch, are still out perfectly true and out of winding. Previous sleeper-cutter machines have been made, but this one differs in its con-

struction, as all the operations of feeding the sleeper while being put, and self-acting delivery, are performed by the machine itself, thus saving labor and preventing risks of accident, the only labor required being to place the sleepers in rotation on the machine. The cost of the machine is about £l2O. It is intended to drive it by means of a small portable engine, fitted with wheels to suit the gauge of railway being constructed. This is the second machine delivered within the last month, and several more are required for other lines iu course of construction iu the colonies before mentioned. The machine was tested in the presence of the Commissioner of Railways, and nearly all the leading contractors of this and the neighboring colonies, and pronounced by them to be perfectly successful.