SCIENCE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6261, 10 December 1881, Page 3

SCIENCE AND ART.

J A WRINKLE IX PERMANENT WAY. \ Notwithstanding that many hundreds of so-called improvements in permanent way have been patented since railways became general, the old form of a permanent way, consisting of a double-headed rail, cast iron chair, and wooden key, spiked or tre-nailed down to transverse timber sleepers, still obtains on the great majority of our lines. It is true that wrought iron sleeper systems are at last being tried on some of them, but this is only when our engineers find them largely coming into use on the Continent, particularly in Germany. We do not, however, propose a dissertation upon permanent 1 wa y generally, our intention only being to ■ place before our readers a very simple and practical improvement which has recently been effected in the ordinary permanent way of his line by the engineer of the Great Western Railway Company. This consists merely in reversing the chair and shifting the wood key from the outside to the inside of the rail. This rearrangement givc3 several points ot advantage, and in no way interferes with the working of the line, as the koys are clear of the flanges of the wheek of the vehicles. One of its chief advantages as regards the safety of trains is that, should a key work loo.se or even fall out, the gauge of the line is rigidly maintained under passing trains. Should, however, such an occurrence take place with the keys on the outside, the guage of the rails must necessarily bo widened to some extent during the passing of a train, thereby oonstituiinga source of danger. Then with regard to inspection, much time is saved to the platelayer in his examinations, as he need only walk once down each pair of rails instead of twice. Tins sensible arrangement is, we recently observed, being adopted on the Great Northern Railway, and we doubt not engineers of other lines will follow the practice as opportunity oilers.—lron.