r
durable, and therefore economical; while the construction, as will be seen
from our vignette, renders pilferage, unless by collusion with the
respectable party who overlooks the unloading, almost impossible.

A diminution of the cost for repairs of rolling stock (on an average equal to
12 pounds per ann.), and of the cost for compensation to customers for
breakage and pilferage, should be a leading object with every sensible
railway director. Indeed these losses, with deadweight, and lawyer's bills,
are the deadly enemies of railway directors.

Further improvements in these waggons have been effected by the use of
corrugated iron, which is light and strong at the same time; and the iron
waggons have been again improved by employing iron covered with a thin
coating of glass, under a new patent, which renders rust impossible and paint
unnecessary. The simple contrivance by which the door and moveable roof is
locked and unlocked by one motion, is worthy of the notice of practical men.
600 of these lock-up waggons, with springs and buffers, are in use on the
London and North Western Railway.

Mr. Henson has also succeeded in establishing a traffic in gunpowder, by
inventing a carriage of sheet iron, lined with wood, in which four-and-a-half
tons of gunpowder can be conveyed without fear of explosion either from
concussion or external combustion.

The shops at Camden have room for building or repairing 100 waggons. They
are to be seen in every stage of progress.

The great object is to combine strength with lightness. If the strength
being the same, the saving of a ton can be effected in a waggon, it will
amount to from thirty to ninety tons in an ordinary goods train. An
important consideration, for deadweight is the great enemy of the railway,
and ninety tons of useless weight is equivalent to a loss of 90 pounds in
sending a goods train a journey to Birmingham. British oak is the favourite
wood for the frames of railway waggons; teak, if of equal quality, is dearer,
and the inferior is heavier, without being so strong. If in any of the many
countries with which we trade a wood can be discovered as good and as cheap
as English oak, the railways which are constantly extending their carrying
stock, can afford a steady demand.

About the passenger carriages, which every one can see and examine for
himself, there is not much to be said. On the Continent, where they cannot
afford to use mahogany, they use sheet-i