Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1885 — An English Railway Train. [ARTICLE]

An English Railway Train.

The first impression which an American who is experienced in railroad travelling in his own country derives from the exterior aspect of an English train is unfavorable. The cars, as he must necessarily call them, seem to be small; they lack, apparently, the weight and solidity of the American passenger-coach;. the compartments are narrow, the ceilings low. the ventilation apparently doubtful. They stand upon two, three, or more pairs of gaunt high wheels, to the axles of which their springs ate directly geared. He misses the little independent vehicle, the truck, or bogie, with its four or six small, compact, solid-looking, wideflanged wheels, which sustains each end of the American car —that rolling gear which looks so strong, so adapted to inequality of rail or curve, so resourceful against disaster, and so complete in its equipment The cars are smaller—there is no doubt of it They are narrower and they are shorter; and to the American eye they look even shorter than they really are, because they have no projecting platform at the ends, no overhanging roof or hood, but are buckled close up to each other, and their contact controlled by small metal buffers, the springs of which allow a play of from eighteen inches to two feet and a half between car and car. The Millor platform, the Janney coupler, the link and pin—of '.ll the familiar devices of the United States there is not one to be seen. The brakes? None visible. Nor, for the matter of that, a brakesman. This in* fiuential and numerous person has no existence in England. There is not even a rudimentary type of him. That you do not find him is the first stern intimation you receive that in English railroading there are no autocrats. The wheels are fitted with brakes, however, and the trained eye nothes a rubber hose connection between the c (Triages, quite different in its application to that known at home, but which nevertheless bqtokens the air-brake. He takes account of the distinctions of class, and reflects upon his country’s veiled progress in that regard in the matter of parlor cars and limited ex-press-trains. Then he find that there is no baggage-master to waft the volatile Saratoga to its doom, as his own newspapers would express it. There is perhaps a luggage van or two, or there are in the carriages themselves luggage compartmens, according to the way in which the train is made up, the length of journey it is to take, or the custom of the particular line under observation. His final contemplation is perhaps devoted to the engine, and if he has ever given any pf his attention to the American locomotive, it fills him with a deep concern. He recallsjthe imposing splendor of the latter, its comfortable and lofty cab of ailed and polished wood, its gay brass bell, the soul-stirring whistle, the noble head-light and the cow-destroying pilot, Che great cinder-consuming smokestack (unless it be a hard-coal burner, in which case that feature shrinks to moderate proportions), the powerful drivers and compact cylinders, the eccentric connecting-rods, and all. its parts radiant with the glitter of polished steel or burnished brass, or decked with appropriate vermillion or emerald green. In all of these matters the English locomotive compares with it much as a lawn-mower does with a New York fire-engine. It is a humble, awkward green, or monochromatic machine. It has neither polish nor decorat on about it, There is no cab. The engineer and his fireman—that is to' say, the engine-driver and his stoker, as they are styled in England—perform their duties with only such shelter as 1 is afforded by a board screen in front of them, pierced by two round apertures filled with stout glass, technically known as “spectacles” The smoke-stack is short and thick; there is an unsightly green hump on the back of the boiler; the cylinders are under the front of the latter instead of on each side before the drivers; the wheels are all large, and the body of the engine is perched high up above them, and looks top-heavy and dangerous The whole thing is rigid and stiff-looking, and to the observer who has had to do with the external aspects of locomotives it is unprepossessing and unlovely. The practical American engineer whistles thoughtfully as he surveys it, and wonders -ter-himself how long it would be before he would ditch his train if he bad to run on a new Western railroad with such an engine. Where would he be on a sharp curve, or how would such running-gear adapt itself to anunvenly ballasted track? The low center of gravity o f the American locomotive, the weight distributed well down between the wheels, the play of the small broad flanges under the pilot truck, and the external gearing of the drivingwheels, all give the American engine an appearance of stability which impresses not merely the layman, but also the expert— Harper’s Magazine.