TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 637 
to be the most enduring, the rails themselves, were found to be more rapidly worn 
away than was expected. Efforts were made to harden the surface of the rails, 
and a plan was introduced by Mr, Dodds for this purpose. It was extensively used 
where rails were subject to special wear and tear, at points and crossings. The 
conversion was easily effected: it cost only about fourteen shillings to a pound a 
ton, and it was estimated that it doubled the durability of the rails. If they were 
turned, of course it increased their durability three times. 
The plating of rails with a steel surface was probably begun about 1854. It 
was not till about eight or ten years later that rails were made entirely of steel. 
In May 1862, steel rails were laid down experimentally at Chalk Farm Bridge 
‘side by side with two ordinary iron rails, and after outlasting sixteen faces of the 
iron rails they were taken out in August 1865, and the one face only which had 
been exposed during a period of more than three years to the enormous trattic, 
amounting to something like 9,550,000 engines, trucks, &c., and 95,577,240 tons, 
although worn to the extent of a little more than a quarter of aninch,’ even 
then appeared capable of enduring a good deal more work. Steel rails, however, 
were dear at that period, costing about double (127. 10s. per ton) as much as 
iron rails; therefore, although their advantages were manifest, they could not 
all at once replace iron. In 1866, Mr. Webb, the locomotive engineer of the 
London and North-Western Railway, said they had in use 3,000 tons of steel- 
headed rails and about fifty miles of steel rails; and Mr. Harrison, of the North- 
Eastern, said he had just contracted for 500 tons. Now, owing to improvements in 
the manufacture of steel rails, they can be produced as easily and as cheaply as iron 
rails. It was observed in 1876 that if, in order fully to realise the effect of the 
enduring quality of steel rails, you take a given section of the busiest portion of 
one of our leading railways, over which upwards of 7,000,000 tons of live and 
dead weight pass annually, you would find that the life of a steel rail on that 
portion of the line would be forty-two years if the traffic remained the same. 
This would reduce the cost of maintaining the permanent way of railways from 
2101. to 106/. per mile. When you consider that such a saving on a system of 
500 miles, which at 25,000/. a mile costs twelve and a half millions, is 52,000/. a year, 
or about a half per cent. of the cost of the railway, you will see that, besides some 
increase of dividend to shareholders, no inconsiderable sum may be, and has been, 
devoted by the railway systems of Great Britain to the comfort of travellers out of 
the saving effected by the introduction of steel rails. 
You are aware that railways are worked by the aid of an elaborate system 
of signals, by which those in charge of a train are required to be guided in regard to 
its movements. When railways were first opened they were worked without any 
fixed signals, unless a candle placed in a station window on the Stockton and 
Darlington line may be so designated. The candle indicated that the train was to 
stop for passengers, and no candle implied no stoppage. No practical steps were 
taken towards the adoption of fixed signals till the opening of the Grand Junction 
Railway in 1838. The signal then used consisted of a disc fixed to a spindle with 
a handle to turn it, with a lamp at night to answer the purpose of the disc by day. 
This was a mere ‘danger’ and ‘safety’ signal. In the same year Sir John Hawk- 
shaw designed a disc signal attached to moveable rails for the Manchester and Bolton 
Railway, which was set in motion by a handle with a balanced weight attached, so 
that when the switches were open to the siding, the face of the disc was presented ; 
and if the switches were open to the main line, the side of the disc was presented. 
The Great Western had a ball signal about the same time for a similar object. 
The semaphore signal was designed by Sir C. Hutton Gregory in 1841, and erected 
at New Cross, and was the first great step in advance in railway signalling. Distant 
signals were first employed in 1846 in Scotland on a branch of the Edinburgh and 
Berwick Railway, and were generally disc signals. Probably the first distant 
signals of the semaphore type were those of the Great Northern, which were made 
in 1852. Automatic signals were tried with considerable care on the Brighton line, 
but were abandoned owing to practical difficulties in their working. 
As the number of junctions increased, it became apparent that not only must 
separate signals be given for different lines, but that some kind of concurrent 
