THE RAIL GAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 78, 1 April 1936, Page 9

THE RAIL GAR

.(8y,1.C.E.)

SUCCESS ELSEWHEKEi

TRANSPORT REVOLUTION

The enthusiasm displayed on several occasions by the new. Minister of Rail ways (Mr. Sullivan) for the rail' ca] is well justified by its success elsa where in the world. As a singli vehicle, self-propelled and self-con tamed, or in the form of special stream-lined trains, travelling at ova a mile a minute over long distances, il is quickly recovering for the railway the traffic lost to ■ similar oil tractiot on the road and for fast transport be tween given points on terra firma J is the next best time-saver to the aero plane. , In the world, of transpori there is room,; for each method—bj roadiby rail,' arid by air—but it needec the application of; the internal cpmbus tion engine, the victor.of the road anc the air, to the rail to restore thebal ance which had become sadly deflectet against the railway.

As .things- go, in the swift develop mentsof the times, the rail car. is no c new thing and New Zealand is abou the last country in the world tp_tak< it up. Over ten years ago rail cars) practically identical in all essential principles with the ; oil-electric trains in the United States and on the"Conj tinent of Europe which recently eclipl sed all previous.records for sustained speed, were plying, at a fraction of th« running costs of steam, between citie; on the Canadian National railways One double car set up new figures fol the transcontinental rail journey bj crossing between Montreal and Van! couver in 72 hours. These cars wer« still at work only a year or two agcj and may be still running today for anj reports to the contrary. The achieve! ments of the rail car in Canada • wer^' brought under the notice of the Gow ernment and the railway authorities ixj New Zealand as long ago as 1926,' bu( for some reason that has never, .beeij satisfactorily explained, nothing waj done then or later until the recent change in railway policy.

It is one of the romances of invert tion that the motor-car which gave th< Wright brothers the engine which enj abled them to make the first real 'flighi in human history should a generation later have the gift repaid with interest in the shape of a vastly-improved ent gine and the streamlining which ii characteristic of the modern car. Sims larly the rail car owes its original en* gine to the ill-fated airship B 10J which was the first aircraft to be. fitted with motors using heavy oil. Similai engines are now being used for th^ latest German Zeppelin, the Hinder^ burg, which is reported in the cables as making its first flight during th^ German elections. The engines of th^ pioneer Canadian rail cars were alj most an exact facsimile of those in| stalled on the R 101, but happily for*, tune'was kinder to them in their caO eer. Only Germany has made k sucj cess of the airship, but the bil-electria rail car in- its various forms1 ha^ spread all over the world from Argen< tina to the Arctic.

What the general adoption of oil* electric traction on the railways would mean is perhaps still a matter for conjecture. For passengerl transport d ■whole strain can be built'to weigh nd more than one of New Zealand's mon< ster:,K; locomotives, alone r apart from what-it hauis/and still vcarry as many people, say, as the-Limited ori> tha Main Trunk, at a speed which would easily enable a daylight run between Wellington and Auckland, arid at a working cost far below that of steam. Similarly there would be a tremendous saving in the capital cost of railways if they were built for rail car and rail car train traffic alone. Light railways' would suffice for featherweight trains, but then there is the problem of heavy goods traffic and the heavy locomotive necessary to haul it. ' . No matter what system of traction is used—full electric, oil-electric, or steam—the locomoi tive must be not only, powerful but heavy to provide adhesion on'the rails; This is the problem, railway engineer^ must solve before the full advantages of the rail car'system, can be secured.