THIS IS THE WAY TO RUN A RAILROAD..

TALKING CABOOSE

Crewmen in this Northern Pacific caboose talk to their engineer
by phone, a modern feature that helps provide safer, faster
freight movement.

Close communication over our entire route avoids delays,
helps NP move your freight shipment swiftly and surely. New
this is the way we run NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY
methods, new equipment, new ideas...

The contraction has not been announced officially but seems certain to take place. It is the winding up of Wagons-Lits operations in Egypt. The Cairo division of the far-flung WagonsLits empire is 65 years old and at one time hotels, diners, and sleepers all were operated. The hotels were sold, but the diners and sleepers survived two World Wars and at one time an all-Pullman service with the name of Sunshine Express

and an all Wagons-Lits sleeper express called Star of Egypt were operated. Now comes news of the formation of an Arab Sleeping and Dining Car Company, which looks like an end to the Wagons-Lits activities in the river Nile region.

STEAM OUT, A.C. IN: The first electrified

line in Bulgaria is reported as complete. It is the steeply graded route from Sofia to Plovdiv. This 102-mile-long sector has been electrified on the 25 kv. 50-cycles A.C. system. Some 22 4000 h.p. electric locomotives have been provided to handle passenger and freight services, and schedules are being reduced. Accelerated time is 150 minutes compared with, for example, 190 minutes for the Tauern and 204 minutes for the Simplon-Orient ex

SHRINKING BR?: Recent speeches and statements by British Transport Commission and BR executives including BTC Chairman Dr. Beeching-indicate that Britain's railway system is likely to shrink. A drastically reduced route-mileage (some say pruned by half) is considered to be one of the only ways to make the system profitable. In a paper presented to the Institute of Transport, L. W. Ibbotson, assistant general manager of the Western Region, highlighted present problems when he pointed out that his region was not even covering its costs by a large margin. He commented that the Western Region must be reduced to a few wellsignaled main lines, and branch and secondary lines should be retained only where traffic volume justifies them.

FASTER MISTRAL: At the end of June, overhead 1500 v. D.C. electrified conductor wires will stretch all the way from Paris to Marseille. One result of this will be the acceleration of French Railroads' No. 1 train - the Mistral. Between Paris and Lyon it will keep to existing schedule (318 miles in 240 minutes), but on the remaining sector of its run the timetable will be accelerated. Between Paris and Marseille (536 miles) the average speed will be 74 mph - including four intermediate stops. Over the 677 miles separating the French capital and Nice on the Riviera, the Mistral-nine intermediate halts included - will average 65 mph.

The extension of electrification (25 kv. A.C.) on another important route will also bring accelerations this summer. This

is the Paris-Strasbourg line, and between Paris and Nancy (219 miles) the crack Europeen express has a 169-minute sched ule, while another train takes only 175 minutes. For the 313 miles from Paris to Strasbourg the Europeen is allowed only 255 minutes.

CIE TAKES THE AIR: Growing air-freigh: traffic between Ireland and the rest of the world has attracted the attention of com mercially conscious Coras Iompair Eireann (the Irish rail and road transport system) A district manager has been appointed to control and to develop this traffic and is located at Shannon Airport. CIE will act as agents for the transport of freight from Ireland to literally anywhere. Consignments can be handed in at any depot and CIE will carry them either to Dublin. Cork, or Shannon airports. They will then be flown to the point nearest their destination, completing their journey by surface transport.

TALGOS FOR SPAIN: More Talgo lightweight articulated trains are planned by the Spanish National Railways. They will be used on lines serving Southern Spain and Barcelona. The cars will be built in Spain; however, the diesel locomotives10 of them are being ordered from Germany.

A SIGNIFICANT B-B-B: The cross-island Hokuriku Line on Honshu, Japan, has 2.5 per cent grades. This factor caused JNR freight trains, doubleheaded by ED70 B-B electrics (mercury arc rectifier A.C. units). to get into trouble in curvaceous upgrade tunnels. They stalled. Today a new silicon rectifier electric locomotive goes it alone with 1200 tons of manifest freight, and has the power to accelerate after a dead hal in the steepest tunnel.

The freshly outshopped EF70 is a 3'6" gauge 50-cycle 20 kv. A.C. B-B-B unit a pable of 39,000 pounds of tractive ef fort. The five-year-old ED70 can muster only 32,500 pounds. Weighing 106 tons in working order, the bright red EF loco motive is 55 ft. long, 9' 2" wide, and 14'1" high. Strictly a freight hauler, the unit has six traction motors, a top speed of 5′′ mph, 2250 kw. of continuous output, and a 4.12 gear ratio. Two builders are in volved: EF701-11 were outshopped b Hitachi; and EF7012-18 were built h Mitsubishi. The significance of these elec trics is spelled out in one word-silicon Modern research has rendered obsolete

the mercury arc rectifier in favor of the more compact silicon unit. Item: 1000 piv (Put In Volts) is now possible. Next goal: 1500 piv.

Although an arcing problem remains, it is expected that a major breakthrough will result in an arcless silicon rectifier EF75 locomotive by 1963. This should be worth waiting for.

LAST RIVER TO BE CROSSED: Indian rivers are referred to as nadi (she), but the famed Brahmaputra in Assam is an outstanding exception. Known as nada (he), the 34-mile-wide stream has a he-man current that flows at the ferocious rate of 22 million cubic feet per second. This fearful flow has defied all attempts to cross it by either road or rail until now, that is. India's Northeast Frontier Railway made a long study, rolled up its sleeves, and started construction in 1958. Just look at what's involved: the bridge is 4258 ft. long, has 10 spans of 403' 41/2" each plus two shore spans of 109 ft., and rests on piers that go down 200 ft. Caissons weighing 500 tons measure 72 ft. in length, 54 ft. in width, and are 32 ft. thick. These had to be sunk in rushing water, sometimes 50 ft. deep, with absolute accuracy. A mere 1⁄2 in. leeway was permitted.

Due to be completed in May of this year, the double-deck "earthquake-resistant" bridge will carry a two-track metergauge railway line on the lower level and a 24 ft. roadway on the upper deck. Reason the Brahmaputra had to be spanned: an existing ferry service couldn't cope with the increasing traffic.

LIFE'S WORK DONE: The I.C.C. has approved abandonment of Campbell's Creek Railroad, idle West Virginia line owned by Amherst Coal Company. Started in 1901, Campbell's Creek built a 14-mile main line from Port Amherst to Putney and later added a 2.5-mile branch to Rensford. At one time it hauled almost a million tons of coal yearly-in on-line hoppers which dumped their loads into barges on the Kanawha River at Port Amherst. The outer 6 miles of main line had been unused for a number of years and only one coal mine was still running when a flash flood put the road out of business last July. Motive power was No. 13, a yellow

and-black 1200 h.p. EMD switcher bought new in 1953. . . . Abandonment of Fort Smith, Subiaco & Rock Island Railroad has been solemnized by the I.C.C. Originally built to haul coal and lumber, the 16-mile Arkansas line had not turned a wheel since 1950, when its last engine, 4-6-0 No. 2522, was left to rust away at Paris. FSS&RI began as Fort Smith, Subiaco & Eastern in 1908 and completed a 40-mile line from Paris to Dardanelle in 1920. More than half of this trackage, from Dardanelle to Scranton, was abandoned in 1938. The road was owned by American Construction Company.

NEW FACE: Construction is now under way on Southern Land, Timber & Pulp Corporation's 19-mile Chattahoochee Industrial Railroad, which will serve a new paper mill near Jakin, Ga.

FACE-LIFT: New leases on life now appear to be assured for both of the old Central of Georgia "Wadley" roads. Transition of Louisville & Wadley Railroad to the locally owned Railway is now more than six months old; L&W Railway is running three days a week with an Alco diesel switcher leased from Alabama's Birmingham Southern Railroad, and is also performing service on Wadley Southern Railway. Plans which will change that last word to Railroad have finally been laid before the I.C.C. by another local group.

ADD: Arcade & Attica Railroad will soon join the growing list of short lines in the steam-powered excursion business. The 15-mile western New York road has bought a 1920-built Cooke 2-8-0, No. 18, from Boyne City Railroad of Michigan.

Vernonia, South Park & Sunset Steam Railway Association, which was unable to get into operation last year, hopes to carry passengers between Banks and Vernonia, Ore., this summer behind former Long-Bell Lumber Company 2-6-2 No. 105. It would use 21 miles of branch line belonging to SP&S. . . . Blackmount & Haverhill Railroad has been formed by a group in New Hampshire to re-lay 4 miles of track on an old B&M grade from Blackmount to Haverhill for the usual purpose. Their excursion engine will be Groveton Papers Company No. 7, a Vulcan 2-4-2T. SUBTRACT: Despite recent reports that it would retube both its Baldwin 2-8-0 and Vulcan 2-6-2 for further service, North Carolina's Cliffside Railroad may be diesel by the time you read this.. Morehead & North Fork Railroad of Kentucky has received a tube extension for the older of its two 0-6-0's, but it still expects to dieselize soon. . . . Rumors of diesels also emanate from the Brooklyn (N. Y.) Eastern District Terminal, saddletanker-powered dockside switching road.

J. Neils Lumber Company's 20-mile Klickitat Log & Lumber railroad out of Klickitat, Wash., will probably be replaced by trucks this year. The line has two Shays. . . . Elsewhere in Washington, the long-expected diesels for the Grays Harbor Tree Farm railroad of Rayonier Incorporated have finally arrived. . . . Santa Maria Valley Railroad's standby 2-8-2 No. 21 recently made a largely attended and widely publicized farewell run, with the California road's owner, Capt. G. Allan Hancock, at the throttle. I