KAILWAYS 



559 



ordinary vehicles of the country. On all the lines 

 built by George Stephenson, and most of the other 

 leading engineers in the United Kingdom, this 4 

 feet 84 inches gauge was adopted ; but in 1838 

 Brunei, in his desire to secure double the attained 

 speed and capacity of the then constructed rail- 

 ways, determined upon a 7-feet gauge for the 

 Great Western Railway. This brought about the 

 now historic battle of the broad and narrow gauges. 

 The Eastern Counties ( the present Great Eastern ), 

 opened for traffic in 1843, had a 5-feet way, the 

 Caledonian 5 feet 6 inches, and in Ireland there 

 were 5 feet 2 inches and 6-feet gauges. So long as 

 lines of different gauges serving separate districts 

 did not come into contact the inconvenience of 

 breaks of gauge were not felt, but when the broad 

 and narrow gauges met at Gloucester in 1845, and 

 at other points later on, the evil effects were soon 

 felt. Goods and passengers had to be transferred 

 from the one set of carriages to the other, and no 

 through services were possible until at a later 

 period the Great Western laid a third rail to 

 accommodate the narrow-gauge trains. So serious 

 became the difficulties which arose through the 

 breaks of gauge that in 1845 a commission was 

 appointed ; it reported in favour of the narrow 

 gauge, and in August 1846 an act was passed 

 enacting that thereafter it should not be lawful 

 to construct any railway for the conveyance of 

 passengers on any pauge other than 4 feet 8J 

 inches for Great Britain and 5 feet 3 inches for 

 Ireland. It was, however, provided that railways 

 constructed before the passing of the act on any 

 other gauge should be allowed to maintain their 

 independence. The Great Western, therefore, con- 

 tinued to maintain its broad gauge, and as late as 

 1867 there were 1456 miles of line on this system, 

 having junctions at twenty-six points with the 

 narrow gauge. In 1869, however, the directors of 

 the Great Western realised the disadvantages of 

 their isolation ; the narrow gauge has been gradu- 

 ally adopted on the system, and the date fixed for 

 the final disappearance of the broad gauge was the 

 20th May 1892. Parliamentary sanction has, how- 

 ever, been given to various exceptionally narrow 

 gauge lines. In most European countries the gauge 

 adopted has been about the same as the British 

 standard, with the exception of Spain and Russia, 

 where the gauge is somewhat wider. 



Accidents. The number of persons killed on 

 the railways of the United Kingdom in 1890 

 was 1076, and injured 4721. Of those killed 118, 

 and of the injured 1361, were passengers; but 

 of the fatal accidents only 18, and of the injuries 

 496 were due to causes beyond the control of the 

 passengers viz. accidents to trains the others 

 arising from various causes, especially want of 

 caution on the part of individuals themselves. 

 Taking the number of passenger journeys, exclusive 

 of those of season-ticket holders, at 817,744,046, the 

 proportion of passengers returned as killed by acci- 

 dents beyond their own control was one in 45,430,224, 

 and of injured one in 1,648,677. In the case of rail- 

 way servants 12 were killed and 147 injured by 

 train accidents, and 487 killed and 2975 injured by 

 other accidents. The number of persons employed 

 on the railways of the United Kingdom is estimated 

 at 346,426, so that one in every 694 was killed 

 and on.; in 1 1 1 injured by train and other accidents. 

 These are very high proportions, but it in only fair 

 to the managers to say that every precaution is 

 taken to secure the safety of employes. Too often, 

 however, salutary regulations are broken anil 

 mechanical appliances for their protection neglected 

 by the men themselves. The proportion of deaths 

 and injuries has moreover steadily declined of late 

 years. It having been suggested that many acci- 

 dents were due to men working overtime, railway 



companies have now to make periodical returns as 

 to the hours of labour on their systems. 



Speed. Mr Worsdell, the locomotive engineer 

 of the North-Eastern Railway, with a powerful 

 engine and a moderately heavy train attained on 

 one occasion a speed of 86 miles an hour. On the 

 Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in the United 

 States in August 1891 a distance of about 3 

 miles was run at a rate of 90 miles an hour. Mr 

 Stroudley, engineer of the Brighton line, said 

 that a light engine could easily attain 100 miles an 

 hour. The actual running-time of trains is of course 

 considerably below such limits. The fastest speed 

 in ordinary service and the largest proportion of 

 high-speed trains are to be found on the railways of 

 Great Britain the careful finish of the road-beds, 

 the fencing of the track, and the comparative 

 absence of level crossings giving an undoubted 

 advantage in this respect over all foreign systems. 

 The best regular running-time as yet made 

 on railways was in the 'race to the North,' 

 between the East and West Coast routes, com- 

 menced in 1888. The London and North- Western 

 in May of that year announced their intention 

 of reducing their time between Euston and 

 Edinburgh from 10 to 9 hours. The East Coast 

 companies accepted the challenge, reducing their 

 time from 9 to 8J hours, and in August the time 

 by both routes was reduced to 8 hours. The dis- 

 tances to be covered were by the East Coast 393 

 miles, and by the West Coast 400| miles, the 

 gradients on the former being more favourable. 

 The ' race to the north ' was resumed between the 

 rival railways in 1895, when on 22d August the 

 west route did the journey from London to Aber- 

 deen, 540 miles, in 8 hours 40 minutes, an average 

 of 63 '3 miles per hour, including stoppages. The 

 expense and risk of these high-pressure speeds led 

 to an agreement, and the rivalry was stopped. 

 The fastest train now performs the journey from 

 London ( King's Cross ) to Edinburgh in 7 hours 45 

 minutes, to Perth in 9 hours 25 minutes, and to Aber- 

 deen in 11 hours 20 minutes, including stoppages. 

 On the New York Central in 1891 a special run was 

 made from New York to Buffalo, a distance of 437 

 miles, in 440 minutes, including three stops aggre- 

 gating 15 minutes. The following may be taken as 

 the best express services now regularly running 

 in different parts of the world in miles per hour, 

 including and excluding stops respectively : 



England London to Leeds, G.N.R 48'4 61 



United States New York to Philadelphia . . 47-9 49-8 



France Paris to Calais 43 44 



Germany Berlin to Hamburg 87'3 40'6 



The average rate for express trains may be taken 

 as under, all trains running above 40 miles an hour 

 being taken as ' express ' in Great Britain and the 

 United States, and all above 29 miles an hour on 

 the Continent : 



Great Britain with stops 41 '6 without stops 44-6 



France 32-8 86'2 



Holland 82-5 86 



Germany 81-7 84-3 



Belgium 81-7 33-5 



Austria 80 82 



Denmark 80 82 



Italy 29J 81-2 



Sweden 29 81-5 



Russia 29 81-8 



United States 41-4 



On the Canadian Pacific line a special train to 

 convey the Japanese mail in 1891 performed the 

 distance from Vancouver to Brockville, opposite 

 the New York frontier, in 77 hours, at a speed of 

 36 miles an hour for the whole 2800 miles. On the 

 flrand Trunk line the best service is 36'8 miles 

 including stops, and 38 '2 excluding stops. The 

 best service in India is from Bombay to Calcutta, 

 about 25 miles an hour. The distance from Mel- 



