The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-27 00:00:00

swift train of the South-Eastern Railway Company, as
before rentioned.

In my evidence before the coroner's inquest, at Thet-
ford, I therefore ascribed the accident party to the im-
prudence of the engineman in running down a long
descending gradient of 1 in 200 at the utmost speed that
his engine could command, and pertly to the peculiar
construction of that engine, which I considered unsafe at
a speed exceeding 45 miles an hour ; a speed that was
perfectly unnecessary oc any part of that line, but espe-
cially on that portion of it where the accident occurred,
between Harlingroad Station and Thetford, a distance
of only 8 miles, for travelling over which 46 minutes
were allowed.
As I inferred, from a question put to me, that the
jury had an erroneous notion, that the engine to which
this accident occurred, as well as those which ran off the
rails on the Eastern Counties line first near Chesterford,
and afterwards near Littleheach, were engines built for
the wide gauge, and therefore unsafe for the narrow
gauge, I explained to them that the width between the-
wheels on the narrow gauge was too small to admit of
boilers of such large diameter as those of the engines of
the Great Western Railway, which had greater power
than any before used. Mr. Robert Stephenson tried to
get over this difficulty by increasing the length of his
boilers,since hecould not increase their diameter beyond
a certain limit, in hopes that the greater length of the
boilers, and consequently of the tubes, would produce an
additional evaporating surface, and render his long en-
gines superior in power to all the former short-
boiler engines of the narrow gauge, as well as
to the engines with boilers of larger diameter
of the Great Western. In this attempt, which at
the time appeared very promising, I consider that he has
failed, as I seated in my evidence before the coroner's
inquest-; for his engines with long boilers are by no
means so powerful as those of the Great Western, nor
do I think that they excel in power ; indeed, from my
personal observation, I should say that they are inferior
in power to other engines made for the narrow gauge,
having boilers of moderate length, to which they are
certainly much Inferior in safety; for I have travelled on
the engines alluded to, whether having outside or inside
cylinders, at the rate of 50 miles an hour or upwards ;
and I am of opinion that though certainly inferior to
those of the Great Western Railway in power, they are
perfectly safe at the utmost speed they are capable of at-
taining. Indeed, I have been informed by railway
officers not personally interested in the battle of the
gauges, that one of Messrs. Sharps Brothers' engines
with a light express train, travelled over the wole dis-
tance of 31 miles, between Manchester and Crewe, in 30
minutes, which must have exceeded 60 miles an hour
for great part of the way. But when I rode upon the
same engine afterwards, on the 23d ultimo, from Stock-
port towards Crewe, whilst it was drawing a train of
474 tons, in a stiff gale, it only accomplished 10 miles in
13 minutes and 52 seconds, which induced the narrow
gauge party not to employ it in the trial of power and
speed before the gauge commissioners, as they had at
first intended ; but to transfer the scene of action to
York, and to use engines of the long holler pattern.
The peculiar danger in Mr. Robert Stephenson's long
boiler engines, whether made with outside or inside cy-
linders, is, that, in consequence of their extreme length,
he has placed the axles of all his wheels under the
boiler, having the fire-box and dome an overhanging
weight in the rear, which was never done before, ex-
cept in the short four-wheeled engines of Mr. Bury's
pattern, on the London and Birmingham Railway, which
I do not consider by any means so good as six wheeled
engines; but in travelling upon one of them by an ex-
press train on the 6tb of October last, I found it steady
and safe, in consequence of the tender being screwed up
close to the engine with buffers and springs, which con-
verts the tw3 as it were into an eight-wheeled engine.
I never travelled an a four-wheeled engine at a very great
speed before, but lam informed by locomotive engineers and
enginemen who have, that until this improvement was
adopted, they pitched and rolled like a sailing vessel in
a gale of wind. Probably the same expedient may mil-
der Mr. Stephenson's long-boiler engines also much
steadier, and consequently safer.
In respect to the question put to me by the coroner,
whether shutting off the steam suddenly at high
speed could cause the carriages to run against
the engine with such violence as to knock it off
the rails, I explained that a locomotive engine being
considerably heavier than the tender, and at least double
the weight of any of the carriages of a railway
train, and the whole moving, of course, with equal velo-
city whilst connected, I thought that the act of suddenly
shutting off the steam from the engine could not possibly
cause the carriages to press upon it, because having
much greater momentum it would retain its speed longer;
and if the connexion between the engine and tender, and
the carriages of a train were cast off immediately after
shutting off the steam, the engine would leave the car-
riages behind, and travel to a greater distance than any
of them before it stopped. If shutting off the steam
suddenly could have any effect, as I found by trial that
it had not, accidents like that near Thetford ought to
occur every day ; for it is a common practice with en-
ginemen, on preparing to stop, to shut off their steam
all at once ; as I observed that the driver of one of
Messrs. Stotherd and Slaughter's engines did, the same
evening that I returned from Thetford, when I took the
opportunity of travelling some stages on that engine ;
but this he did of his own accord, and not by my desire,
as your reporter stated through mistake. The experi-
ment, however, can easily be tried on a descending gra-
dient. Let an engine with its tender, drawing a train of
coal waggons, be set in motion. lam ready to go
with Mr. Bidder on any of the narrow gauge engines,
except those of the long- boiler pattern, at full speed,
down an incline, and to shut off the steam suddenly,
and to cast off the train immediately afterwards by dis-
engaging a pin, as is done by the auxiliary engines of
heavy down-trains of the London and Birmingham Rail-
way Company, near their Camden-town station, several
times every day, and I will prove to him that the effect
is null. Should he have doubts as to the safety of the
experiment, he may ride in a carriage in the rear, whilst
I stand on the engine, in as much confidence of the
safety of my position as he can have of his own. But I
shall not argue the point with him in writing. He has
given his opinion, and I have given mine; and his time
may be better employed than in paper warfare, which
can prove nothing.
Having always had occasion to approve of the railway
works actually designed and executed by Mr. Bidder,
though nominally under Mr. Robert Stephenson, as en-
gineer-in-chief, in which he has displayed equal skill and
judgment, and especially in his iron swing-bridge over
the river Wensum, near Norwich, which does him very
great credit, it was a matter of regret to me, that I could
not conscientiously do otherwise than entirely dissent
from Mr. Bidder's opinion in respect to the cause of the
laccident on the Norfolk Railway.
Having nOw explained my evidence in a clearer
manner than;was done in the report made in the _morn-
ing papers of the 14th instant, before alluded to, I must
notice some errors as to fact in that report; after having
corrected which, the remainder of it will be quite accu•
rate. In the first place, I did not say, that the flanges of
Messrs. Stotherd and Slaughter's engines were deficient
in depth; on the contrary, they had the usual depth of
14 inch, which I stated as being quite sufficient; but
they were set nearly at right angles to the tread of the
wheel, contrary to the rule followed in all other locomo-
tive engines that I have seen, which is to round off that
angle nearly in the form of a quadrant. Though similar
to Mr. Robert Stephenson's last pattern in other respects,
the fire-box did notprojeet entirely in the rear as a dead
weight, but had its centre placed over the axle of the
hind wheels, which rendered it necessary to raise the
top of the boiler about nine inches higher, and conse-
quently, though better balanced on their wheels, they
had the disadvantage of being more top-heavy than Mr.
Stephenson's pattern. The present locomotive engineer
of the Eastern Counties Railway assured me that they
had not only been all provided with new wheels of the
usual form, but that they were much improved since two
of them ran off the rails and overset, the first with ex-
cessive speed down an incline and along a curve, which
terminated fatally; the second on a level and straight
portion of the line, and at very moderate speed, so that
no person was injured. If these engines had been an
exact copy of Mr. Stephqnson's pattern, the last-men-
tioned accident would not have talten place.
In mentioning the gauge Commissioners, there were
also several inaccuracies in your reporter's account of
my evidence, in consequence of which I was obliged to
write to them to explain, lest they should consider me
wanting in courtesy towards them. In the first place,
being independent of the Board of Trade, they agnadveno
sent
opinion, as implied in the newspaper
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of the accident, as required by Act
of Parliament. On inspecting the engine itself, at Derby,
last week, I found that instead of being an exact copy of
Mr. Robert Stephensons long-boiler pattern, as I had
supposed at the period of the inquest, it differed from it
in two points; first, in having been made with inside cylin-
ders, in order to do away with the oscillation generally,
but I think erroneously, ascribed to outside cylinders;
and, secondly, in having an oval boiler in order to obtain
greater sectional area than the narrow gauge admits of
when the cylindrical form is used. Neither of these
alterations can be considered an improvement, as they
both produce the unfavourable effect of rendering it
necessary to raise the boiler higher than in Mr. Stephen-
son's pattern. It was also erroneously stated by your
reporter, that the gauge Commissioners were in a train
from Bristol to Gloucester, upon the engine of which I
travelled with Mr. M‘Connel, locomotive superintendent
of the Bristol and Birmingham Railway, erroneously
styled Mr. M'Connel, when I first tried the experiment of
shutting off the steam in going at full speed. Moreover,
when I tried the same experiment a second time, by-
permission of Mr. Brunel, on the engine of an experi-
mental goods' train, on the Great Western Railway, in
which the Commissioners were travelling from Padding-
ton to Didcot, it had a load of 205 tone only, instead of
2,000 tons, as stated in the newspaper report.
I shall here observe, though it made no part
of my evidence before the coroner's inquest at
Thetford, with which the question of the gauges
had Very little to do, that I have drawn an in-
ference from the performances of the experimental

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir,—A long letter from General Pasley, of the Board
of Trade, Inspector-General of Railways, on various
matters connected with railways, especially as to the
construction of engines, appears in your paper of to-day.
The Inspector-General's letter is avowedly to correct
errors in the report of statements made by him at the
coroner's inquest lately held at Thetford; but among
other general remarks on points connected with rail-
ways, the Inspector-General thinks fit to prejudge the
inferences to be drawn from the late experiments on en-
gines of the broad and narrow gauges.
The parties interested in the narrow gauge, who were
commanded by the Commisssioners to undertake the ex-
periments, desire me to explain that they were made for
the information of the gauge commissioners—to
whom, and not to the Inspector-General, the deci-
sion' of the question of gauge—including, therefore,
the inferences to be drawn from the late experi-
ments—are referred by her Majesty ; and that
consequently, the correct and authentic report of
these experiments has been put into the hands of the
gauge Commissioners only. They further desire me to
say, that the reports which have been published in the
newspapers, from the omission of essential facts, da not
afford the means of deducing from the experiments any
correct inference as to the issue of the question to de-
termine which they were made.
The parties at whose request I write are, therefore,
they believe, in possessien of more precise information
as to these experiments than is possessed by General
Pasley, who, though present at the experiments on the
broad gauge, was, it is to be remarked, not present at the
experiments on the narrow; but respect to the Commis-
sioners, under whose consideration the matter still rests,
prevents them from saying more than that they them-
selves feel satisfied that a correct statement of the whole
facts connected with the experiments leads to a directly
opposite conclusion to that expressed by General Pasley,
and that the results of the experiments, as far as they
prove anything, tend to confirm in every respect the
evidence (derived from long experience) which has been
laid before the Commissioners in favour of the efficiency,
as regards safety, speed, command of power, economy,
and convenience. of the engine which the narrow gauge
admits of, as compared with those which the broad gauge
admits of.—l am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
London, Jan. 21. GEORGE P. BIDDER.