1 847. J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



387 



as at present managed. It also involves an amount of station-room and 

 servants, both at the termini and intermediate stations, proporlioued to the 

 numbers of the passengers. This large amount of property and persons are 

 employed all at once, but with long intervals. 



In the second place, the large train involves great momentum and greatly- 

 increased dead weight to support shocks. It also involves the use of 

 much heavier rails and roadway, bridges, embankments, viaducts, Jcc. It 

 also involves much greater risk to passengers, by the great space taken to 

 check the momentum and bring the train under the control of the breaks 

 in case of sudden stoppage. And the slower the movement the larger must 

 be the amount of stock. 



AVith light trains all these conditions are reversed. A small station and 

 a small number of servants, constantly occupied, will do the whole of the 

 work ; and thus a comparatively small outlay of capital is required, and a 

 smaller amount of wages has to be struck oil' the general receipts. 



With light trains the momentum is lessened, and less power is required 

 both to stop and start. In case of impending collision, the risk in case of 

 shock is lessened, and the space required to bring up in is comparatively 

 small — 50 to 60 yards would probably be enough. The small engine we 

 have been describing will bring up from speed in about 50 yards. 



Rails and roadway of far lighter structure will suffice for light trains — so 

 much lighter as to seem almost an imputation on our " heavy-coach" rail- 

 way makers. Yet, after all, tlie error they have committed has been in 

 making their rails too light for tlieir loads, and thus wasting engine 

 power. And the greater the speed the smaller the amount of stock. 



All this is to be accomplished, not by running trains on railways, or 

 steam-carriages on highways, but by runinng sttam-curriagcs on railways; 

 in other words, by putting the load on the engine, instead of drawing it 

 behind or propelling it before ; thus increas ing the adhesion of the driving- 

 wheels in proportion to the increase of the load — getting rid of a large amount 

 of dead weight on the wheels and carriages usually driven behind. And 

 such light engines may have their adhesive power still further increased 

 by a single carriage propelled before or driven behind, making such car- 

 riages rest a portion of their weight on the engine frame. 



If we be told that such steam carriages do not yet exist, we can but 

 refer to the practical demonstration of the engine already built, and stale 

 that we have now before us a practical tender, from persons fully competent 

 to carry the plan into action, to furnish steam-carriages, rails, and timber- 

 work ready for use, provided the land be delivered levelled and ballasted, 

 ready for the permanent way, at the price of Two thousand pounds per 

 mile of single way, the carriage to travel 50 miles per hour, and carry I,OCO 

 persons per day of twelve hours, over a line of twenty miles in length, with 

 greater safety than by the present system. The railway may be laid in 

 ballast, or carried on piles. 



On reverting to our description of the present engine, it will be seen that 

 the gravity is chiefly below the axles and within the base of the wheels. 

 Only those who are familiar with engines and wheel-carriages can fully 

 estimate the importance of the principle here involved. AVith a pendulum- 

 balance the weight is always seeking to be vertical. With a prop-balance 

 the weight is always seeking to deviate from the vertical line. With a 

 carriage moved by external power the adhesion of the wheels is lessened 

 and increased from one to another by oscillation, and this while increasing 

 the risk and light draught. With an internally-moved carriage, adhesion is 

 required for the purpose of propulsion, and the pendulum action is the best 

 adapted for it, as well as for safety. In short, the same qualities are 

 required in a locomotive engine as in a ship, to ensure steadiness and 

 swiftness, — " a low and a long hull." 



The engine about to be constructed will have its frame not more than 

 nine inches from the rails, all four wheels drivers, and will carry twenty 

 or thirty passengers, as may be preferred. 



The railways we have been describing may be laid either on piles, over 

 fields, or on river banks, or on the surface of existing highways, inasmuch 

 as the steam-carriages will ascend inclines of one in fifty, or pass round 

 carves of two hundred feet radius with great facility. The weight of the 

 engine will be about 2^ tons, that of the passengers about the same, making 

 up altogether 5 tons, or 1 J tons per wheel. Supposing it desirable to con- 

 vert such engines to goods traffic, a wagon of five tons might be applied 

 before and behind, pressing on the engine to increase the adhesion with a 

 reduced speed. By this system, the old highways might be brought back 

 to their former state of prosperity, and property along their borders actually 

 increased in value. * ^ 



Do railway owners see in this any deterioration of their property? We 

 do not. If it be so, do they think they can keep it back when once shown 



to be a public advantage ? Do they think the landholders, who were strong 

 enough 1o dictate terms to railway makers for their own benefit, and drive 

 them away from the vicinity of the old highways — do they think they will 

 be less powerful to intermarry their highways with railways — to make 

 railways over their land, when they are brought within the compass of 

 their own means? We do not. 



But railway men need not fear the result. The railways will ever have 

 the same advantage over the highways that they ever have had, in belter 

 gradients and slraighter lines; and they have, moreover, a source of profit 

 that they have never yet looked to — the capability of making four lines of 

 rail complete, with the exception of tunnels, road bridges, and stations. 

 For the light engines and mode of transit we have been describing, the 

 slopes and embankments are perfectly eligible. For example, in the outer 

 fence of the railway, which is to be made sufficiently strong for the pur- 

 pose, an edge timber is to be laid, and on that a light rail, A similar rail 

 is to be laid on the embankment, and the two connected by the rails. The 

 level of the rails is about a foot below the main rails. In cuttings, the re- 

 verse mode must be adopted, with the rails about a foot above the main 

 rails. To wide bridges, a light wooden frame may be used. At tunnels, 

 in vertical chalk or rock cuttings, at stations, and at level road bridges, 

 points must be made for the main line. With light engines, capable of 

 sixty miles speed, this would be no serious objection. With the main 

 lines thus relieved of the (ast-train passenger traffic, a much larger amount 

 of goods and slow passengers might be carried. It is not on the Eastern 

 Counties line, from which railway improvements have of late so largely 

 emanated that these considerations will be lost sight of, and the Directors 

 have done well and wisely to foster the mechanical aptitude amongst their 

 officers for the production of railway improvements, that must tell most 

 beneficially on their shareholders' pockets. 



The amount of good that must result from this new system of railway 

 transit, wherein the proportion of dead weight per passenger, at increased 

 speed, is reduced from about 9 cwt. to 1\, must be enormous. And to be 

 achieved at the rate of £2,000 per mile, minus land and levelling ! We 

 have only regarded the question in the aspect of rapid passenger transit, 

 but if the speed be reduced, the power becomes available for larger loads. 

 AVe see in this system a means of effecting transit even in the wildest 

 countries — a means of crossing the Isthmuses of Suez and Darien, even by 

 individual capitalists — a means of penetrating to the southern point of 



Italy, and shortening sea transit without coming to England for capital 



a means of regenerating Spain and making it a nation, instead of a bundle 

 of quarrelling provinces — a means of instructing all the innumerable 

 branches of the main lines of railway already constructed throughout 

 Europe — a means whereby almost any individual landholder may make 

 his own railways through his estates, and thus achieve a system of agri- 

 culture of threefold produce — a means whereby Ireland may easily be 

 intersected and civilised, and the reproach taken away from us, that a 

 wild people, knowing no law but the '' wild justice of revenge," still dwells 

 within the borders of our island domain. 



The principle herein enunciated is that of inducing adhesion and pro- 

 pulsion by the agency of the load on a self-moving machine, in opposition 

 to that of making an enormous machine to produce its own adhesion in- 

 dependently of the load, and therefore requiring a machine always of the 

 maximum weight, even with a minimum load. 



AVe invite our readers, who may be interested in this branch of science 

 to investigate the data as patiently as we have done. The proposition to 

 carry a lirstclass load of passengers on a self-contained machine, weighing 

 only half the weight of an ordinary first-class carriage, and at a greatly 

 increased speed, is a matter deeply touching the welfare of all who are 

 connected with railways. We shall return to this important question at a 

 future opportunity. 



Photography. — M. Niepce de St. Victor, in making some experiments in 

 photography, finds that if a sheet of paper on which there be writing or 

 printed characters or a drawing be exposed for a few minutes to the 

 vapour of iodine, and there be applied immediately afterwards a coating 

 of starch moistened by slightly acidulated water, a faithful tracing of the 

 writing, printing, or drawing will be obtained. M. Niepce has also dis- 

 covered that a great number of substances, such as nitric acid, phosphoric 

 acid, chlorurets of lime and mercury, &c., act in a similar manner, and that 

 various vapours, particularly those of ammonia, have the effect of vivifyin" 

 the images that are obtained by photography. 



50* 



