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devices designed to promote free draft and those intended to prevent spark-throwing; and the conflict between the free passage of fuel gases from the fire-box to the atmosphere, and the obstructions put in to prevent these gases from carrying cinders along, has led to the multitude of inventions that have been applied to the front end of locomotives. Locomotives had been in use a long time before designers and master mechanics! recognised the importance from an economical standpoint of having the draft appliancea arranged in the manner most conducive to the economical use of fuel, the free working of the engine, and restriction of spark-throwing. No practical arrangement has yet been produced which would entirely prevent spark-throwing. We have aeen a few devicea that prevented spark-throwing, but they also prevented the engine from steaming freely enough to pull a train. . . . There have been hundreds of spark-arresting smoke-stacks patented, but the cone and netting, that both came on the suggestion of necessity and were not patented, were the most meritorious features of all of them. There were wonderful attachments added to perfect the work of the cone and netting, and their principal success was in obstructing the draft so that the nozzles had to be reduced to a ridiculous extent to force the fire-gases through the obstructions. This paper, Locomotive Engineering, is one of the recognised standards in the locomotive world. It has been published in New York for twelve years, and the number from which I quote is No. 12, volume 12, page 534 (December, 1899). The editor is a practical railway man of very wide experience. The American practice for many years was to use woven wire netting, which was proved to be less efficient than the perforated plate, and the perforated plate such as we use has lately been adopted in America and other countries as a more efficient appliance, and has practically superseded the netting. From the extract I have read, it will be seen that as late as December, 1899, the editor of an important scientific paper states that netting or perforated plate is still the most efficient appliance known in spark-arresting methods. That shows that we are not lagging behind in the matter of providing for contingencies. There are one or two things in connection with the case at Rakaia that I wish to say. Mr. James Ross Mackay, a witness who was a passenger by the express, said he saw black smoke and red-hot embers falling from the engine, funnel. Of course, that evidence is for you, Sir, to weigh and to come to a conclusion upon ; but I wish to submit for your consideration at the same time the probability of that witness having really observed with accuracy. Many people think they see things when perhaps if not trained to observe that particular phenomena their judgment or observation may unwittingly be faulty. It will also be within your recollection that the driver of the second engine said he saw a small fire just after the end of his tender passed it. He would be standing at the right-hand side and looking over the opposite end of his tender, the train being immediately behind the tender, the distance behind his tender that he would be able to see would be very limited. I have estimated it at, approximately, 100 ft. from where the alleged spark was ejected by the funnel of the leading engine to the spot where he would be able to see the fire on the ground. I may point out that at the speed at which the train would be travelling, assuming a spark to be ejected by the leading engine, the man would have had about four seconds during which the spark would have remained within his range of vision, after which the advancing train would shut off his view. In a north-west gale such a spark would be carried by the wind for a considerable distance and beyond the railway boundary, and would be unlikely to reach the ground within the time stated. Therefore, the theory based on the witness Mackay's statement that a particular spark from a particular engine set fire to the grass is untenable, because Ido not see how a spark could have landed there in that time. There was admittedly a heavy gale blowing, and a light spark would have been carried by the gale of wind considerably further. I state that without hesitation, because I feel sure that the spark must have been carried further than was suggested in the witness Mackay's evidence, assuming that there was a spark. The leading engine of the train was an engine that I have no hesitation in saying could not really throw a spark if it tried, under the conditions obtaining at that time. It was a compound engine, which means that the steam, after it has passed through one cylinder, is used over again in another. This reduces the pressure to such an extent that when it finally comes out through the funnel there is hardly any force in the steam at all. It comes out at such a very low velocity that, speaking with full knowledge of the subject, I say this engine practically could not throw sparks, because there is not a sufficient blast to lift even the lightest of them up with the gases. That engine, of all the engines in New Zealand, was the most unlikely in the railway service to lift sparks. The second engine was also fitted with the most up-to-date appliances, and obviously from the evidence it is not even suggested that the alleged spark was thrown from it. The evidence would suggest that it was from the leading engine, and altogether the possibility is so small that your Worship might dismiss it as beyond the range of practicability. I might also mention that for a good many years past we have reduced the force of the draft by enlarging or softening the blast, and therefore the liability to draw up particles of unconsumed fuel is still further reduced. That has been the practice throughout the colony; and the velocity with which the exhaust steam is rejected from the chimney has been much lower during the last ten years than previously. I might, in conclusion, say that the question of the absolute prevention of spark-throwing is the subject of experiment in other colonies. In Western Australia they are wrestling with the same problem of how to get an engine to steam efficiently and at the same time to absolutely prevent spark-throwing. Such a thing has not been wholly achieved yet in any part of the world. Very small sparks may under certain conditions be thrown. Those conditions exist when an engine is using its utmost power to pull a train up a grade, but when an engine is running light it is not using a tithe of the steam it would use on a heavy grade, and therefore its liability to throw sparks is reduced to a minimum. The evidence before your Worship at Hinds and Rakaia has been in regard to trains working on the level, or practically on the level, and where there has been no heavy pulling, and I contend that the conditions were such that the liability to throw sparks was reduced to the very lowest point. I might finally say that at the present time we are trying some fire-arresters in the South. They were submitted to the department, by some patentees who are very enthusiastic as to their merits. I mention that to show that the department is desirous, as it always has been, to investigate any

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