POSSIBLE REVOLUTION IN RAIL TRANSPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 17, 20 January 1934, Page 21

POSSIBLE REVOLUTION IN RAIL TRANSPORT

) Magnificent trains, like/the Flying Scotsman, are doomed. In their place, American railway experts fpi'edkt, will porno aluminium expresses-with & speed of HO miles «Ji hour' (writes ■'the New York correspondent of the "Daily Mail"). ; Their three carriages/ hu-ut'lotisly fitted, weigh only eight tions, the shine as one* sleeping Pullman fof today. Railway experts, who have watched the rim-1 ning of these new streamlined motordriven coaches, «ay that In the very near future all the present equipment will be mere junk m only for the scrap heap. ■ Only gojetls trains, they say, will continue to bejnauled by heavy locomotives. ,'■ / , ; This dream of an. astonishing.. new era in railway transportation is foreseen by American as coming true as early as next spring when the first of the aliuminium ti'niiis ordered is to be running on the TJnioti Pacific Kaihvay. ,', . A second train -aWuMci' Construction is scheduled to run between Chicago-.and hfla. Angeles. "■ The other great American companies, it is argued, must follow sttftjin the gr«at compete

tion for passengers. On the Great Western, system in England a new streamlined motor-pro-pelled conch is now "iii service, and a coach with a Biosol engine is being tried on the L.N.E.B; . ■■..

What railwayman are talking about today is the skirting of a revolution which must change every aspect of modern train travelling. All engine' drivers must learn to become motordrivers, and stokers willfno longer be Wanted. Sleeping coaches, : too, it is thotaght, will bo diminished in number owing to the high speed of these racers on rails, and great expensive din-ing-cars are likely to be discarded. People, it is argued, no longer want heavy meals in trains. A glass of beer and 'a- salad sandwich, is more to the taste'of travellers today.

This is,what.they say'is due for th6j rubbish heap: 50,000 passenger coaches representing .an investment of £300,000,000; 4000 dining-cars which cost £ 40,000,000 ■ thousands of engines, 6ach of which cost £15,000: The Bteap 6st- ei'ft of railway equipment building Is foreshadowed as & certainty beginning in New Xork. . *~ - • -'.