LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7559, 11 February 1886, Page 7

LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERING.

« The locomotive trade of the country during ISSS (says the Glasgow Herald of December [ •JO) has not been in so satisfactory a condition lus it was in ISS4. With the exception of | Messrs. Neilson and Co., of Glasgow, all the iirms engaged throughout England and Scotland as locomotive builders have been obliged to reduce to a consi* } derablo extent the number of men em- | ployed; and tho end of the year finds most of the works comparatively short of orders. This tailing otf 13 largely due to the ' prevailing depression of general trade, but is mainly due to the lull which has taken place in the construction and extension of railways abroad and in the colonies. Messrs. JNeilson and Co. have baen kept largely employed in connection with the Indian I frontier railways, they having had at one [ time during ISSS no less a number than 120 ' engines entrusted to them by the Government for the new railway to Quetta and Piahin, a large portion of which has still to bo delivered, feuding the construction of these engines, the same firm despatched in the beginning of the year 30 engines of a lighter class for temporary service on the same line and to assist in its construction. The other Indian rail* ways to which Messrs. Neilson and Co. have supplied engines during the year are the Bengal and North Western, the Southern Mahratta, the Great Indian Peninsula, and the Mysore State Railways. Their South American business has consisted of engines for Brazil and the Argentine Republic. To homo railways they have delivered 44 engines, mostly for the London and Southwestern Railway. Messrs. Neilson and Co, have employed during the year 2500 men, and their output for the year is 206 engines, and in both cases the figures are considerably in excess of any other firm in the country, and have never been equalled by any of their competitors in the history of the locomotive trade of this country. A very determined attack has been made, and is still being made, by the Americans upon the colonial markets of our locomotive builders. The system adopted, however, is not conducted on lines that are entitled to secure success, and, it is believed, will result in a complete failure to secure even the slightest hold upon those markets. They adopt the syetem of publishing condemnatory statements regarding British-made engines, emanating from apparently impartial men in no way interested in the trade of either country, but who are well known to the locomotive firms in this country and to many others to be paid agents for and acting directly in the interest of American firms. They also publish gross exaggerations of the performances of the American type of engine. When it is remembered that in the. case of new railways the promoters and contractors, who are frequently the same individuals, generally supply the first equipment of the line, and that their interest in the concern endß where the company's begins, it will readily be understood that the Americans, with their cheaper specification, which provides for iron or steel, where in this country copper aud brass only are used, and cast-iron in many important parts where forged-iron is used here—are occasionally able to pull off an order from buyers of this class. But when the companies who succeed to these engines go into the market for an additional supply it is becoming more and more the rule, so far as South America at all events is concerned, for them to place their orders in this country for engines more of the British type and to the usual British specification. Recently the secretary of a South American railway company, which had an original stock of American engines and two British engines of Messrs. Neilson and Co.'s make, stated that their experience of American engines had been a very sad one—so sad, indeed, that in future his Board had determined never to order an engine from other than a British maker. This statement is worth more as a guide to colonial purchasers than whole volumes of the American puffing which has been so profusely spread over the entire Press of the world during the last twelve months. In connection with American competition it may be as well to add that British makers are quite able to produce the American type of engine, and that our two local firms have secured contracts for such in competition with American makers, notwithstanding that the delivery had to bo made on the other side of the Atlantic. Of course this could not have been done if delivery had had to be made in the United States itself, as, in order to protect their own makers from being cut out by British com g petitors, they have to impose a prohibitive import duty on locomotives.