Continuous Railway Breaks , 
3 
1 878.] 
Board of Trade Inspectors, it is manifest that a deficiency 
of break-power is one not of the least important causes at 
present responsible for accidents to passenger-trains. It is 
true that the speed of railway travelling has not increased 
sensibly within the last thirty years, but the conditions of 
train-service have materially altered within that period, and 
they are, by the effeCt of natural causes, continually changing 
in a manner which demands constant attention and the 
application of such means for facilitating traffic as may 
from time to time be devised for that purpose ; for instance, 
the trains are more frequent and following each other more 
closely than before, block signal-stations are necessarily 
brought nearer together, whilst at the same time the weight 
of trains, consequent upon improved and more capacious 
carriages, and the increased number of passengers, neces- 
sarily attain a greater amount of vis viva, demanding the 
exercise of greater force in order to bring them to a stop 
even within the same distance as was formerly the case. 
The old-fashioned hand-screw breaks — which ought to have 
been abolished some years ago on all passenger-traffic lines 
of railway-— are, viewed with the light of improvements 
which modern science has introduced, at best both clumsy 
and make-shift appliances for the purposes to which they 
are applied ; and it was stated in evidence taken by the 
Royal Commission that the break-power at present generally 
applied is insufficient to stop a train within the distance 
generally existing between the distant signal and the home 
signal of a station. In the case of heavy trains, running at 
a speed of from 35 to 40 miles an hour, the ordinary screw 
breaks are insufficient to bring them to a stand under half a 
mile, and when travelling at a higher speed under 1100 or 
1200 yards, whilst heavy bast express trains cannot — with 
the ordinary break-power— -be pulled up in many cases under 
a mile and a quarter. 
Besides the inefficiency of the power of ordinary screw 
breaks, another important objection to their use is the time 
required to bring them into aCtion. The necessity for 
promptness of aCtion in pulling up a train will be at once 
realised when it is remembered that in one second a train 
travelling at 60 miles an hour passes over 88 feet ; at 45 miles 
an hour, over 66 feet ; and at 30 miles an hour, over 44 feet. 
A train travels, that is to say, 100 yards — at 60 miles an 
hour, in 3*4 seconds ; at 45 miles an hour, in 4*6 seconds ; 
and at 30 miles an hour, in 6*8 seconds. 
It has been stated, by one of the Board of Trade 
Inspectors, that if the continuous break system could be 
