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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 9 (December 1, 1936)

Our London Letter

page 54

Our London Letter

Our London Letter

A Merry Christmas to all! Railways everywhere have successfully weathered the storms of the past twelve months. At Home and in New Zealand, business conditions continue to improve, and railwaymen and railway users alike may rightly look forward with hope to what the New Year has in store.

In Europe, all concerned in transportation anticipate the happiest of Christmastides. Snow and ice—regular winter visitors in some corners of the Continent—will bring increased responsibilities on railway heads, but it would take a great deal more than this to beat the spirit of Christmas. Right across the Continent, the festival will be honoured in the good old-fashioned manner, with family gatherings around the loaded table, with games and songs, and with all the dear trimmings for so long associated with this hallowed day.

Nowadays, even hard-headed railway managements do not allow Christmas to pass without official notice. Railway hotels and guest-houses carry their gay decorations; dining-cars provide seasonable fare for the traveller; while many of the principal passenger stations at Home are transformed for the occasion into miniature fairylands, with coloured lights and balloons stretched across the concourse, enormous Christmas trees on the platforms, and holly and mistletoe everywhere.

Snow Protection Devices.

Normally, severe snowstorms are not frequent at Home. In northern England and Scotland, however, occasional heavy falls are experienced, and then the huge snow-ploughs with their “V” shaped prows are brought into use. Across the Channel, countries like Norway, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland, suffer more from the ravages of the snow fiend. There, the exceedingly powerful rotary type of snow-plough is employed for clearing the track. Many permanent devices are utilised for snow protection in central and northern Europe. These include concrete and timber snow fences constructed alongside the railway, and the planting of timber belts on sloping land adjoining the tracks. Both these precautions are necessary to prevent the blocking of the line, with all its attendant difficulties. In Switzerland, one clever device to fight the snow takes the form of fitting timber doors to tunnel entrances. These not only stop the percolation of snow therein, but also prevent the formation of ice on the tunnel roof. The doors are opened automatically by an approaching train, and close when the train has passed through. In the door, two large slots, opening automatically, release the air currents set up by the train's passage.

A Famous Liverpool Station.

Of the many large Home passenger stations outside London, few are more famous than Lime Street Station, Liverpool, the property of the London, Midland and Scottish line. This busy terminus recently celebrated its one hundredth birthday, an event which was marked by appropriate local celebrations. Lime Street Station was built for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway—the first Home inter-city railway, and the oldest section of the L.M. & S. system. Approached from Edge Hill by a long gradient which was originally considered too steep for locomotives, trains were for some years hauled up and let down on endless cables worked by steam winding-engines. Curiously enough, a similar practice originally prevailed at Euston Station, London.

The present Lime Street Station has eleven platforms, and is used by 370 trains a day. Whereas the earliest trains between Liverpool, Lime Street, and Euston Station, London, took nine hours on the journey, the fastest time now is only three hours twenty minutes. Adjoining Lime Street, the L.M. & S. Company own and operate an enormous hotel—one of the largest in the long chain of guest-houses controlled by the system.

Improved Watering Equipment.

Fighting the snow on the L. and N.E.R. Scottish lines.

Fighting the snow on the L. and N.E.R. Scottish lines.

The locomotives hauling the principal expresses between London and Liverpool, like those in most of the long-distance services at Home, pick up water en route by means of track troughs. As the result of an improve- page 55 ment introduced in the pick-up apparatus on its locomotives, the L.M. & S. Company is saving no less than 3,675,000 gallons of water every day. The device consists of a deflector-plate in front of the pick-up scoop which, by directing the water from the sides of the trough towards the centre, causes an artificial increase in the height of the water in the region of the scoop mouthpiece, and so increases by 200 gallons the amount it is possible to pick up at each lift.

Main Ticket Office, Messrs. Thos. Cook & Son, London.

Main Ticket Office, Messrs. Thos. Cook & Son, London.

Including water used for washing-out boilers, the L.M. & S. uses no less than 9,600 million gallons of water every year. In an appeal to locomotive men to conserve supplies, the Company points out that if every engineman were to save five gallons of water a day when filling locomotive tanks at the depots, the annual saving would be nearly £3,000.

Competition for a “Perfect Ticket Office.”

Hand-in-hand with the improvement and brightening of their passenger stations, the Home railways are conducting a campaign for the betterment of their numerous city ticket offices. In most big cities, ticket offices have been opened in the main shopping centre, it being recognised that much increased business may be secured in this way. In the majority of instances, transportation is now sold across the counter of the city ticket office, and the old-fashioned style of doling out tickets through a heavy metal grille is fast dying out. It is probably to the big tourist agencies, like those of Messrs. Thos. Cook & Son, and Pick-fords Ltd., we are indebted for this welcome change, for these progressive agents of the railways have for long maintained attractive city offices, and encouraged contact between the ticket seller and the travelling public.

With the idea of still further improving, and standardising, their 71 ticket offices in London, the four group railways have organised a competition, open to all architects, for a design for a perfect ticket office. Prizes amounting to £500 are offered.

Electrification Progress in Norway and Sweden.

Electrification continues to make steady progress in Norway and Sweden. In the latter country, the conversion to electricity of the Gothenburg-Malmo main-line has recently been completed, giving a total of about 1,650 miles of electrified track operated by the Swedish State Railways. By the end of 1937, it is anticipated that about 2,100 miles—or 45 per cent.—of the State railways will be electrically operated.

From north to south, the Scandinavian lines cover a distance of 2,000 miles, extending over thirteen degrees of latitude. Although virtually forming one compact transportation undertaking, the railways of Norway and Sweden, respectively, comprise two separately administered systems having their headquarters at Oslo and Stockholm.

The Post Office Tube Railway.

Every visitor to London is familiar with the unique system of underground railways which serves all parts of the metropolis. Few, however, know of the existence right under the capital of one of the most remarkable of transportation links—the Post Office tube railway. This system has recently celebrated its tenth birthday, for while construction was begun a quarter of a century ago, the Post Office tube was not actually opened to traffic until 1926. During the war years, the partially-completed tunnels served a useful purpose as bomb-proof shelters for priceless national works of art.

Running east to west beneath London, from Whitechapel to Paddington, the tube connects with various mainline railway stations where mails are handled. The double-tracks are of 2ft. gauge, and the tunnel is 9ft. in diameter. Approaching a station, the main tunnel divides into two 7ft. tunnels, and in the stations themselves passing loops are provided. Trains are electrically operated, and are automatically controlled throughout.

The “Mid-Day Scot,” Euston-Glasgow Daily Express, drawn by a “Princess Royal” class locomotive.

The “Mid-Day Scot,” Euston-Glasgow Daily Express, drawn by a “Princess Royal” class locomotive.

page 56