The Speed of Express Trains

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 19, 9 May 1907, Page 14

The Speed of Express Trains

Owing to various reas#ns, but more especially to the adoption of the narrow-gauge system in this Colony, even our express trains do not travel at a rate wftiioh would *iause anxiety to the most timid. In the United States, where the saving of time is of the utmost importance, the maintenance of a high rate of speed between certain commercial centres is the rule. In Great Britain, where the peorle are inclined to take life easier than in the United States, thee has been a great acceleration in the rate of speed of express trains of recent yeairs, this being due mainly to the competition of rival companies for passenger traffic. On the Continent, especially in France, there is some very fast travelling. Very soon Orleans Railway Company will have a wonderful new locomotive running so>uth of Bordeaux. Paris to Bordeaux at present takes seven hours to accomplish.. The new engine will knock two hours off that time ; for speed trials have shown that it can- maintain an average of seventy-five miles an hour. To literally keep pace with the times railway companies are always building new types of locomotives. And when a promising fresh-comer, like the Orleans flier, is finished, it is taken out when there is little traffic on some length of ' road ' and given a speed trial, or ' run against the clock,' to see wbat it can do. Speed t'ials of railway trains are carried out in two ways. There are various mechanical speed recorders, which, generally actuated by the whirling wheels of the engine, indicate the pace attained by means of a hand moving on a dial,, much after the same fashion as cyclometers indicate distance travelled,- and just as the speed indicators of cycles or motor-cars work. The Most Accurate and Useful Results, however, are. those obtained by human timekeepers travelling on the train. The timekeeper has with him a shorthand clerk to note the intermediate times as the mile-posts and distance-posts fly by. These, with the ■"train going at high speed, require to be looked out for very carefully. The expert uses, perhaps, three stopwaMies and an ordinary watoh ; and by stopping one watch and starting another at each quarter-mile— the assistant immediately iotting down the figures— times for all parts of the run, up-grade and down-grade, are obtained. The watch itself gives the time for the entire run, which, if n 0 mistake has been made will, of course, be the exact total of all the figures the assistant has entered in his note-took. ' The fastest train in the world ' is always toeing claimed by some country or other—m ost ~bften America not so very often Great Britain. The reason for this is simple. British railway companies care little or nothing about the ' sentimental ' aspect of the case To hold the ' world's record ' will not bring them any" more passengers ; railroad-racing is expensive work, especially

in ' wear and tear.' ' Therefore the title is left to those whq care to claim it, and a British railroad tace, against time only occurs when a rival company bjas to • be, beaten in the journey to some jtoint that two or more companies serve. Then, naturally enouigh, ' world's record ' may be beaten ; but it is not what the competing trains were primarily ' out ' for. With the United States the case is quite "different. To hold the record is the deadest wish of many of the great companies there ; and large sums are. spenit in attempts ' to regain or impro\e it. The Driver of the ,' Record Express ' is a hero in the railway world ; maybe he earns substantial sums for ' fastes^t, trips!.' Between two 'crack' drivers keen rivalry" existed. On two conseoutivie days last year they, with different engines, 'by authority ' had a ' cut at One man had a square meal before entering his "cab,' to avx>id wasting time in feeding whilst driving. ' I didn't,' said the other * man, who won; .' I got on board hungry, and I guess I thought less of risks than of half a duck and-green peas getting cold at the other end.' However carefully express locomotives may- be constructed, their speed trails may bring to :lir;ht defects, usually minor ones, that exist in therm. "With what minuteness details are adjusted may be judged from the fact that, in some instances, hollow ' pockets ' tire left in the balanceiweights of the wheels. If the time trial shows that the engine is slowed because its drivingigea-r is not properly ' balanced,' melted leaJd is poured into the * pockets ' until correct running is arrived at. Up-to-date in all things, Japan holds time trials of he", mostly irr.-ported, locomotives. The standard gauge of line in Japan is 3ft 6in, against the British 4ft bgin ; but even on so narrow a track good speeds are obtained, The watch* has shown that Japan's speediest locomotives are those of British build. Unrehearsed Speed Trials. not infrequently, take place when trains are coming, dofwn the tremendous slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Tfce brakes muy fail to hold the train, and smcli runaways are regularly watched for by pointsmen, who switch them aside into long sidings built to run steeply uphill and which soon, safely put an end to the unauthorised ' record-making.' In considering the question of timinc the speed trials ofi railway trains it should (says an' exchange* be borne in mind that, according to whether the road goes up or down, the pace during the run varies. Looking at the times taken of British expresses we find on some parts of journeys done at an average of fifty-five to sixty-five miles an hour a maximum speed of eighty to eighty-six miles an hour is accomplished. The watch shows that, for comparatively short lengths the express on its time trial, may leap down declines at ninety miles an hour ; a hundred miles is not unknown. Those may be mere '.spurts,' but official time trials prove that several British trains have done eighty miles an hour, and over, for more than a dozen miles