ENGINE-BUILDING.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5557, 7 April 1905, Page 6

ENGINE-BUILDING.

A NEW TYPE FOR THE COLONY. GOVERNMENT ENTERPRISE. In replying to the toast of “The Government Railway service/' at the complimentary dinner tendered to Mr r. A. Peterkin, at Godber’s rooms on Tuesday evening, Mr A. L. Beattie (Chief Mechanical Engineer) referred in very high terms to the engines that were being turneid out for the Government by Messrs Price Bros,, of the Thames, stating that the workmanship was quite equal to that of any imported engines. Of tho ten engines ordered from the firm seven had been delivered. Tho remaining three will be handed over to the department in July. A work of some importance is now being carried out in tho Government workshops at Addington (Christchurch), where four express locomotives of a type altogether new to the Australasian colonies—indeed, to the Southern Hemisphere—are being constructed. These engines are an adaptation of the Bosquetde Glebn balance compound locomotives, so successfully and largely used on the Continental railways. Tho Great Western Railway Company has recently introduced this type of engine, with equal success, on its lines, and a number of the locomotives are also in use and under construction in the United States. Those now in course of construction at Addington will have two high-pressure cylinders (12in in diameter with a 22-in stroke), and two low-pressure cylinders (19in in diameter, with a 22in stroke). The working pressure of the boilers will be 2251 b. The engines, when in working trim, will weigh about seventy-two tons (inclusive of tender), and will be capable of running a heavy express train at a speed of forty-five miles an hour on the level. They will be used over the line between Christchurch and, Invercargill. The'whole of the construction,- including tho preparation of the plans, is being executed by the staff of the Railway Department. The invention of tho new system of compounding engines is the joint work of M. du Bousquet, a Frenchman, and Alfred G. de Glehn, a German, and it is written down by "Page's Magazine" as "the moat efficient of any compounding system yet tried in a locomotive.’' "La France,” one of the new type, in use on the Great Western Railway Company’s tracks in England, recently accomplished a brilliant feat. Starting from Exeter with a load of twelve of the largest corridor-bogies, one being a diner, the whole weight behind the tender, including passengers, staff, luggage, and stores, being nearly 330 tons, ‘‘La France” ran 751 miles to Temple Meads Station, Bristol, in 72J minutes, thus averaging 62.5 miles per hour. The train had to face a twenty-mile climb at the start. This sort of work, says "Page's,” speaks for itself and proclaims its own merit. Continuing, the magazine says the performance did not end there, for. with the same load, the engine covered 1181 miles between Bristol and London in 118 minutes. One of the new type of engines to be introduced into New Zealand was on exhibition at the St. Louis Exposition.