tions of roadway that have been laid down. In one and all, the same points require attention in order that a reasonable degree of safety may be maintained.

Safety in such matters is, after all, principally a question of margin. There must be a sufficient margin of strength, of stability, and of good repair; and it is important also to select that form of permanent way in which fastenings are least likely to get loose, if it possesses other good qualities. We would specify the fished-joint, as it is termed, as being the greatest improvement that has been effected of late years in permanent way. The most common and most efficacious mode of 'fishing' the joints is by placing a slab of wrought-iron on each side of the ends of the rails at their point of junction, and by securing them with four screw-bolts which pass through both of the fishplates and through the rails between them. It is an advantage to employ a section of rail to which the fished-joint can be applied. Where the rails are not united in this or some other efficient manner at the joints, every tyre of every vehicle receives a greater or less blow in passing every joint. Each end of each rail is depressed in turn as a tyre passes over it, and rises again as the tyre proceeds onwards. Each tyre receives a blow as it leaves one rail and comes against the end of another, and the ends of the rails are forced down one after another against the bottom of the chairs. This action causes a rapid succession of blows as a train passes along the line, and the noise and rattle which are thus produced will be at once recognized by our readers.

A strong permanent way, kept in good order, is a pleasant sight; it gives satisfaction to all concerned, and it forms a marvellously safe road to travel over. It is moreover an economical thing in the long run. Where a weak road in bad order costs 2001 per mile to get into proper condition, or 150l. per mile to keep up, a superior road will only cost 1007. per mile for its maintenance. The rolling-stock suffers, also, most materially when a road is out of order. Engines and carriages complain bitterly of it. Tyres, axles, and springs fail more frequently upon it. Engine-drivers and guards do not like it. Passengers perceive excessive oscillation, or unpleasant motion, or rattling joints, and become afraid of it. It is a constant source of anxiety, annoyance, and expense.

Of the accidents that have been caused by the failure of the machinery of trains, the greatest number have been due to the fracture of the tyres of the wheels. Accidents of this nature were a few years ago classed as non-preventible; but now, fortunately, they need no longer be so considered.

The

The tyres in common use, after being rolled out to the required shape, and cut to the desired length, are turned round into the form of a circle and welded at the ends; and their inner circumferences are made rather smaller than the exterior of the wheels to which they are to be attached. They are heated before they are applied to the wheels, sufficiently to allow of their being slipped over them; and they contract in cooling, so as to grasp them tightly. They are finally secured to the wheels, partly by the firmness with which they thus grasp them, and partly by rivets, or bolts, which are passed through the tyres as well as through the rims of the wheels.

The great majority of the tyres that fail give way either at the weld or at the bolt-holes, which are necessarily their weakest points; and the most dangerous tyres are those which are shrunk on the wheels too tightly. In a season of severe frost, when the roads become rigid and are uneven, the tyres are more severely tried than at any other time, as well on these accounts as because they have then also inferior powers of resistance. Besides having to encounter more constant and harder blows from the roughness of the permanent way, their tensile strength is decreased in proportion to the lowness of the temperature, because the strength of wrought iron gradually diminishes from a temperature of something like 600° of Fahrenheit's scale; and further, they are apt to shrink into a state of greater tension at such times, because the colder the temperature the more they become contracted.

When fracture takes place, they are liable, in suddenly opening out, to fly off the wheel; and they occasionally break up into a number of pieces. The mode in which accidents chiefly happen is by the vehicles to which they belong being thus thrown off the line; but in some cases, passengers in the trains, and others, have been killed or injured by the fragments; and in one case, a passenger in one train was killed by a tyre which flew from a second train as the two trains passed each other in opposite directions. When a tyre flies from the leading wheel of an engine, the engine invariably leaves the line; and the results are likely, in such a case, to be very disastrous. There was a fatal accident of this sort not long since near Tottenham, which has already led to much litigation, and is said to be likely to produce still more.

When a tyre flies from one of the carriages of a train, the carriage so disabled is frequently dragged for a considerable distance before the driver discovers the mishap, to the excessive discomfort, and sometimes to the serious injury of the passengers and their effects, as well as of any other passengers who may

be in

the

the carriages behind it. Among the numerous instances of this sort that have been experienced, may be mentioned an accident that occurred in the north of England. The wheel-tyre of a first-class carriage gave way, and the driver did not know anything of it until after he had travelled for three miles. The guard's van broke away from behind this vehicle at an early stage, and was left standing in the ballast; but the carriage itself was dragged for two miles and three-quarters further, till all its wheels and axles had been knocked away from under it, when its couplings at length gave way. Then again there was the 'notorious carriage' accident in one of the Midland counties, which will long be remembered by some gentlemen residing in Sheffield. The tyres of a wheel belonging to a first-class carriage, which had been previously stated by one of the officers of the company to be 'notorious' for having a disagreeable motion in travelling, failed while the train was proceeding at a speed of 35 or 40 miles an hour. The train consisted of an engine and tender and nine vehicles, and the carriage that became disabled was third from the hind end of it. After it had been dragged over the sleepers for about 400 yards, the axles got loose, and were doubled up and broken; while the two last vehicles were separated violently from the hinder part, and the engine and tender from the front of the train. Seven detached vehicles were then running down a gradient of 1 in 131 at considerable speed, without a break before or behind them, and with no other check than that which was afforded by the bumping or sliding of the wheelless first-class carriage over the rails. They only came to a stand, finally, near the entrance to a tunnel, at 900 yards from the place where they had left the van, and 1300 yards from the point at which the first portion of tyre flew off.

Accidents of this description are suggestive of another precaution to which we shall refer; but we must first explain the mode in which accidents arising from the failure of tyres may be prevented. It is not the mere fracture of the tyre, it will be observed, that occasions the mischief, or causes the vehicle to which it is attached to leave the line; but it is the way in which the tyre flies open, and in which it is either thrown off the wheel at once, or broken gradually to pieces during its revolutions over the rails and ballast. To prevent this result, numerous modes of fastening have been patented and put in practice, which have for their object, both the dove-tailing of the tyre to the wheel to prevent it from flying when it fails, and the avoiding of the boltholes, which weaken the tyre to the extent of 20 per cent. of its section, and render it more liable to fail. Different methods are preferred upon different railways, which have been introduced

or

or invented by the officers of those railways. They are all superior to the old method above described; but they require various degrees of attention and good workmanship, and are more or less efficient. We would particularly specify, as amongst the most secure, the two rival modes upon the South-Eastern and the Brighton Railways, known as Mansell's and Burke's Patents.

It will be a long time before the means of security that are thus placed at the disposal of locomotive- and carriage-superintendents come into general use. Vast numbers of old tyres have to be worn out, and the new and best modes of fastening have not yet succeeded in gaining a footing on some of the longest of the lines of railway. But the travelling public should understand that there is no necessity whatever for their being dragged helplessly along for miles in a disabled carriage, at the peril, perhaps at the cost, of their lives, behind an express or any other train, in consequence of the fracture of a wheel-tyre; because, in the first place, the tyres can be so effectually secured on the wheels that it is not only impossible for them to fly in case of fracture, but that they may even be broken into several pieces without endangering the safety of the train; and because in the second place, the train can without difficulty be provided with good means of communication from one end to the other, by the use of which the driver may at once be apprised of any accident.

This last is of itself a subject of importance, and one which

merits a brief discussion.

The business of the engine-driver and fireman of a train is to attend to the engine and keep an incessant look-out ahead for signals and obstructions; and this is quite as much as they can do properly. When they are travelling at speed, the rattle of the engine and train and the rapid rate at which they pass through the atmosphere (which is equivalent to a hurricane blowing in the opposite direction) often render it impossible for them to hear any sound from the carriages behind them. A guard may at times attract the attention of a driver by putting on a break and suddenly taking it off again; but so little effect has this operation upon the momentum of the moving mass (which may weigh from 100 to 200 tons) that the driver will more frequently not notice it at all. It is true that if a guard has the means which he ought to possess, of applying breaks to two or three carriages as well as to his van all at the same time, he can, by making use of them, always cause the driver to look round. But breaks of this description have only as yet come into partial use; and even when they are employed it is desirable to have a means of communication independent of

them, '

them, because a guard may find it necessary to make a signal to the driver when these breaks are applied and when he cannot safely release them.

A great number of suggestions have been made from time to time, and many inventions patented, for providing means of intercommunication in various ways between different parts of a train. Some would employ electricity, others air-tubes or watertubes; and others, again, would have signals on each carriage, which should attract the attention of the guard, and indicate the compartment from which they were given; while powerful bells, or whistles worked by air or steam, supplied by the revolutions of the axles or fresh from the engine, or pieces of ordnance, or explosive signals to be dropped under the wheels, would be more appropriate and effective according to the views of different inventors. A simple means of accomplishing this object has now been in use on several railways for some years, with slight modifications of detail on the different lines. The apparatus consists of a hemp or wire rope, by means of which the guard from behind either rings a bell on the tender or pulls the handle of the steam-whistle on the engine. The rope is sometimes passed under the middle of the carriages, with an allotted portion to each carriage, and sometimes inserted in eyes at the sides of the carriages, under the doors. The coupling is effected in the former case by means of spring-loops, and the eyes in the latter are made of a metal spring to admit of the rope being readily slipped into them. In either case the rope can be attached and detached whenever it is necessary without any practical inconvenience or delay; and by making it a rule that the signal to start the trains shall always be given by means of the rope, it is easy to insure that the arrangement shall be kept in working order. This system of communication is at once so simple, inexpensive, and effective, that it is impossible to understand how any manager can allow his trains to travel without it; more particularly when those trains run at the highest rates of speed, and sometimes for a couple of hours without stopping.

On one of the great lines of railway, a travelling-porter has been habitually employed on the fast through-trains, to ride in a recess constructed on the back of the tender, solely for the purpose of keeping a look-out along the carriages during the journey. This system was commenced in 1853, in consequence of an accident to a train in the early part of that year which occasioned the death of a director of the company and injury to five other passengers. It was afterwards discontinued with a particular train; but that train ran up on fire in 1857 towards the London ticket-platform, in consequence of prolonged

friction