38 W. H. WARREN. 
eighty, which I think exceeds the performance of passenger engines 
in any part ofthe world. The ordinary load of these engines over 
the Southern Lines is one hundred and sixty-five tons, and the 
speed attained daily on the one in forty grade is twenty-two and 
a half miles an hour, and on the one in thirty grade the speed 
falls to eighteen and a half miles an hour. Both the American 
and English engine consist of six coupled wheels, and a double 
bogie in front on four wheels, ten wheels in all. The weight of 
the American engine and tender, in steam, is ninety-three tons : 
and of the English engine eighty-eight and a half tons. 
The Commissioners are making an enormous improvement in 
the safety of working heavy goods trains by fitting them with the 
new Westinghouse automatic quick acting freight brake. This 
brake is a most powerful appliance, as will be seen by the results 
obtained during an exhaustive trial which took place in 1891. 
A long train of loaded trucks weighing five hundred and eighty- 
nine tons, travelling at: a speed of thirty-four and a half miles an 
hour, was stopped on a level line in a distance of four hundred 
and seventy-nine feet. On a down grade of one in thirty, a train 
weighing two hundred and fifty-eight tons, travelling at twenty- 
four miles an hour, was stopped in two hundred and ninety-seven 
feet. This brake is five times as powerful as ordinary hand brakes, 
and is very necessary for controlling the speed of heavy trains 
down steep gradients, as well as stopping in case of an emergency 
in the shortest possible space. The whole of the rolling stock is 
not yet fitted, but the work will be completed, I understand, as 
soon as possible. 
Railways in Progress—The railway works in progress at the 
beginning of the year 1892, under Mr. H. Deane, Engineer-in- — 
Chief for Railway Construction, were as follows:—Nyngan to-_ 
Cobar, eighty-two miles ; Culcairn to Corowa, forty-seven miles ; 
Kiama to Nowra, twenty-two miles; Milson’s Point Extension, 
two and three-quarter miles ; Lismore to the Tweed, forty miles. 
Of the above, Nyngan to Cobar was opened for traffic on the Ist 
