Increasing Traffic.

The quantity of goods carried over the New Zealand Railways during the four weeks' period ending 2nd March was 11,539 tons greater than the total carried in any other period. The nearest approach was the 758,110 tons carried during the Departmental period ending 31st December, 1926 (the year of the Dunedin and South Seas Exhibition). But that period had twenty-seven working days in it as against twenty-four working days in this year's record. Analysed on this basis the improvement over the previous record is at the average rate of 4,000 tons per day.

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Social Side of Rail Travel.

“Quest” tripped it to Tauherenikau last Monday and had a “rare old outing” (says the “New Zealand Sportsman”). The railway journey from Lambton to Featherston was both comfortable and expeditious, safe and secure, quiet and restful. The arboreal hills of the Western Hutt, the meandering river through verdant pastures, and beautiful home sites, the rocky Rimutakas, with their towering heights, sheep and cattle peacefully grazing, the picturesque plains of the Wairarapa with their varied rural charms—these and other refreshing scenes marked the railway journey. One sees things worth while from the window of a railway carriage that are unobservable from a motor vehicle. Railway travelling is sociable, and whether you travel in a first-class or second-class carriage, new faces are met, new friendships formed, new ideas gleaned and new view-points learned, and then, “at the end of a perfect day,” the best attainment of all is “the soul of a friend we've made.”

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Steel Sleepers on the Home Railways.

Soundly constructed and well maintained permanent way is the very basis of successful railway operation. In the search for the perfect railway track many interesting experiments have from time to time been undertaken, and now the Southern Railway of England is breaking new ground, so far as the Home railways are concerned, by making extensive use of steel sleepers in place of the creosoted wooden sleepers commonly employed in Britain. Owing to the shortage of timber, the price of wooden sleepers has been increasing, and all timber employed for this purpose at Home has to be imported. Largely with the idea of reducing costs, the Southern Railway has for some time been making experiments with steel sleepers on its London-Portsmouth main line, over which pass heavy passenger trains hauled by the well-known “King Arthur” type of locomotive. These experiments proving successful, the move towards the extended utilisation of steel sleepers on the Southern main lines is being made.

The Southern steel sleepers are eight feet in length. The rail rests upon a steel baseplate lying on the sleeper, and an oak key is utilised to tighten the rail in the chair. Steel rail of 95lbs, per yard section is employed on the tracks concerned. At Home the only obstacle to the general employment of the steel sleepers is the fact that they cannot be used in electrified areas at present, nor where there are signal track circuits. As time goes on, the utilisation of steel sleepers on a big scale is likely on the four Home group lines.

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Facts and Figures from Roumania.

Some 2,250 steam locomotives are operated by the Roumanian Government Railways, passenger carriages numbering about 2,300. Freight wagons total 51,000, and large numbers of steel tank cars are utilised for hauling the output of the rich Roumanian oil-fields. In 1927 the Roumanian railways conveyed 39,000,000 passengers and 24,000,000 tons of merchandise. The passenger carriages employed in this picturesque land are of somewhat primitive design on the branch route services, but on the principal through expresses, however, luxurious dining and sleeping cars are operated in considerable numbers (writes our special London Correspondent).