A Cinema Innovation.

Recently, the Southern Railway has commenced the construction of a special station cinema at the Victoria terminal, in London, the designing of which has been entrusted to Mr. Alister MacDonald, the architect son of the Prime Minister. News films chiefly, will be shewn, interspersed with films depicting travel scenes at home and abroad. Passengers waiting for trains will be admitted free of charge, and timely warning of the approaching departure of each train will be flashed on the screen during the programme.

Just what the railwaymen of the nineteenth century would think of innovations of this character is a bit of a problem. Stephenson and Brunel, for example, never dreamt of the railway industry embracing such activities as part of its daily routine. This year, it may be recalled, the Great Western Railway is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the appointment of Isambard Brunel as its chief engineer.

Brunel practically made the Great Western Railway. He was the pioneer of broad-gauge railways, and among the famous engineering works that stand to his credit are the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Menai Straits, and the even more remarkable Royal Albert Bridge, conveying the Great Western line over the River Tamar, at Saltash, near Plymouth. Another activity of the gifted engineer was the construction of the atmospheric railway which linked Exeter with Newton Abbot, in South Devon. It was the good fortune of the writer to travel over Brunel's Saltash Bridge a short time ago, and to inspect this unique monument to engineering genius, which is to-day in as sound a condition as it was when opened for traffic more than sixty years ago.