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Part 10




Part 10 of Railway Wonders of the World was published on Friday 5th April 1935.


This issue contained a black and white art plate depicting Snow-sheds in the Andes, and formed a further illustration to the article The Magic of the Andes. It was attached to page 301, or the fifth page of this issue.




The Cover

The cover featured an unidentified LMS tank locomotive with its motion being oiled by the driver.

railway wonders of the world


Contents of Part 10


Editorial


 Train Ferries (Part 2)

Remarkable examples of trans-ocean transport, concluded from part 9.

(Pages 293-296)


You can read more on “Trains That Go To Sea” in Cecil J Allen’s Railway Wonders (1925), and you can read more on the Southern Railway’s “Twickenham Ferry” and the LNER’s “Train Ferry No. 3” in Shipping Wonders of the World.


The Magic of the Andes

A survey of the trans-Andean railways of South America, climbing through the clouds. This chapter includes the line that runs from Mendoza to Los Andes, on which trains are operated on both rack and adhesion principles. At one point this line is 10,512 ft above sea-level. The engineering resource that made the building of the line possible cannot fail to win the admiration of all readers.

(Pages 297-306)


Devastated (art plate)












DEVASTATED. Snow-sheds must be built to protect many sections of the line that cross the formidable barrier of the Andes. But Nature sometimes gains a victory in her fight against the forces of civilization, and this photograph shows over sixty yards of snow-shedding destroyed by an avalanche in 1921.

(between pages 300 and 301)













Diesel Locomotives

The construction of and performance obtained from the oil engine. This chapter clearly explains how and why a Diesel engine operates and shows that in certain circumstances the heavy-oil engine is superior to the steam locomotive, although no responsible writer would ever claim that the age of steam is yet anywhere near to passing.

(Pages 307-312)


Driverless Subway Trains

The operation of the Post Office tube railway. This automatic tube railway runs for approximately six and a half miles from Paddington Railway Station to the Eastern District Post Office Of London. There is little doubt that the postal system of Great Britain, criticize it though we may, is the best and speediest in the world; and that of London itself is a model of quick transport. The object of the GPO Tube railway is to provide a rapid means of carrying some of His Majesty’s mails, and one of the peculiar features is that the trains are driverless. The trains are controlled electrically from operating cabins at the various stations along the route. Speed on the level reaches thirty-two miles an hour. This is the second article in the series on The World’s Strangest Railways.

(Pages 313-319)

Click on the small image to see a short British Pathe newsreel clip of the  “Tube that takes no travellers.”




The Great Apennine Tunnel (Part 1)

The engineering marvels of the Bologna-Florence “Direttissima” route. On this line is the Great Apennine Tunnel, second largest in the world, and eleven and a half miles long: and seldom has construction been fraught with so many dangers, including explosions of poisonous gases, incursions of water and outbreaks of fire. Since the geological formation of the Apennines differs considerably from that of the Alps, the Italian engineers were faced with a task quite different from that which confronted the tunnel builders of Switzerland. A worse soil for tunnel construction could not be found, yet the old Roman “will to win” found means of overcoming the formidable oppositions of nature; and building some of the most astonishing of the world’s tunnels constituted a drama of human achievement. This article is completed in part 11.

(Pages 320-324)