1882.] on the Malcing and Working of a Channel Tunnel. 137 



The first of these is the fireless locomotive ; which, as you pro- 

 bably are aware, is driven by the stored-up energy in the very 

 highly heated water, under considerable pressure, with which a 

 vessel representing a boiler is charged. These locomotives have 

 been used to a slight extent upon tramways, but none yet constructed 

 contain an adequate store of energy for the passage of a Channel 

 tunnel. 



As improved by Dr. Siemens, however, it is not by any means 

 clear that they could not suf&ce for that purpose — his proposition 

 being, that in addition to the energy stored up in the heated water, 

 there should be another store in the form of heated fire-brick disj)0sed 

 as in the regenerator for one of his furnaces, and that, in this way, 

 heat should be communicated to the water during the whole passage 

 of the train. 



I am by no means prej)ared to say that an engine thus fitted 

 could not successfully make the passage of the tunnel, and if it could, 

 the only way in which it would affect the air in it would be, that the 

 escape steam from the engine would issue into the atmosphere of 

 the tunnel, and by its condensation would keep that air moist. It 

 is true this objection might be got over by carrying a considerable 

 weight of cold water in the train to condense the steam, or by a 

 surface condenser cooled by currents of air. 



The next mode of moving the trains I have suggested is that of 

 ropes. These, as you know, were worked on the Blackwall Eailway 

 for very many years and with a certain amount of success, but if 

 there were separate ropes to each roadway, as there were to the 

 Blackwall Railway, stopping and starting for each train, it would not 

 be possible to have more than one train in each roadway at a time, 

 and I trust the Channel tunnel traffic will be far larger than would 

 be consistent with that state of things. And if on the other hand an 

 endless rope were used, up the one roadway and down the other (each 

 rope of course might be divided into sections driven from engines at 

 each end), then although any number of trains could be running at any 

 one time in each roadway, the whole traffic of the tunnel would be 

 stopped on both roads if one of these ropes were to break. I am 

 inclined, therefore, to think this system, although free from sinning 

 against the purity of the air, should not be accepted. 



I now come to the electric mode of moving trains. Such a mode 

 is free from any objection as regards vitiating the air. It neither 

 consumes it, nor does it generate carbonic acid, or carbonic oxide, nor 

 does it deliver steam. Looking at the advance that has been made in 

 the applications of electricity to industry, and among these applica- 

 tions to the instances wherein electricity has been employed for the 

 propulsion of tramcars and railway trains, he would be a bold man 

 who ventured to predict that in the course of the next two or three 

 years electricity may not be thoroughly well established as a pro- 

 pelling agent for trains. 



Indeed, there is this Session before Parliament a Bill, which has, 

 I believe, passed the House of Commons, for the establishment of 



