Freight traffic handling to-day forms quite as important a task for the majority of railways as the business of passenger transport. With a view to reducing labour costs and affording more efficient working in the handling of freight traffic, much ingenious equipment is now being pressed into service. In the Homeland, and throughout Europe generally, the most promising development in this direction is the increasing utilisation of the container system of freight handling. This method of operation gives a commercial facility of considerable value to shippers, while enabling the railways to meet, to the fullest degree, the competition of the road carrier and to effect valuable savings in the handling of small packages of miscellaneous merchandise.

On the Home railways there have been evolved four standard types of container, corresponding to the body part of the covered railway wagon and open railway wagon respectively, in full wagon size and half wagon size. The containers are constructed of both steel and wood, the system providing, in simple language, for the body of the railway wagon to be detachable from its wheels. As a general rule, the Home lines supply containers for the movement of consignments of one ton and upwards only, from one shipper to one consignee. Rough traffics, such as bricks, ironmongery, and tiles, are not, at present, given container service, the main types of traffic handled by container being confectionery, stationery and foodstuffs. Very shortly it seems likely that an international container service, covering all Europe, will be set up. This would work on similar lines to what is accomplished in the sleeping car field by the International Sleeping Car Company. The undertaking would be empowered to operate in all European lands, standardised railway wagons and road motors being specially built for the movement of containers. At the present time, a proposal to establish an international concern of this type, emanating from an Italian source, is receiving the careful consideration of the International Union of Railways, the International Chamber of Commerce, and other interested organisations.

The majority of the containers employed in Britain are constructed in the railway shops. This follows a long-established practice, for each of the four group systems build, by far, the bulk of their goods wagons themselves, while much of the passenger stock is also constructed in the railway works.

Articulated Passenger Carriages.

In a recent paper delivered to a Home railway audience, Mr. H. N. Gresley, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Eastern line, reviewed in able fashion, recent developments in rolling stock construction.

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The employment of steel in place of wood was named by Mr. Gresley as an outstanding development in modern rolling-stock construction. Two methods of building steel carriage bodies in Britain were outlined. In the first, the vertical members or pillars, the roof supports and the longitudinal rails are all riveted together and to the underframe, forming a skeleton, to which the outside pannelling is riveted. The second, and more favoured arrangement, is known as the unit method. The roof, ends and sides are each built up separately on jigs or frames, and the whole of the panelling attached. The sides and ends are erected completely on the underframe, and on top of these the whole roof, built as a separate unit, is lowered. This unit method of construction works out relatively cheap when a number of vehicles are being turned out to a single pattern.

A feature of L. & N.E.R. practice is the employment of articulated passenger carriages, and it is interesting to learn that, at the outset, the introduction of the articulated carriage arose through the fact that the passenger carriage stock of the line included a number of six-wheeled vehicles which had become very bad riders. As they were built throughout of teak, and in splendid condition, it would have been a costly affair to have scrapped these bad-riders and replaced them by entirely new stock. To meet the situation, Mr. Gresley conceived the idea of joining two of these carriages together with a flexible connection and putting a bogie under the junction point. The articulated passenger carriage thus had its birth, and to-day forms the entire make-up of a no less famous train than the “Flying Scotsman.”

Utilisation of Pulverised Coal.

Notwithstanding the extended utilisation of electricity, coal still remains supreme as the medium for generating power for railway transport. The coal bill of every railway is a most formidable item of expense, and any endeavour which holds out possibilities for economy in this direction, is worthy of the most wholehearted encouragement. The economies which might be secured by the utilisation of pulverised fuel for locomotive firing have often been discussed, and at the present time the Southern Railway of England is about to embark upon important trials of pulverised fuel, employing, for this purpose, a type of equipment produced page 19 by a German engineering concern. It may be recalled that twelve years ago the Great Central Railway (now embraced within the London and North Eastern group), undertook extensive trials with locomotives fired on pulverised coal and a mixture of pulverised coal and oil. The trials were to a considerable degree successful, although a good deal of difficulty arose with the brickwork and dust. For reasons connected with the Great War nothing further came of these trials, but it seems likely that, at an early date, pulverised fuel will be introduced generally on the Home railways. One problem requiring solution is the production of a small and light pulveriser suitable for fitting on existing tenders, in order that the experimental running of a number of locomotives might be provided for. Eventually, of course, central pulverising plants will be the order of the day, but, for the time being, the expense which would be involved in the setting up of such plants puts them outside the realm of practical railway working.

The “Twopenny Tube.”

There will doubtless be some among the thousands of railway readers of this Magazine who can recall joyous trips performed nearly thirty years ago on that world-famous London line—the “Twopenny Tube.” The Central London Railway, as this system is officially styled, will, before long, probably be extended to stretch westwards to Hayes, in Middlesex, for negotiations to this end are at present in hand between the Underground Group and the Great Western Railway. The extension would afford greatly improved facilities for city folk travelling to and from the residential territory lying west of Ealing Broadway, the present terminus.

In the heart of the Londoner the Central London Railway has always occupied a warm place. First opened in 1900, the line provided, among other features, a uniform fare of twopence over all stages of the six-mile run between the Bank of England Station and Shepherd's Bush. In order to deal with the traffic arising out of the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908, the Central London westerly terminus was converted into the Wood Lane Loop, and, in 1912, there was brought into use an easterly extension connecting the Bank Station with Liverpool Street. The westerly extension to Ealing Broadway, on the Great Western line, dates from immediately after the Great War.

Enterprise of the Irish Railways.

At the present moment rail-air combination travel is being considered as a means of increasing the revenues of the railways of Ireland, and further popularising Erin's Isle as a summer tourist resort. The Irish railways of to-day are nothing if not enterprising. Until a few years ago, Ireland possessed four big railway systems—the Great Southern and Western, the Great Northern, the Midland Great Western, and the Dublin and South Eastern. Added to these were a large number of relatively small undertakings of local interest. To-day one big railway, known as the Great Southern, serves the whole of the Irish Free State. The Irish railways are all built to a gauge of 5ft. 3in., which enables especially roomy passenger carriages to be employed. Dublin is the railway centre of the land, and the Broadstone Station of the Great Southern line is an imposing structure, having a total page 20 platform length of 1,400 feet, with two main platforms served by six tracks. A feature of Irish railway activity in recent times is the development work undertaken in rural areas with a view to aiding the farmer. Ireland is essentially an agricultural country, and, to link the scattered farms with the railheads, the Irish railways are running large numbers of road motors. Collecting centres for produce, conducted on a co-operative basis, have also been set up at selected railway stations, while new branch routes of light steel are being planned to serve areas worthy of development.

Progress of German Railways.

As far as railway development is concerned, no corner of the world is making more rapid progress than Germany. A recent survey issued by the German railway authorities states that, during 1927, the German railways handled 1,909,000,000 passengers and 489,000,000 tons of merchandise. Steam locomotives number 24,575 and electric locomotives 316. The German railways operate some 62,940 passenger carriages, and the stock of goods wagons totals 674,318. As a result of a consistent effort at standardisation, the number of types of locomotives in service on the German lines has been reduced from 250 in 1920 to 40 at the present time. Despite this standardisation, the door is being left open to experiment, and, at the moment, attention is being devoted to the development of high pressure locomotives, some of these experimental machines having steam pressures as high as 880lbs. per square inch.

Once served by a large number of distinct railway undertakings operating in the various States, Germany is now supplied with railway transport by one huge undertaking, with headquarters in Berlin. Thanks to the amalgamation of the several smaller systems into one large undertaking, through passenger and freight train movement has been immensely bettered. As indicating the high standard of service ruling to-day, it may be stated that fast freight trains now run the full length of the River Rhine, from the Dutch to the Swiss frontiers, in exactly twenty hours, while the efficient manner in which railway passenger traffic is conducted, both on the main-lines and in the rural areas, is a matter of astonishment to every visitor to Germany. During the war years (or rather in the Armistice days that followed), it was the good fortune of your Correspondent to hold several important railway commands in the Rhineland, and the wonderful efficiency of the German personnel, high and low, made a most striking impression. Workers of all grades were especially keen to give satisfaction, and, at the present time, the teamwork existing among all ranks of the German railways is accomplishing wonders in the rehabilitation of the undertaking.

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