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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 7 (November 1, 1928)

Advantages of Palmer Railway

Advantages of Palmer Railway.

Among the principal advantages that result from the adoption of Mr. Palmer's plan, may be mentioned, that of enabling the engineer, in most cases, to construct a Railway on that plane which is most effectual, and where the shape of the country would occasion too great an expenditure on former plans; that of being maintained in a perfectly straight line, and in the facility with which it may be always adjusted; in being unencumbered with extraneous substances lying upon it; in receiving no interruption by snow, as the little that may lodge on the rail is cleared off by merely fixing a brush before the first carriage in the train; in the facility with which the loads may be transferred from the Railway on to other carriages, by merely unhooking the receptacles, without displacing the goods, or from other carriages to the Railway by the reverse operation; in the preservation of the articles conveyed from being fractured, owing to the uniform gliding motion of the carriages; in occupying less land than any other Railway; in requiring no levelling or road-making; in adapting itself to all situations, as it may be constructed on the side of any public road; on the waste and irregular margins of rivers; on the beach or shingles of the sea shore; indeed, where no other road can be made; in the original cost not being much less, and the impediments and great expense occasioned by repairs in the ordinary mode being, by this method, almost wholly avoided, etc., etc.

In conclusion, we think it due to the ingenious inventor of this railway to state (it having been proved by actual experiment) that in the best Rail-road on the old plan in the kingdom, the amount of resistance in a straight line is equal to the 170th part of the whole weight of the carriages and their contents, and that the resistance on Mr. Palmer's Railway is only the 300th part; that on the former an average good horse will draw at the rate of two and a half miles per hour, throughout the day, 25,500 pounds weight, and that the same force employed upon Mr. Palmer's will draw 45,000 pounds weight.

“Last year there was an average of 61 million journeys taken by railway passengers in this country to one passenger killed in a train accident, and 206 ½ million passenger and freight train-miles run to each servant killed in a train accident.” —From “The Railway Gazette,” London.