HF Hall AMIRSE AMIE (Aust)

One of the major problems in Railway working is to provide adequate facilities for Roadways crossing the lines and having provided these facilities, to protect the road user from the consequence of coming into collision with railway vehicles. For many reasons, the problem of avoiding such! accidents has invariably devolved upon the railway authorities.

The obvious solution is to avoid crossings, or where this utopian ideal cannot be attained, to cross the railway by means of overbridges or subways. It will be realised however, that geographical conditions and economic considerations very often render this impossible and so it is found that in a great number of cases the roadway crosses the railway by means of what we know as a level crossing, that is a crossing where the roadway and railway tracks are on the same plane.

A. G. HENRY, MIRSE, AMIE (Aust.), ASTC (Syd.)

Essenital in all forms of human activity are communications.  They are the means by which ideas are conveyed from the mind of one person to the minds of others. Communications are necessary in all associations.  For any unit of society to function - to exist - it must be held together by a bond, and that bond is its communications, adequate to itself.  Communication is a medium through which the ideas of the members in any group are interchanged.  It is these that integrate them into a coherent unit.  It is communication in fact which differentiates between human and static life; between the tree and the animal - the tree cannot communicate with its fellow or among its parts; it is doomed to remain an solitary individual in space. Out of the gradual growth of communications, villages have sprung into towns; towns have become countries; and empires have built up. Now, with the perfection of communications, we move towards the "one world of the visionaries."

Some Observations on English and American Practice

Mr. F. Stewart (Member) A. S. T. C., A. M.I.E. (Aust.) Assoc. Inst. T.,

Signal Engineer, McKenzie & Holland (Aust.) Pty. Ltd.

Modern railway signalling covers such a wide field that no single paper can adequately cover the technicalities involved, and this paper has, therefore, been limited to some observations on English and American practice in power signalling.
Railway systems in England and America have had to meet widelv different conditions of population density and area, and traffic operating conditions in the two countries have been developed to suit the local conditions.
Railway signalling in each country has been adapted to meet the varying traffic conditions and track layout, whilst retain- ing the accepted basic principles of safe working.
We get some idea of these differences by comparing the long hauls on single track, with long and heavy trains, so characteristic of much of the mileage on American railways, with the shorter trains and short hauls on multiple track, which constitute the greater portion of English railways.

Of all the use to which rubber insulated cables are put there is none more irnportant than that of Railway Signalling.  The cables formm the nerve centres of electrical signalling on which the safety of the congested rail traffic in City and Suburbs and the high speed Interstate Expresses so largely depends.

Article from the Journal of the Institute of Transport