The morning call., 1893-11-19
AMERICAN ENGINES USED.
Pullman Sleepers Find Favor
With the Public.
SERVICE OF $50 TRAINS A DAY.
All the Colonies Have Different
Gauges of Track-Primitive Com
partment Cars Still i'm Use.


at the Occidental.
Mr.. Parry says there are about 237O miles
of road in the system. comprising three
trunk lines and their many branches. The
suburban traffic in and out of Sydney, he
says, is something enormous. necesstating
the running of about $50 trains day dur
ing the busy hours. the trains leaving at
intervals of from three to five minutes.
For this class of travel the American
coaches are used and are well liked. In
the matter of train employees the custom
there widely differs from that of this coun-
try. only one guard accompanying each
train. No brakemen are employed. and
the tickets are sold and inspected at the
stations by employees located there. On
the through trains Pullman coaches are
run. and also cOmpartment-cars of the
English pattern, each compartment ac-
commodating five persons, and contain ing
special lavatory. The American make
of engines is also used extensively, thirty
two Baldwin locomotives having been pur-
chased during the past year.
Each colony. unfortunately, has its own
gauge of track. that of South Australia
being feet inches, that of Victoria
feet inches. that of New South Wales
feet So inches. and that of Queensland 3
feet inches. All roads are owned and
operated by the Government.
Accidents. Mr.. Parry says, are very
rare. The main trunk lines are worked
under the absolute block system on both
the double and single track. No train
dispatchers are employed. The system
employed is thus described by the gentle
man:
There are 1851 miles of railway open
for traffic in the colony of New South
Wales, of which So miles are ouadruple,
1897 double. 2193 single. worked under the
following systems: Double and Quadrupe
block, 15413 miles; staff and ticket, 1879
miles; telegraph block in addition to staff
and ticket, Is miles train tablet. 538 miles;
electric train staff. $40 miles. Total. 1881 y
miles.
when the Railway Commissioners took
Office in 1888 all single lines of railway in
New South Wales were worked under the
train staff and ticket system, line clear
reports being permissible when from any
cause the staff was at the wrong end of the
section when required.
In view OF the increased Importance
and volume of traffic, however, the Com
fIissiOners decided TO introduce more i'm
proved systems of working, and to this
end the train tablet instruments were first
brought into operation.
Although the train staff and ticket sys-
telegraph, answered its purpose, ii has
one drawback, inasmuch as it may occur
for the train staff to be at the wrong end
of the section while a train is waiting for
it at another. This fact led to one of the
officers of the Caledonian Railway Com
pany in Great Britain setting his wits to
work to devise a q arrangement by which
train staff or its equivalent in the form of
a tablet or circular disk of metal, could be
electrically controlled from the staff end
of the section, so as to constitute, in point
of fact, a train staff and block telegraph
system combined. The apparatus has
been since improved and perfected, and
has been patented by Messrs. Tyer and
Coy, the well-known electrical engineers,
and 1t is these instruments that are used
in the New South Wales railways. A de-
tailed description of the instruments used
and the way they are manipulated would
appear very complicated, but, as a mat
ter of fact. the working is in practice very
simple. The essential features of the sys-
tenn are as follows:
''Supposing A and are the two ends of
a section of a single line and train is
waiting at A to proceed to B, the signal
man at A gives signal to that effect on
an electric bell to the signalman at Is, for
according TO the block telegraph reguia-
tons the train may proceed TO u, that is to
say, If the line, to the knowledge of the
6lgnalman at Is, is clear between A and B.
The signalman at draws out slide IN
his instrument aud depresses a plunger,
which by means OF an electric current has
the effect of enabling the sigB altman at A
to draw out a sponding slide in his
instrument. and to remove from it train
tablet which he hands to the driver of the
train as his authority 20 start and enter the
section in advance toward B. On arrival
at b the driver delivers up the tablet to
the signalman there, who inserts it in his
instrument, and until this has been done
the apparatus is automatically locked, and
second tablet cannot be obtained from
the apparatus at either end. Thus il is i'm
: possible for two trains To be in the same
section at the same time, proceeding In
opposite directions.
1.-The first instrument brought into use
only admitted of the tablet which was
Withdrawn from the instrument at A being
replaced into the apparatus at 3, there
lore the train or engine had of necessity to
proceed over the whole section, but fur
Their improvements have been made, and
the later instruments permit of a tablet
being taken out Of the instrument at either
END of the section and subsequently re-
placed IN the same instrument thus en-
abling train or engine to proceed to and
shut any intermediate siding between the
two stations and return to the station from
which it started: or if train should from
any cause be unable to proceed after tab
let had been taken out Of the instrument
no delay would ensue, because the tablet
could be replaced in the same instrument
"The tablet is a circular disk of metal
four and three-eighths inches in diameter
and three-eighths Of an inch in thickness,
weighing twenty and a half ounces; thirty
of these are provided for each section, each
of them being engraved with the name of
the section.
'When work is commenced an equal
number OF tablets are placed in each lnstru-
ment, and if the traffic in one direction
should from any cause exceed that going
in the other direction the services of the
electrical engineers assistant are called to
balance the Diets in the instrument.
''For the purpose of exchanging tablets
with the engineers they are secured in
leather pouches attached to cane hoops, SO
as to be readily caught by the engineman
from the signalman, and vice versa and
this exchange can be safely and readily
effected while trains are running twenty to
twenty-five miles an hour. If desirable The
exchange can be effected at still higher
rates of speed by special contrivance on
the engine for picking up the tablet and
duplicate contriyance affixed to a post at
the station for catching the tablet from the
engine for the section in the rear.
"Where sidings are situated in the mid
die of a tablet section between two sta