PAPER RAILWAY WHEELS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 319, 1 May 1877, Page 4

PAPER RAILWAY WHEELS.

The infinite variety of purposes to which paper is applied in the Empire of Japan has astonished all Europeans who have visited that country. They have literally found paper, paper everywhere, and in all shapes and forms. The Japanese, however, with all their ingenuity in this direction, would never have dreamt of making paper wheels for railway carriages. This, neverthelass, is being done in Sheffield. The paper wheels (says an "English journal) have steel tyres, made with an inside flage, and cast-iron boss. On each side of the boss and tyre, steel plates, 3*66 inch thick, are bolted, and the space between the plates is filled with compressed paper. The paper is composed of what are known as "straw boards," and these are made to adhere to each other by means of rye paste. The combined layers of paper are next subjected to hydraulic pressure to the extent of 2000 tons for the space of four or five hours, and then dried in a heated airbath. The final thickness of the prepared paper is about 3i inches, and, as may be imagined, the quantity of straw board packed into this concentrated space by the giant force of the hydraulic ram is something enormous. Still, a certain amount of elasticity remains to the substance, and this—in union with its homogeneity and singular smoothness of grain and texture —constitutes one of its highest qualifications for the duty it will presently have to perform. Lathes, side rests, and sharp are made to shape the compressed paper into the discs of the proper size, and under a pressure of 400 tons these are then*forced into the tyres. The ateel plates are subsequently bolted to the inner and peripheries of the wheels, and after a finishing touch in the latter, they are ready to be keyed on their axles and placed under the railway carnages. It is understood that experiments, both in America and in this country, have gone to prove the superiority of paper railway wheels over those of steel or wrought iron, and that the brake, how- '

ever suddenly and sharpy 'applied, does not injure them in the re&*t. The firm of John Brown and Co., Sheffield, are, we believe, the exclusive makers in England of the paper wheels, and several of the principal En«,li*h Railway Companies have given large orders for them.