An iron car made of cylindrical form is now used on the Bengal Railway, for the carriage of cotton and other produce. It is much lighter and safer than the ordinary car. We believe in iron cars.
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND.--At the rate old subscribers are renewing, and new ones coming in, there is a prospect that our ambition to increase the circulation of this paper to one hundred thousand will be gratified.
AMERICAN AND ENGLISH RAILWAY PRACTICE CONTRASTED.
A paper on "American Locomotives and Rolling Stock," read before the Institution of Civil Engineers, in England, with an abstract on the discussion thereon, has been forwarded to us by the publishers, William Clowes and Sons, Stamford street and Charing Cross, London.
We have seldom met with a pamphlet of greater interest and value. The whole subject of American as contrasted with English railroad practice is reviewed, and the differences which exist, with the necessities for such differences ably discussed. Mr. Colburn shows these differences to be external rather than fundamental, and traces many of the peculiarities of American construction to the "initiative of English engineers." The cause for the adoption and retention of these peculiarities he attributes to "the necessities of a new country and the comparative scarcity of capital," and thinks that but for these causes" American railways and their rolling stock would have doubtless been constructed, as in other countries, upon English models, and worked, in most respects, upon English principles of management.
He reviews the origin and introduction of American features of railway practice, and points out as the distinguishing feature of American locomotives and rolling stock the bogie, or swiveling truck. "Keeping in mind the distinguishing merits of the bogie, the other differences between English and American locomotives are differences more of costume and of toilet than of vital principles of construction."
The author attributes the origin of the greater subdivision of rolling weight and consequent coupling of wheels on American roads to the comparatively weak and imperfect permanent way, estimating the maximum weight per wheel as being for many years four English tuns, while three tuns he considers, as more than the average for each coupled wheel of American locomotives.