RAILWAYS RESEARCH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22318, 16 January 1936, Page 6

RAILWAYS RESEARCH

LABORATORY 1\ ENGLAND NOVEL APPARATUS USED OPENED BY LORD RUTHERFORD [from our own correspondent] LONDON", Dec. 21 With <1 party of scientists. Lord Rutherford of Nelson travelled by special train to Derby to open a new research laboratory to house the numerous scientific research departments of the London. Midland and Scottish Railway Company. He performed the ceremony from the train, by pressing a button which caused the laboratory doors to be opened electrically. This laboratory is claimed to be the first of its kind in the world. The two-storev brick building is divided into a score of rooms on either side of a central corridor on each floor, all equipped with power apparatus and machinery. Besides the 1 laboratory block there is an engineering room and workshop block, with roof lighting. The building was designed by .Mr. H. J. Connal of the Chief Engineer's Department of the L.M.S. Sir Josiah Stamp said that in 1930 the company set up a permanent advisory committee, a body whose field of expert knowledge was indeed immense. The technical departments and officers of the company had since en* joyed the tremendous advantages of cooperation with this committee, and another outcome was the development of the new research department, designed on a more scientific basis and equipped to co-ordinate and centralise the excellent work previously carried on in a detached way in many places. New Ideal and Adaptation Lord Rutherford said that, as a firm believer in the power of science and scientific method in their application to industry,, he was convinced there was hardly a single unit of machinery, of layout, of material, or of organisation that could not be improved for its purpose by the application of patient scientific research. An essential ingredient in obtaining the best results therefrom would be found to be the development of mutual respect and understanding between the scientific man and the practical man. There was real danger that industries might tend to become more and more 1 automatic in their routine, wherein the introduction of a new idea and a new process, even a new material, might prove disturbing and even almost catastrophic in its effects. The study and adaptation of discoveries and inventions in a research department might prove especially helpful in preventing this tendency. Testing of Material The rooms include a chemical laboratory, a metallography room. a pyrometrv room, a corrosion laboratory, a constant temperature and humidity room, two engineering test rooms, and a workshop and metallurgical furnace room. There are testing laboratories for the investigation of textile materials and of paints and varnishes. The main function of the research laboratory is to test the qualities of the chief materials used by the railway, particularly every kind of metal and wood; paints and varnishes; and textiles. There is a machine which reproduces the effect of atpassenger getting up and sitting down on the carriage seat. A meter registers'the number of rubs it takes to wear out the upholstery. The L.M.S. spends about £750,000 a year on textiles,, and 8000 samples will be tested annually. Some are inserted in a machine which accurately reproduces the conditions of humidity, temperature and light met with ?n service. Another registers the resistance to repeated laundering. The durability of paint is tested in an apparatus which reproduces the British climate. Five weeks iu this device is equivalent to 12 months' exposure in the open air. Already experiments have enabled the number of coats of paint on carriages to be reduced from 17, occupying -'2 days, to eight, occupying 12 days.

Measuring "Jolts" on Train The "jolts" on a train are being studied, with a view to their elimination, by means of the .film. On the screen there is shown, in slow motion, a elose-up of every little side movement and "jolt" as the wheel travels over the rail. In the locomotive engineering shops there is a wind tunnel, too large for eraetion in the laboratory, where the effect of streamlining engines and roll-ing-stock can be studied and measured. Figures show that in actual practice just about three-quarters of the immense air resistance encountered by a train of one locomotive and six coaches travelling at 100 miles an hour, can be got rid of by streamlining the moving vehicles.