The Paris Metropolitan Railway, like its London namesake, is the most popular transportation agency in the city it serves. In a single year the French “Metro.” conveys as many as 792 million passengers, and, in one day, it has actually handled 2,366,000 travellers. This compares with the 310 million passengers handled annually by the London Underground, and the 229 million figure of the Berlin underground lines. The Paris Metropolitan Railway is at present a comparatively small system hedged in within the city walls. To meet the needs of growing business, an additional twenty-five miles of underground track within the city walls are now being constructed, while later it is intended to extend the tracks into the outlying suburbs and residential areas beyond the city proper. The total length of the “Metro.” is 95 kilometres. Some 174 stations are scattered throughout the system, thirty-seven of these being exchange points. During the peak hours no fewer than 279 trains'run simultaneously, with an interval of only 1 3/4 minutes between trains. Included in the improvement works now in hand is the provision of a good deal of new equipment such as lifts and escalators, or moving stairways, for the convenience of travellers. In carrying, by far, the densest traffic of any European railway system, the Paris Metropolitan Railway stands out as one of the most important of transportation undertakings.

Capetown Suburban Lines Electrified.

The electrification of the Christchurch-Lyttel-ton line of the New Zealand Government Railways synchronises with another interesting electrification work recently completed elsewhere within the British Empire—the conversion to electric traction of the Capetown suburban lines of the South African Railways. The tracks involved are those between Capetown and Simonstown (23 miles), and Capetown and Sea Point (3 1/2 miles). These tracks carry an exceptionally heavy passenger business, and page 20 presented the greatest operating difficulties under steam working. Power for the electrification has been secured from the generating station at Salt River Junction, energy being generated as three-phase alternating current at a normal pressure of 12,000 volts at a frequency of fifty cycles. Automatic track-side substations convert the current to 1,500 volts direct current for train movement, the overhead equipment consisting of a simple catenary.

The multiple unit method of operation, with trains composed of motor and trailer cars, has been adopted on the Capetown electrified tracks. Under the arrangement followed, a number of motor cars may be operated simultaneously from one master controller by connecting the control equipment in parallel through a train line with jumper cables between the cars. The motor cars are 60 ft. 8 in., long, and give a seating capacity of 670 for an eight-car train. This compares with the 625 passengers accommodated in the steam trains previously utilised. A saving of 14 minutes has been effected in the throughout run from Capetown to Simonstown (23 miles), while on the Capetown-Sea Point section the 31/2 miles run is covered in 13 minutes with seven intermediate stops, and in ten minutes with three stops. Eighteen train sets operate in this service, making 211 single trips daily.

Building of Locomotives at Home.

Heavier and more powerful steam locomotives continue to be turned out for main-line service all over the world. The electric locomotive has a wonderful future before it, but for the steam-driven “Iron Horse” there still lies much useful work ahead. At Home, locomotives with a tractive effort of 64,350 lbs. at 75 per cent, of the boiler pressure are being employed with success, while, on one of the South American railways, good results are being obtained with a similar type of locomotive with tractive effort of 69,150 lbs. To crown all, locomotives of 71,660 lbs. tractive effort are now being built in Britain for service overseas. The Home railways have for long favoured the custom of building the majority of their locomotives in their own shops. The Swindon, Eastleigh, Crewe and Doncaster engine shops are famous the world over, and it is an especially happy part of the activities of these establishments to give care to the training of locomotive engineers destined to take up important appointments on railways all over the globe. At times much criticism has been levelled at the custom of the Home lines to build their own locomotives, but bearing in mind the fact that were all new locomotives to be purchased from outside, much of the expensive machinery employed in the shops would still have to be provided for the repairing branch, the arrangement, on the whole, has proved a wise one.

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Combating the Road Carrier.

Electrification of city and suburban routes appears a sure means of combating the competition of the road carrier in and around the larger centres of population. Outside the city traffic zones the most useful move that can at present be made by the railways would seem to be the putting into service of extensive road transport fleets of their own for both passenger and freight movement. The steps which should be taken by the railway to meet road competition are the subject of constant review at Home, and in this connection interest is attached to a paper recently read before an audience of railwaymen by Mr. P. A. Harverson, Assistant Passenger Manager of the L. & N. E. Railway.

Pointing out that in the last ten years four hundred road transport undertakings in Britain had grown to 3,000, and the number of motor omnibuses in service from 4,000 to 23,000, Mr. Harverson emphasised the need for the railways themselves embarking upon road motor services. In the North Eastern Area of the L. & N. E. Railway a record had been kept of bus mileages each week on January 1st and July 1st each year since 1925. This mileage is now 120 per cent. greater than it was two and a half years ago. Taking the receipts as one shilling per mile and the average fare as threepence-halfpenny, an estimate was obtained of no less than 250 million passenger journeys. This represented nearly seven times as many as the passenger journeys originating in the same district on the railway. It would be impossible for railways to capture a traffic of these dimensions, but they must not try to strangle it. They should go out for a share of it, and by the application of road methods, and not railway methods, to their bus problems, earn from seven to ten per cent. on their capital, in the same way as was done by private motor bus companies.

In summing up, Mr. Harverson expressed the view that railways should make a bold use of road transport. Under the scheme of co-ordination visualised, the bus station would be the railway station, better provision would be made for luggage, and the buses would do all that they did to-day in passing through the busy centres of the town before journeying out to the suburbs and country districts. As time went on railways would probably find it expedient to close many of their wayside stations, except for full wagon loads of goods. As ordinary fares would be at the same rate, the rail and road services would be interchangeable where a choice was available. The buses would carry the short-distance passenger moving from, say, ten to twenty miles, and the railways would cater for longer journeys.