1878.] 
Continuous Railway Breaks. 
9 
holding the weighted lever in each guard’s van, but the 
guards could only apply the breaks to their own section. 
There was, however, separate cord communication through- 
out the train. The breaks on the wheels of the vans them- 
selves were applied by hand only. The guard could also, 
by pulling a signal cord attached to a whistle handle, call 
attention of the driver in case of danger. 
However well this break may work under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, it must be clear to anyone that it labours under 
several inconveniences, and could scarcely be relied upon in 
extremely exceptional circumstances. In the first place a 
chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and an imperfedt 
weld or subsequent injury may remain undetected until the 
occurrence of an emergency, when the whole break-power 
of a train might be rendered useless by the breakage of a 
single link or the failure of a strand of wire-rope. Again, 
the means of placing the break-power within the control of 
the driver are complicated, and supplemental to the break- 
apparatus itself; besides which there is the difficulty of 
getting this break to adt quickly, from the length of the 
buffer-strokes between the carriages, owing to which it was 
found, on the North London Railway, that more than 2 feet 
of chain had to be wound up for every carriage ; and it was 
explained to the Commissioners that, where long buffers are 
used, in a train of eight carriages there would probably be 
sixteen revolutions of the carriage-wheels necessary before 
the slack chain was wound up sufficiently to put the breaks 
on to the wheels. This, with wheels 3 feet 6 inches in 
diameter, implies 168 feet run by the train, after setting the 
break-power in motion, before it begins to make itself felt 
in bringing up the train. In experiments on the Midland 
Railway accidents occurred through the break being applied 
too powerfully and too strongly, which caused the couplings 
to break and the train to part in two. The Carriage Super- 
intendent of the Midland Railway further explained that, in 
working Clark’s break it loses power every carriage away 
from the van, as the power gets less the further it is applied 
by the chain. Consequently the break bites tighter on some 
of the wheels than on others, which causes a slack or re- 
bound. While some of the carriages are being very much 
retarded by the break, others are not so much retarded. 
In pointing out the defeats in this and other breaks which 
were brought to the notice of the Royal Commission, it 
must be understood that the objedt in view is not in any way 
to deprecate some and puff up other breaks, but to "show 
in what respedts each break requires improvements, so 
