THE WESTINGHOUSE BRAKF.

Otago Witness, Issue 2397, 8 February 1900, Page 50

THE WESTINGHOUSE BRAKF.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON; January 31. In response to a cablegram, Mr John Nisbet, of Sydney, the representative for Australasia of the Westinghouse Brake Company, has come across to New Zealand to confer with the Government in view of the decision to equip the raihvav rolling stock of the colony with that world-famed brake. Mr Nisbet arrived here yesterday by the steamer Monowai after a very pleasant voyage. In an interview with your representative, Mr Nisbet gave some information as to the extent to which the Westinghouse brake is employed. He said it was the brake of North America and the Continent of Europe, and was on half the lines in Great Britain. The New South Wales rolling stock is completely equipped with it, and the Victorian and Queensland Governments are taking steps to. complete the equipment of their stock. The brake is also in use in South Australia. Tasmania and Western Australia are the only colonies of Australasia which use the vacuum brake. " So far as Western Australia is concerned," said Mr Nisbet, "we can afford to play awaiting game, because, as had been pointed out one of Sir John Forrest's conditions precedent to the acceptance of federation by his colony is a transcontinental railway, and we may put that fact alongside the fact that the Western Premier is urging the mail steame** companies to call at Fremantle. If the eastern colonies are going to consen^ to that they will want some compensation. That compensation is to be found in a transcontinental railway, and when a transcontinental railway approaches completion Western Australia will have to fall into line with her sister colonies and adopt the Westinghouse brake, so that with Western Australia it is simply a questions of waiting, and waiting will bring us the result which we desire. Only recently I had a communication from the company's general manager in London to the effect that the Russian Government has issued an Impeiial edict requiring that within a period of five "years from date all the rolling stock on all the railways within the Russian Empire must be fitted with the Westinghouse brake. To meet this very heavy demand the Westinghouse Company of London lias built and equipped very large works in St. Petersburg. The brake equipment for New Zealand will come from the London works. In regard to the Rakaia railA\ay accident, I may say that I have read the evidence taken at the inquiry before the commission. A good deal of stress was laid on the fact that the engine in question was equipped with the Westinghouse pump and. with ordinary »brake fittings, but neither George Westinghouse himself nor the English company which makes his brake would for one "moment dream of guaranteeing the efficiency of the Westinghouse brake in a case where the engine simply happened to be fitted with the Westinghouse pump. Before we agree that an equipment will give an absolute test of the efficiency of the brake we insist that the engine must be properly equipped and the whole train properly fitted. When that is done we guarantee absolutely to pull up a train on an emergency within its own length."