Part 11 of Railway Wonders of the World was published on Friday 12th April 1935.
This issue contained a photogravure supplement featuring Stations from the Air, the first of two such features in the part work.
The Cover
The cover represents the Great Western “King” class locomotive - “King Henry II”. It belongs to the most powerful express locomotive class used on the GWR and works the principal services to and from the West of England. The “King Henry II” has 6 ft 6 in driving wheels, four cylinders 16½ in diameter by 28 in stroke, carries 250 lb per sq in working pressure and weighs 135¾
tons in full working order.
This illustration shows “King Henry II” hauling the "Cornish Riviera Express", and this was later used as a black and white art plate at the front of part 25 which formed the frontispiece to Volume 2.
The construction and maintenance of the railway, told by Cecil J. Allen. Everybody who has looked from a carriage window must have wondered how the twin lines of steel, the basis of rail travel, are laid so truly and kept so perfectly. The maintenance and supervision of the permanent way are becoming more and more vital as speeds increase and “unreasonable” advances are made in every way.
The central photogravure supplement with this issue features photographs of a number of stations from the air, or, as the Editorial phrased it “showing modern stations and their ramifications as seen from the air”. The stations covered in this supplement are: Cardiff General, King's Cross and St Pancras, and Weybridge in Surrey. A second photogravure supplement featuring further stations from the air appeared in part 20.
An account of the use of mechanical means of access to and from railway stations. It has been suggested that escalators are for the lazy and the aged; but the fact that their number is being rapidly increased is due to the growing problem of handling large crowds of travellers expeditiously during the rush hours. You can read more on lifts and escalators in Wonders of World Engineering.
A description of the railway from Fremantle to Brisbane, connecting Western Australia with the Eastern States. One section of the Trans-Australia railway, across the Nullarbor Plain, runs dead level and dead straight for three hundred miles. This is the fourth article in the series on Railways of the Empire. The article concludes in part 12.
