THE SIMPLON TUNNEL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8261, 15 October 1906, Page 5

THE SIMPLON TUNNEL.

LONDON, Ootober 12. The Daily Mail states that owing to perpendicular pressure the second Simplon tunnel has commenced to collapse. (The tunnel consists actually of two parallel tunnels, enoh for a single line of rails placed some 52 feet apart from centre to centre: only one of these has been arobod, the other is 10 feet wide and 6 feet or 7 feet iu height, and exists at present for ventilation purposes, but will be completed for traffic when required. Presumably it is the latter whioh ia referred to in the cablegram. Directly a train enters the tunnel a canvas soreen mysteriously desoenfls and seals the entrance. It is jußt as though the portal were a proscenium and the screen a drop soene.> The curtain being down (and it remains down until each train has cleared the tunnel), the leviathan fans &t each extremity are so delivering fresh nit into the parallel shaft, aud, at the same time, exhausting the foul from the tunnel itself, that every train is slways running against a purifying ' draught, whioh almost attains the velocity of a head wind. The time occupied by passenger trains in negotiating the great tunnel, whose exact length ia 12 miles 158 yard?, varies acoording to the diiection iu which they are travelling and the kind of motive power employed. The quickest journey is made by the southpound electric trains, viz., 18

minutes, and the longest by the steam hauled north-oound, tiirougb expresses, viz., 25 to 28 minutes. Presumaby in order to catch passengers who aro merely journeying through the tunnel, luncheon or dinner is served on leaviug Domo D'Ossola or Bru<. Erery window must be closed, and in the diningcar the temperature soon reaches an appalling beat—indeed, it often attains 95 decrees Fahrenheit.)