TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 761 



Section G.— ENGINEERING. 



President op the Section — Colonel I!. E. CROMriON, M.Inst.C.E. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 



Tlie President delivered the following Address: — 



At this the first meeting of the British Association of the new centurj' I wish to lay 

 before you some of the interesting problems presented by recent developments in 

 means of locomotion on land which demand the best thoughts, not only of our 

 engineers, but of everyone interested in the improvement iu means of travelling 

 and in the more rapid transit of goods. 



During the seventy years which have passed since the introduction of railways 

 in almost every country passenger and goods traffic has developed itself to such an 

 extent that almost everyone is interested in these questions ; and of late years our 

 attention has not been confined to railways only, but, owing to the invention of the 

 cycle and motor-car, has also been directed to travel on our road-ways, which during 

 the first fifty years of the railway era had somewhat fallen into disuse. I am not 

 able, being limited to the length of this address, to deal with many of the interest- 

 ing questions affecting our long-distance railways other than by referring to the 

 probable early introduction of railways of a new type intended to attain a speed of 

 120 miles per hour and worked by electrical power. The railway race to Scotland 

 of a few years back attracted the attention of the managers of American and 

 Continental railways to railway speed questions, and we have seen during the last 

 few years so great improvement in the speed of the trains and the comfort of the 

 passengers in these countries that it appears that England has already been beaten 

 in the matter of extreme railway speed, although it is probable that our railways 

 still provide a larger number of rapid trains than either the American, German, or 

 French do. But whether it be in England or in the countries I have mentioned, 

 it appears that after all the speed limit of railways of the present system of 

 construction is reached at about sixty-five or seventy miles per hour. Higher 

 speed on level runs has undoubtedly been recorded, but it is not probable that 

 anything greatly in excess of seventy miles per hour will be reached until our 

 railway managers initiate an entirely new system of construction. The high-speed 

 service that is now in contemplation, not only in England but in America and 

 Germany, intends to attain speeds of over one hundred miles per hour by providing 

 electrical means of haulage sufficient to propel light trains consisting of one, or, at 

 the most, a few cars ; and in order to I'ender this service successful to run these 

 light trains at short intervals of time, so in effecting this high speed the railways 

 will give a service which more nearly resembles the tramway service than our 

 present system of heavy express trains at infrequent intervals. This high-speed 

 service of light trains at frequent intervals is well suited to electrical haulage, 

 as it works generating machinery situated at fixed points to the best advantage 

 and enables the best return to be obtained from the necessarily heavy capital coet 



