IMPROVED RAILWAYS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 2, 28 September 1937, Page 9

IMPROVED RAILWAYS

Britain Relying On Steam Engines

"Dominion” Special—By Air Mall.

London, September 4.

In the opinion of Sir Nigel Greeley, famous builder of streamlined locomotives and chief mechanical engineer of the London and North-Eastern Railway, the full potentialities of steam in the service of railway transport have not yet been developed. The people of Great Britain have the advantage of the most intensive train service in the world. Moreover, the recent all-round, acceleration of a service in which an average of 55 trains a day pass along every mile of railway track has only been made possible by the triumphant advances in the construction of steam locomotives.

In the course of exhaustive experiments carried out by British engineers, it wa s found pint Diesel engines were unable to draw a sufficient number of coaches at high speeds. The new streamlined steam locomotives of the "Coronation" type give a similar speed with greater carrying capacity, and draw tin average of nine coaches where a Diesel engine would draw only two or three. A number of these now steam locomotives art 1 now in regular service in Great Britain, ami as a result, the time schedules have been lowered between the most important centres. The world record for the longest regular non-stop run is held by the Flying Scotsman, which makes the journey daily between London and Edinburgh— a distance of 392} miles—in seven hours.

In order to carry out more extensive tests on locomotives of every kind, including those which are being built for export, the world’s most up-to-date testing station is being constructed at Rugby, where engines will be tested on a roller bench at speeds up to 120 miles an hour.