Speeding Up.

What follows is similar to the effect on the motion-picture screen of speeding up the camera. The bolts attaching the rails to the sleepers are unscrewed, the rails torn up, and the sleepers after them. The new sleepers are laid, the new rails super-added, the sleepers bored, the rails spiked firmly to the correct gauge, and the track packed up. Next comes the ballast train, which distributes ballast over the rails and sleepers, and this is spread out smoothly by a plough van at the rear of the train. (In passing, it is to be noted that this ballast plough was designed over forty years ago by the late Mr. J. Smith, of Christchurch, an officer of the New Zealand Railways Department who was awarded a bonus of £50 per annum. The system has been copied by other countries.) When the ballast has been laid, the lifting gang make their appearance, and by placing jacks under the sleepers they pack them up from underneath. The ballast train then smooths off the metal again with a rake.

The driver of an approaching train is prepared for what awaits him round the next curve, since intimation of the relaying work in progress on the track has been broadcast from the central train control office for all engine-drivers passing that way. Accordingly the driver slows down. If the gang has been unable to complete the “break” in time, a disc signal confronts the driver at a distance of 800 yards from the scene of operations, from whichever end he comes. Not only that, but there are three detonators waiting on the line at intervals of ten yards each before reaching the disc signal, so that the progress of the train is bound to be accompanied by warning explosions. Other detonators are situated each 100 yards over the remaining 800 yards. If the work has been finished there is no disc signal and no detonators, and the driver proceeds over the new line guided by instructions and permanent speed board, negotiating the re-laid track. A new “break” is made, and repeated by the relaying gang until the condemned portion has been replaced.

This work of replacement, performed with judgment between trains so as not to dislocate schedules, has been reduced to a fine art, and while it is in progress every care is taken in the interests of the travelling public, in regard to safety measures, from the time that the first break is made to the time when the final bolt is screwed and the line declared again safe and sound. Now the relaying gang is in one place and now in a spot perhaps many miles distant, snatching their moments as the trains go by, like pirates hurriedly depositing their silvery bars in gulleys and cuttings and covert places, before the unerring trains ferret them out.