Semi-weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1852-1853, 1853-02-19

UNDECIDED by the multitude, must oftentimes have
excited a variety of feelings, which it would be
utterly impossible to describe"
At last the arrangements are completed, the sig
mails of " all right " exchanged between the
guards. the manager and the driver, the whistle
sounds shrlly on the car the last adieus arc utter
ed. and the whole fabric is in notion and rapidly
increasing in speed, it vanshes out of sight be-
tween the high walls of the cutting.
Well the express is at length at full speed, and
this opportunity may be rendered available for CIV
inc some idea of what is involved in order to attain
the enormous speed of locomotion which IS reached
Suppose a train to move at seventy miles an hour
"a speed not unfrequent in the expresses on the
Great Western Railway-this is, i'll round num-
bers los feet per second that is to say, the pass
enger is carried thirtyfv yards in the space
of time between two ticks of common clock. IT
two trains pass another at such speed the rel
atve velocity is double that, seventy yards per
second and fone of the trains seventy yards
long it would flash by in single second.
If the movements of the machinery thus brought
into action be tested it will be found that some GU
rious facts are brought to light. In making this
inquiry Dr. Lardner-of whose valuable researches
on this point we here avail ourselves-begins with
the supposition that the driving wheels Of the en-
gne are about seven feet in diameter, and, conse-
Quently, that they little more than TWEEN
ty-one feet or yards, in circumference. Ihesr
wheels would revolve five times in running owe
thirty-fve yards of the rails; and as this space Is
on the suppostion made, passed over IN one sec
ond, these driving wheels must at such speed re-
volve five times a second. Now, to produce one
revolution of the driving wheels, each piston must
once move backwards and forwards in the cylinder
and its motion, therefore, must divide second in
t. ten equal parts. On arriving at the end OF the
cylinder valve must be shifted so as to admit
fresh steam on one side the piston, and that it may
be withdrawn on the other; and this valve must
move so rapidly as to form but small fraction Of
the entire stroke of the piston.
But there are two cylinders, and the mechanism
is so regulated that the discharge from the one Is
intermediate between two successive discharges
from the other. There are, therefore, twenty dis
charges of steam per second, at equal intervals !;
and thus these twenty pufs divide second into
twenty equal parts, each puff being the twentieth
of a second between it and that which precedes
and follows it. 1t is these blasts of steam which
produce that coughing noise heard when locomo-
tive engine is moving slowly.
Now, according to the experiments of DIR. Hut
ton, it appears that the flight of cannon ball Is
at about five miles minute, or three hundred
miles an hour in other words, that train moving
at seventy-fve miles an hour has velocity only
four times less than that of a cannon ball. The
heavy cannons employed in the broadside Of line
ofbattle ship are almost all thirty two Founders,
and may form some idea of the destruction which
these masses of iron occasion when they thrown
with all their tremendous momentum against any
object. But when we remember that railway
train weighs, not thrty-two pounds, but, perhaps,
seventy-ive tons, and that the speed of train at
seventy-ve miles an hour is but fourth less than
that of acannon ball, we have this surprising con-
cluson presented to US, that, when take
seat amidst the soft cushions of such train, we
are embarking in an agent which will soon have
momentum equal to that of a cannon ball flying
throug the air, of some eighteen tons weight! To
sit astride of bomb-shell-settng apart the dan
ger of explosion, and the Inconvenience of expo
sure to the airs nothing, in contrast with the
tremendous power with which we are associated in
our journeyings over the land in such vehicle as
an express train on the Great Western Railway.
OF the total number of engines emplyed upon
the English lines estimate may be formed from
the fact, that to stock line requires average of
half an engine a mile while there were opened
for traffic throughout tie country on the 1st of
December, 1851, $500 miles of railway. The ac-
tual number of engines the 500 miles worked
by the London and North Western Railway, is
592; on the South Western, on pa miles, lis
eDgines.*
And here n few words about the carriages may
not be out of place. Of the numbers of these in
existence some idea may be gained from the fact,
that the carrying stock of the railways of the king
dom includes no fewer than some sixty thousand
vehicles, about one tenth of which are for passen-
gers. The value of the whole stock is estimated
at 100000 sterling.
The cost of constructing frst-class carriage, af
fordng accommodation for eighteen passengers, is
about $3.50; second-class, to hold twenty-five,
f26O; and horse boxes may be built for about
$50. Formerly the prices much higher
but with the increase of experience in their cree
ton they have been greatly improved, and the cost
greatly diminished. The stock of carriages in the
coaching department of the London and North
Western Railway was. on the 3lst of December
1851, as follows:
State carriage,
First-cass, mails, and composite, $50
Second-class, 564
Third-class, 344
Travelling tofices, and post-ofice tenders, 25
Horse boxes. 27I
Carriage-irucks, 249
Guards breaks, and parcs-vans, 2IO
Parcel-caIts, trucks, &C., 43
The carriage stock Of railway companies is gen
orally of such design and construction, and kept in
such state of efficient repair that accidents ari
sing from their failure very rare. The wheels
and axle-boxes are the most severely tested parts
of the vehicles, but if originally we'll made they
give little trouble in their maintenance and repair
A spring sometimes breaks, and a tire occasionally
which case the wheel is in danger of be-
ing thro wn into pieces by the centrifugal velocity
.hut the instances So rare that thew are not