Speeding Up

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 52, 11 July 1930, Page 34

Speeding Up

=e Electricity in Rail Services [t is now possible to coal engines in 90 seconds by ‘pressing a button; give trains a shower bath and clean a coach in 90 seconds; clean out engine boilers in half an hour by electrical machinery, instead of 10 hours; repair heavy engines in 47 hours instead of two and a half months, as formerly; make a new twelve-ton truck in 25 minutes, and seven new coaches in a week. jhe London and North-Hastern Railway, for instance, has installed a new system of coaling engines, which, by the mere pressure of an electric butten feeds a tender with five to six tons of coal in 90 seconds. Six months ago it took 80 ‘minutes to load the same amount of fuel. Eleven thousand tons of coal fuel are now being handled every week by machinery at our chief centres, a London and North-Wastern Railway official told a "Sunday Express" representative. One man can load a tender, regis. ter the tonnage, the time taken, and the number of the engine by one movement of his forefinger. Then there are the shower baths. The Flying Scotsman, after the long jour- ney along the east coast route, is now cleaned at the rate of a coach every 90 séconds. This is made possible by the installation of a simple system of whirling rags and a high pressure spray of water. The train is drawn through a "guard of honour" of rotating wet rags at a speed of a mile and a half an hour, and finally given a drenching spray of clean water. It is made spick and span without one touch of the human hand.