1847.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



307 



Fig. 3, is placed on a level surface as in fig. 4, and the separate pieces 

 of wood are kept in their places by two fixed pieces X Y, with parallel 

 faces. O S, O' S', are two straight bars moveable about O O'. 

 capable of being clamped in any position. Fig. 5, represents the sea le 

 used in reading off the time. The head moves along the bars O S, O' S 

 like a T-square. The slide carries divisions for every 10 minutes, and 

 the circles on it represent the ivory studs on which any required consecu- 

 tive hours are written, as it would be inconvenient to have it of sufficient 

 eogth to hold 12 hours. 



Let it be required to read oif the 

 times for a train stopping at C and 

 F. Breaks must be made in the 

 time line at C and F, by the contriv- 

 ance, fig. C. Secondly, move the 

 slide and the strips of wood be- 

 twixt X and Y, up or down till the 

 time of starting on the scale falls 

 n the end of the time line at A. 

 Thirdly, move O S, about O, till the 

 other extremity of the time line 

 coincides with the required time of 

 arrival, and then clamp the bar. 

 The scale must be applied lo show 

 the hour and minute coinciding with 

 the breaks at >n and 7t, and this time 

 must be registered in the table. For 

 the return train, I to A, the head of 

 the scale slides along O'S', andihe 

 second and third adjustments have 

 to be made. 



Few stations have been supposed 

 for illustration, although the advan- 

 tage of using this method is not so 

 apparent in such a case. However 

 great the number of stoppages, it is 

 scarcely possible to make a miatake 

 that will not be detected. If any error 

 be made in making the breaks in the 

 time line, the time table will show 

 either the omission or excess, as 

 the time and station must be read 

 off at each break in the time line, 

 and registered in the tan 



There is no necessity for having the velocity per hour given for the rate 

 of travelling over each particular part of the line, for the purpose of laymg 

 down a time line, as it may be plotted from the observations of the times 

 of arrival at several points of the line of a train travelling without stop- 

 pages. Let train be travelling along A D, fig. 7, and let O, B E, C F, 



Fig. 7. 



and D G, at right angles to A D, represent the times of arrival at A, />, C, 

 and D. Join A, E, F,G, which will be the time line. The time allowed 

 for stoppages must include the whole loss consequent on lowering and 

 getting up the speed. 



Mr. J. Samuda employed diagrams constructed in a manner similar to 

 figs. 1 and 2, to explain the proposed arrangement of the trains on the 

 London and Croydon, and Croydon and Epsom railways, which are given 

 in the " Minutes of Evidence," printed by order of the House of Commons, 

 June, 1844. I have also seen in Ihe Builder, of August 21, 1847, a notice 

 of a new time table, patented in Paris, but the description there given does 



not enable me to say whether it resembles the one above described. I am 

 not aware that the method of allowing for a stoppage at any given station, 

 for varying the time of performing the journey, or for reading off the times 

 ready for insertion in the time table has ever before been adopted. 



ENGINEERING AND RAILWAY MEMBERS OF 

 PARLIAMENT. 



A new parliament under usual circumstances is not of much importance 

 to professional men, but for once Ihe case is different. Engineers and sur- 

 veyors have now much at stake in the measures likely to be subjects of legis- 

 lation ; while the elections have brought forward many men whose opinions 

 on these subjects, or whose connection with our professional pursuits, 

 create much interest. We have been handed over to the mercies o( a 

 Board of Trade already, while many measures deeply affecting professional 

 interests are sure to come under discussion, such as the health of towns' 

 bill, a general act for drainage, railway legislation, the survey of London, 

 and steam-engine inspection. How these subjects are likely to be treated 

 is not unnaturally a matter of anxiety. 



The last parliament began Ihe new class of railway directors, for we can 

 hardly consider the election of Mr. Charles Russell, the late member for 

 Reading, and chairman of the Great M'estern railway, as being of more 

 value than a single and accidental circumstance. It was the return of Mr, 

 Hudson and Mr. Chaplin which constituted the class now so greatly in- 

 creased by the late elections. 



AV^ith some it has been a matter of fear that we should have a railway 

 parliament, and it has been put forward, under the authority of Mr. Dodd, 

 that the present parliament contains more railway directors, engineers, re- 

 tail tradesmen, and political lecturers than any former parliament, and 

 fewer officers in the army and navy, and landed gentry. If a parliament 

 now have railway directors in it, it must have more than in former parlia- 

 ments, because as it may be said railway directors did not exist as a class 

 in former days. We might as well be told that in the streets of London 

 there are more cabmen and omnibus-drivers than in former days, and that 

 on the river there are more steamboat stokers and fewer watermen. Ad- 

 mitting the fact that there are more railway directors and engineers in the 

 house, we do not therefore see any ground of alarm to the country. As to 

 the retail tradesmen we have Utile to do with them, except so far as they 

 have been mixed up with railway directors, and insomuch we are bound 

 to say that we put no worth on the increase of retail tradesmen, for we be- 

 lieve that the whole body of retail tradesmen in the House of Commons 

 consists of one or two individuals. The injury to the country cannot at the 

 worst be very great in having Mr. Williams, the haberdasher, instead of 

 Mr. Alderman Wailhman, the haberdasher, or Mr. Alderman Sidney in- 

 stead of Alderman Sir Matthew Wood We confess likevvise to obtuseness 

 as lo the injury likely to arise from Mr. Alderman Sidney, Mr. Williams, 

 or anybody else who makes money behind a counter, silting cheek by jowl 

 with the members for Waterford county, Finsbnry, and Wallingford. 

 With regard to the political lecturers, they mean Mr. W. J. Fox, Mr. 

 Feargus O'Connor, Mr. George Thompson, and Mr. Wilson; and even 

 though political lecturing has taken the place of political pamphleteering, 

 it grieves us little that Messrs, Fox and Thompson sit as members of the 

 house to which Burke, Sheridan, O'Conuell, Cobbetl, and Hunt belonged. 

 We need not enlarge the latter list. 



The only fact with which we have to grapple, indeed the head and front 

 of the grievance, is the number of railway personages; though we are bound 

 to say, that when admitting the new classiticalion of railway directors, we 

 must not forget that it strips Mr. Hudson of his quality as a landed pro- 

 prietor, Mr. Glyn of his title as a banker, and every olher individual of his 

 previous description of enrolment. One question therefore is, whether in 

 accepting the new class of railway men, we admit a body less wealthy 

 than officers in the army and navy, government functionaries, or landed 

 gentlemen. We believe that on the whole Mr. Hudson, Mr. Glyn, Mr 

 Robert Stephenson, Mr. Cubitt, Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Paiker, Mr. Locke, Mr. 

 Peto, Mr. Waddington, Sir Joshua Walmsley, Mr. Jackson, Sec, have not 

 too small a stake iu the properly of the country to disqualify them from 

 sitting on the same benches with olher gentlemen, whose names it is un- 

 necessary to mention, as the state of their finances may be learned of any 



41 • 



