20 HENRY DEANR. 
Grade 1in 55, 4 years 
» 1,, 60, 5 years 2 months— 
» L,, 60, 4 to 7 years, dependent on fastening 
af ks Of, D years 2 anenths 
sa di 55 20D, 4 years 
The greatest amount of wear on the guard rails is finch. 
Automatic Couplings and Buffers.—It isa pity that when 
commencing railway construction in Australia the 
American style of coupling and buffer combined could not 
have been adopted. It not only is automatic and much 
safer therefore for the shunter, who avoids the risk of 
death by being squeezed between the buffers. It doesaway 
with the use of the latter, which are in the way on sharp 
curves. If a commencement had to be made again I have 
little doubt that the American coupling would be adopted 
with a larger sprinkling of American rolling stock and 
rails laid flat. The time has probably arrived when in the 
older countries buffers will begin to fall into disuse. The 
English Board of Trade having issued an order that 
automatic couplers must be introduced within a certain 
time, experiments have been made in Great Britain with 
an automatic coupler on the American style, and when I 
was over there in 1904—5, ten express trains on the east 
coast route were thus fitted up and running. The same 
system was being tried on the Great Central Railway. 
On the Continent of Europe I found a union of Railway 
Managers had been formed, and it was at the time the 
firmly expressed intention to introduce the automatic 
central coupler and buffer and abolish side buffers. To 
this end, intermediate or transitional combined couplings 
were designed, by which carriages could be coupled up on 
either system, and side buffers were used which could be 
put out of the way if not wanted. That is similar to what 
was done en the east coast route in Great Britain, above 
referred to, and it is to be noted that it was not only in 
