RAILWAY ENGINES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3383, 18 July 1927, Page 8

RAILWAY ENGINES.

In the year 1825, between the historic towns of Stockton and Darlington, George ■ Lephenson drove his engine Locomotion at 10, and occasionally at 15, miles an hour. It drew a load of some 90 tons distributed in as many ns 40 vehicles. The other day a new expressi engine which the Southern Railway has built, hauled 16 corridor coaches, weighing 521 tons, from Waterloo to Exeter, about 172 miles, in 193 minutes. For more than eight consecutive miles the speed was higher than 85 miles an hour. We have made some progress, in a century (says the London “Daily Telegraph”). That engine of George Stephenson’s did not much .surpass the speed of the mail coach. The Telegraph coach covered the 186 miles between London and Manchester in 184 hours. On all the great high roads a traveller, if he was not afraid of the dashing methods of such artists as Harry Douglas or Joe Wall, could reckon upon an average of 10 miles an hour day apd night. What startled people in the performance of the Locomotion was the load it drew. Coal in Darlington promptly fell by 10s a ton. We fear that the people of the West Country must expect no such immediate benefit from the work of the Southern Railway’s Lord Nelson. George Stephenson prophesied that there was a good time coming, when it would be cheaper for a man to go by railway than to walk; that every coach would be driven off the road; and that trains would be the only way of travelling for the King and all the Commons. He was justified. What he did not foresee was_ the invention of another kind of engine which would, before the. first century of the railways was out, send people and good? back to the high roads again. Rut it does not become us who enjoy a material civili nation, built up by railway transport, to belittle the work 'of George Stephenson He was, of course, fortunate in bis mom ent. Steam power bad been prepared for him, and the usie of the metal wheel or the rail. It remains true that he worked out the first great improvement on transport since the horse was trained as_ a draught animal. The unknown genius who invented the wheel, that still earliei master who first tamed a horse, may have had more original minds. Posterity, which seems likely to value speed ever Tiore than wo do, will remember that tin human race was thousands or hundreds c 1 thousands of years old before a man wn? found to deny that the pace of n horsi must be” the limit for men. The railway engine soon surpassed the speed of tin Locomotion. Before 1850 considerable di? tances were being run at more than G miles an hour start to stop. Upon solid earth there is not much to beat tba' to-day. The railway traveller account? himself fortunate if over long journeys hi train keeps above an average oi 50 mile? an hour. Standards of speed are. in gen end, no higher than they were 20 or cf years ago. What the traveller has gained is comfort. Running was never so_ smooth the amenities offered by the train neve’ so many as they now five. We do not haw a chance in these days of assisting at such a race as the East and West Coast coin panics ran to the in the nineties when the 500 miles to Aberdeen wen covered at more than 63 miles an But then there were only 80 tons bellinc the tender. About the same time lb-, New York Central Railway claimed a re cord of 112.5 miles an hour. They say tba< in Germany a light engine has traveller 80 miles an hour, start to stop. There n an English record of more than 102 mile an hour on a down grade. But that wa with a train of less than 150 tons. Th modern express has to haul more that twice as much. The Lord Nelson when sir ran at 85 miles an hour was hauling mor. than thrice that weight. Her work 01 the level and up-hill with 521 tons raa suggest that the limit to the length o trains and the luxury inside them has no been reached yet. In spite of all its rival? in the air and on the roads and clectnc.t? upon its own rails, the day of the steam locomotive is not yet to end.