SPEEDING-UP TRAINS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 July 1922, Page 4

SPEEDING-UP TRAINS.

ARRIVAL OF NEW ENGINES. USE ON TARANAKI LINE. The arrival in Auckland • last week from Scotland by the Kaikoura- of four of the large AB. class of locomotives for use on the Main Trunk and other heavy lines, should in some measure contribute to the early speeding up of the New Ply mouth-Wellington mail service. Definite advice has not yet- been received as to where the engines are to be employed, as two engines of a similar type were lost on the Wiltshire and may not be salvaged. This may cause j the Railway Department to alter its plana temporarily, but it is known that A.B. engines are to be employed on the New Plymouth line and that very soon. These engines are of the most powerful type working on the railways, and those which have just arrived are the last of the forty-five ordered from the North British Co., of Scotland, having left Glasgow in May. AU the engines have been constructed to t-he design of the Chief Mechanical Office, Wellingtojif which also designed the eight or ten engines of the same class which were constructed in New Zealand before the order -was placed abroad. They are considered to be particularly suited to the steep grades and other difficulties that have to be overcome in this country. In preparation for the placing of the A.B. engines on the New PlymouthWellington line all the mail train cars are being run into the workshops for the installation of steam heating pipes.’ When this work is completed, as well as some small details in connection with turn-tables, the new engines will be put on the mail trains. Probably then the time-table will be revised with a material shortening of the time taken ixx, journeying to and from Wellington.