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these might be called exceptionally stoop gradients; but, after all, what has steep gradients to do with the designs or peculiarities of an engine ? Why, nothing, except where steep gradients are found there also are found sharp curves ; they are the "stumbling-blocks" in the way of the locomotive engineer; they are the features that have called for so many devices and ingenious inventions known and used by the engine-builders of the States, and it is because we have so many sharp curves that these inventions spring into existence here more than in any other country. I supposed that everybody knew that steep gradients and sharp curves wore very common railway features on all tho mountain railways in the States. Gradients of lin 40 and lin 50, and curves of 400 and 500 feet radius, are to be found all over the States; and I have this very afternoon ridden over curves of 90 feet radius in the elevated steam railways of this city. This Mr. Colburn was the editor of Engineering , and was considered in England the cleverest writer on mechanical matters of his day. When ho was asked to write the paper above alluded to, he asked me to give him some data. I wrote him a long document, and gave him piles of data ; but he did not introduce it in his paper. He contented himself with saying that " the difference between American and English engines was more a matter of costume and toilette than of vital principles of construction." No man living know better than Mr. Colburn that the main differences were far from being merely a matter of toilette. I had told him that he would not dare to put in his paper the data I gave him, as his " bread and butter " were at that time dependent on his keeping on good terms with all his English patrons. Let us look through this paper of Mr. Colburn's and see if we can find anything worthy of reflection by a professional man. Mr. Colburn says he was employed by the General Manager of the Erie Eailway to run an experimental train over tho entire line of that railway (a distance of 000 miles, going and returning), to determine the relative engine-power required on each division. This was in 1855. I hope Mr. Maxwell will not consider this so far back in the " dark ages "of railway work as to be of no use to a professional man. The record, as Mr. Colburn gives it, is as follows: The engine had 4 coupled wheels of 5 feet diameter and a bogie. Weight in working time, 2950 tons ; 1790 tons on driving wheels ; outside cylinders, 17 x 24 inches ; valves set to blow off at 130 pounds ; fire surfaces, 1038 square feet; the tender loaded weighed 18 50 tons. The train consisted of 100 American 8-wheeled wagons loaded with deals; weight of each wagon loaded, 1540 tons ; weight of total train, 1,572 tons; each wagon was on two bogies, having 4 cast chilled wheels of 30 inches diameter in each bogie; journals of axles inside, 3'BB inches diameter and 8 inches long, running in oil-tight boxes. This train was a few feet more than half a mile long. It was run on a gradient of lin 880, for 4 miles, at a speed of 5 miles an hour, a stop being made in tho gradient, and the train started again with no aid from momentum. This same train was run for 5 miles on a dead level over curves of 957 feet radius at 970 miles an hour. The train being reduced to SO 8-wheeled wagons, 514 tons in all, mounted a gradient of 1 in 11750 at a speed of 1025 miles an hour. Allowing for resistances due to gravity, and also to concussions and frictions of engine and train, the coefficient of adhesion must have been one-third of the weight on driving wheels. These results wore obtained under the disadvantages of 6-feet gauge, small wheels, and large inside journals. Now, if Mr. Maxwell will produce equal results in proportion to weight on driving wheels as the foregoing, made by any English or European engine be ever saw or heard of, at that time or any time since, I pledge myself to give 100 guineas to any charity he may name. Mr. Colburn says in his paper that wrought-iron wheels, at first exclusively used on the Grand Trunk Eailway in Canada, have been wholly abandoned, and cast-iron substituted ; that they are much cheaper, more durable, and equally safe, and that the safety and economy of cast-chilled wheels entitle them to the best consideration of English engineers. Again, lie says that Sir Edward Wai kin, when in Canada as Controller of tho Grand Trunk Eailway, in the winter of 18(51-G2, had all the 6-wheelcd tenders changed to double bogies, and to this change was attributed a great diminution in the breakage of rails during that unusually severe period; and yet, in the face of such evidence and piles more of the same kind that can be produced, the Messrs. Neilson and Co., the most liberal, clever, and progressive engine builders in tho United Kingdom, after having said in their letter to Messrs. Hemans, Ealkiner, and Tancred that the American type of engine is belter adapted for railways as now constructed than the engine used in England, go on to tell us that it is needless for them to attempt to persuade their locomotive superintendent to adopt even a modification of the American type, as there would be a vast amount of prejudice to overcome. This is tho most open but damaging confession that I hare heard of yet. I had heard of the tyranny of the men in the shops (for a short time since the men in one of the largest shops in England refused to let a " quartering machine" —an American tool for the cheapening and doing work more quickly and accurately —come in the shops), but I had never hoard before of a clever firm of leading engineers bowing down meekly to the imperial edicts of their superintendent. Sticking to routine, sticking to old and antiquated ways of doing things, while a good portion of the world are enjoying the economy and beneficial results of improvements, is more than I can understand. Using crank-axles and inside connections, keying wheels on axles, using grease-boxes instead of oil-tight boxes, putting a heavy cone on the "tread" of wheels, using double-headed rails in cast-iron chairs, and a lot more of absurdities, which have been proved to be errors and discarded by Americans long years ago, looks as if the railway engineers in England were satisfied with what they had, and content to rest on their laurels for ever and ever more in a Chinese-like conservatism. In 1852 Mr. MeConnell had a set of 6 American oil-tight axle-boxes tried on tender of engine No. 182 of the London and North-Western Eailway. A set of English grease-boxes were tried at the same time on a similar tender. The engines were put to do the most trying work— running express trains at the highest speed, and ballasting. And, after running G,OOO miles in four months, they were examined. No oil had been added to the American boxes since the first day. The report (see Proceedings of Institution of Mechanical Engineers at Birmingham, 27th October, 1852), says, "The journals and brakes of the tender No. 182 are, at the end of four months, as perfect as when new. There was enough oil in the boxes to run 3,000 to 4,000 miles more. A great advantage is found that the great wear, endways, does not take place on tho brasses as in the ordinary boxes using grease or tallow r. The difference in saving of castings by the use of the American boxes is 176 pounds in a set of six. The American boxes cost for oil, waste, and leather, ljcl. a day ; while the other set cost 9d. a day, or a saving for the former of 7Jd. a day on a set of 6 boxes. This is all independent of saving in friction, labour in constant attendance on grease-boxes, delays at stations occasioned by hot journals, &o.; and yet, to this day, after these boxes were tried and vouched for by such a man as Mr. MeConnell, they have never been adopted in England. Comment on this and similar matters in railway economy is not necessary. Such action is to me abominable, and it is a shame that railway interests should be sacrificed merely through a prejudice against the adoption of anything that was called American, even when it was really not American in its origin, as in the ease of the bogie, for this swivelling truck took its name from a two-wheeled vehicle used in the streets of Newcastle. And Mr. Robert Stephenson told me that he proposed that device of the bogie to Mr. Robert L. Stevens, when he was building the Camden and Amboy Eailway, in 1830, as a proper means for traversing curves. A gentleman in London told me, not a great while since, that they had tried, on the Metropolitan Eailway, every manner of device to facilitate running their long cars around the curves, so as to get rid of using the bogie, simply because it was known as the American system. Here is prejudice for you—clean, clear, and unadulterated ; unmitigated and unfathomable. It has been maintained many times in England that great speed cannot be hatl with the bogie without great danger of accident, and yet tliese very obstructors on the track of railway economy must be most abominably ignorant if they have never seen or heard of great speed having been run many times on roads in the L Tnited States, Canada, and Russia with trains using bogies, and over tracks where the four-wheeled English cars would be sure to leave the road. Now, if tho bogie carriages can be run with safety and certainty over our so-called "miserable tracks," is there any mechanical or scientific reason why they cannot be run with the same safety, certainty, and economy over the much-lauded perfect tracks of all England ? The fast train that was run from New York to San Francisco in June, 187G, presented some features that were worthy of notice by the professional man. This train was made up of 3 long, heavy cars, each resting on two bogies, having cast-chilled wheels. The same cars were run through the tohole distance of 3,317 miles, the time being 83 hours 27 minutes, including stops. This is very close to forty miles an hour, and has never been approached by any other railway run ever made. The run from New York to Pittsburgh was made (in the night chiefly) for the whole distance of 439J miles without a stop, and at an average speed of 43J miles an hour. In this distance the train passed over the Alleghany Mountains, attaining an elevation of 2,154 feet above the tide, over a tortuous track having many sharp curves under 1,000 feet radius, and gradients up the mountain side of lin 55. This division was run at a speed of 42 miles an hour. The engine, No. 573, that runs this route was one of the ordinary engines of the Pennsylvania Eailway. It had 4 coupled wheels of 60 inches diameter, with cylinders of 17 in. x 24 in. ; total weight, 33"17 tona.