Steel Sleepers on the Home Railways.

Soundly constructed and well maintained permanent way is the very basis of successful railway operation. In the search for the perfect railway track many interesting experiments have from time to time been undertaken, and now the Southern Railway of England is breaking new ground, so far as the Home railways are concerned, by making extensive use of steel sleepers in place of the creosoted wooden sleepers commonly employed in Britain. Owing to the shortage of timber, the price of wooden sleepers has been increasing, and all timber employed for this purpose at Home has to be imported. Largely with the idea of reducing costs, the Southern Railway has for some time been making experiments with steel sleepers on its London-Portsmouth main line, over which pass heavy passenger trains hauled by the well-known “King Arthur” type of locomotive. These experiments proving successful, the move towards the extended utilisation of steel sleepers on the Southern main lines is being made.

The Southern steel sleepers are eight feet in length. The rail rests upon a steel baseplate lying on the sleeper, and an oak key is utilised to tighten the rail in the chair. Steel rail of 95lbs, per yard section is employed on the tracks concerned. At Home the only obstacle to the general employment of the steel sleepers is the fact that they cannot be used in electrified areas at present, nor where there are signal track circuits. As time goes on, the utilisation of steel sleepers on a big scale is likely on the four Home group lines.

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