TINY TRAINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 235, 4 October 1937, Page 5

TINY TRAINS.

WELL BELOW GROUND. LETTERS AND PARCELS. . MOST UNUSUAL RAILWAY. (Bj Telegraph.—Special to " Star.") WELLINGTON, this day. Details of the working of the world's most unusual railway, the London Post Office line, which was reported last week to have just completed its first decade, are given by Mr. E. R. Ericson, a former British Post Office official who is visiting New Zealand.

"The railway is scarcely known by Londoners', strange to say," declared Mr. Ericson to-day. "It is six and a half miles long, and operates between Paddington station and Whitechapel. Its cost was £1,750,000, and as a matter of fact I think the statement that the railway has been operating for ten years was a little premature. I think it did not go into service until shortly before Christmas, 1927.

"The railway, of course, is operated without any drivers. The tiny trains carry letters and parcels between eight stations, the deepest of which is 90ft below the road surface, and each of which is beneath a post office save one —the Liverpool Street station which connects with an important railway. Lifts and spiral chutes serve the stations, in addition to conveyers and elevators for bags.

"The trains run over a 2ft track, which is duplicated throughout its length and runs into separate tunnels at the station approaches. At the stations there are four tracks, two to let the traffic through, 4he others for the trains which will stop. Trains are of cither one or two cars about 30ft long and carry four mail-bag containers, which can be taken off and placed on the platforms.

"The method of operation in ingenious. The trains' brakes are released only when the section of track on which

they stand is fed with current. As soon as the train enters a section where the current is not applied it immediately brakes iteelf. Control of the trains for about 100 yards outside the stations is in the hands of switchmen who sit in special compartments and turn on the current to dispatch the 'post office special.' The trains are pulled up by a simple arrangement. As they approach the station where they have to stop they enter a short section of 'dead' rails with a slight up-grade, which is calculated so that they will come to rest at the station.

"Every train comes to rest just outside a station unless it happens to be running on the through track, and it is possible to bring train after train into a station at a speed of about eight miles an hour. Thus there is human control of the trains only within a short distance of the station.

"Once the trains pull in the stations are a scene of feverish activity. Every care has been taken to reduce handling and so maintain a high-speed service. The containers on the trains, each with a collapsible bottom, are taken into lifts where they are opened and their contents shot on to automatic conveyers which take them up to the world above. Much time is saved by the use of dif-ferent-coloured labels for each station."