802 REPORT — 1886. 



the product, and a diminished loss of material. The author also referred to the im- 

 portance of this mode of applying heat as preventing blow-holes in steel and ' seedy- 

 toil' in glass manufacture ; a subject which he treated in detail in his paper before 

 the Iron and Steel Institute in May last. 



2. On American and English Railways in reference to Couplings, Buffers, and 

 Gauge, ivith a suggested Improvement in Couplings. By William P. 

 Marshall, M.Inst.C.E. 



The railways of North America are of particular interest on account of their 

 Tery great extent, amounting to nearly one half of the total railway mileage of the 

 world. Their standard gauge is the same as in England, but there were formerly 

 five other gauges in extensive use in North America, three of them larger than the 

 standard, 5 ft., 5 ft. 6 in., and 6 ft., and two smaller, 3 ft. 6 in. and 3 ft. 



In England two other gauges laesides the standard 4 ft. 8^ in. were formerly in 

 use, namely, 5 ft. and 7 ft., but the necessities of traffic, requiring through transit 

 for passengers and goods without change of vehicle, have gradually led to the 

 standard gauge being adopted all over the country (excepting a short length of 

 7 ft. gauge still remaining unaltered) ; and as much as 2,300 miles of railway have 

 accordingly been altered in gauge in this country for this purpose. The same ex- 

 perience has been gone through in America, but on a very greatly increased scale, 

 about 20,000 miles of railway having been altered at different times to the standard 

 gauge ; which is an amount as great as the total railway mileage of this country. A 

 very remarkable case was that of the Southern States railways, which were origin- 

 ally all made 5 ft. gauge for the purpose of causing a break of gauge at the frontier 

 of the Slave States ; and the whole of these, amounting to 13,000 miles length, were 

 altered simultaneously to the standard gauge on June 1st of the present year, the 

 work of change having been in preparation for some years previously. 



The standard gauge has now become so far universal as to include about 80 per 

 cent, of all the railways of the world, the exceptions being about — 



6 per cent, of 5 ft. 6 in. gauge in Spain, India, and part of South America. 



5 j^ 5 ft. „ Russia, in Europe and Asia. < 



3 J, 3 ft. „ North American narrow gauge. 



2i „ 5 ft. 3 in. „ Brazil, part of Australia, and Ireland. 



24 „ 3 ft. 6 in. „ Norway, Australia, Cape Colony, &c. 



1^ „ 3 ft. 3f in. „ Metre gauge in India, &c. 



with some smaller amounts of other exceptional gauges. 



The present general adoption of the standard gauge has been brought about 

 simply from commercial reasons, and from the traffic objections experienced with 

 break of gauge ; but it has also to be noticed that this gauge, 4 ft. 8^ in., has the 

 advantao'e of being applicable both to the cases of main lines with first-class traffic, 

 and of light lines with inferior traffic or mountain character of line. Where, as in the 

 case of India, a wider gauge has been adopted for the main lines, it has been found 

 ultimately requisite to supplement this with a narrow gauge for the lines with in- 

 ferior traffic, thus involving the serious evil of break of gauge ; and the alternative 

 view is strongly forced into consideration, that, if the standard gauge had been 

 originally adhered to, it would have answered for both sets of lines, as the ' happy 

 medium ' for universal application. 



In Australia, a country as large as the United States, there is a still worse case 

 of break of gauge ; one colony having the standard gauge, another 5 ft. 3 in. gauge, 

 and the others 3 ft. 6 in. gauge ; and the American experience forcibly suggests 

 that the ultimate bringing of the whole to uniform gauge may be only a question of 

 time. At aU events, the striking fact stands that in America there has been 

 already altered in gauge, for the purpose of obtaining uniformity, nearly as much as 

 the whole present railway mileage of Australia and India added together. 



In reference to buff'ers, on the American railways the striking difference is seen 

 of single centre-buffers universally used, instead of the double side-buffers of this 



