Struggle for Speed. NEW RAILS AND ENGINES FOR THE NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 5, 1 March 1906, Page 108

Struggle for Speed. NEW RAILS AND ENGINES FOR THE NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY.

The great engineering works at Crewe, the hub of the London and North- Western Railway system, are now m a ferment of activity. One cause of this is the recent decision of the company to relay the permanent way of their trunk lines with 95 R). bullheaded steel rails, the present 90ft) rails not being sufficiently strong to bear the largely increasing and faster traffic. The task is a gigantic one, as at least 400 miles of line, all double, and in many parts quadruple, has to be entirely relaid without the daily traffic being interrupted. It is not likely that the work will be actually taken in hand before the spring. Meantime the company's employees at Crewe have plenty of work before them m the rolling of their new rails. Another part of the renovation of this line, providing additional work at Crewe, is the changing of the type of locomotive. Mr. Whale, who succeeded Mr. Webb as chief mechanical engineer, is introducing, instead of the three and four cylinder compound engines, a less complicated but tremendously powerful locomotive adapted to the new conditions of traffic.