1862 London Exhibition: Catalogue: Class V.: W. Seaton

1298. SEATON, William, 44 Albemarle Street.

Safety saddle-rail.

The advantages attending the adoption of this system of Permanent Way, may be shortly stated as follows: —

• 1. The Rail is supported throughout by a solid and continuous bearing of timber, having a bearing surface on the ballast of 17 inches in width.
• 2. The Rail has a firm surface bearing on the timber of 288 inches per lineal yard, and the pressure being at right angles to the flange, it has a tendency to compress the fibre of the timber, rendering it firmer and harder in proportion to the pressure applied.
• 3. The Rail and Sleeper are liable to no decay or injury from rain and wet; the form, being pyramidal, has no surface on which water can lodge,
• 4. The mode of joining and supporting the ends of the rails, by an under saddle-plate, is found to be thoroughly effective, and much less costly than any existing mode.
• 5. This system requires no iron or other chairs; no keys, fish plates, pins, spikes, or trenails; or separate pieces, liable to become loose; its only fastenings are a few bolts on each side of the rail, there being no tendency in the rail to quit its seat, or to work loose.
• 6. In regard to economy, both of first cost and of subsequent maintenance, it far surpasses all existing systems, a fact which is due, as well to the saving of both timber and iron, as to the simplicity of its fastenings and their immovability.
• 7. To the latter circumstance, to the absence of chairs or other fastenings likely, by accident, to be brought into contact with the flanges of the wheels, and to the perfect mode of joining the rails, we may look for an entire absence of that class of dangerous accidents, so common of late, where the tire of a wheel has given way from a violent concussion, and has generally been attributed to unknown causes.

The merits of the system, then, may be summed up as follows:—

• • 1 SIMPLICITY OF CONSTRUCTION.
  • 2. SAFETY.
  • 3. ECONOMY IN FIRST COST.
  • 4. ECONOMY IN MAINTENANCE.

This system has been laid down for trial on several of the Main Lines of Railway, and has been amended from time to time, as improvements have suggested themselves. The portion of Railway which may be referred to as embodying the whole of these improvements, as affording the best illustration of the superiority of the system, and to which the foregoing description is in all respects applicable, is part of the Down Line of the Great Western Railway near Kensal Green, which was laid in May, 1858, over which the whole of the large traffic of that Company out of London has, in the interval, passed. At the present time (May, 1861), the ballast on that line has not been disturbed for twelve months; the grass is growing between the rails; and the fastenings are as firm and immovable as on the day when it was laid down.

Attention is requested to the testimony of ROBERT BENDON DOCKRAY, ESQ., one of the earliest and most experienced Engineers in the kingdom, and who had, for eighteen years, under ROBERT STEPHENSON, ESQ., the charge of the Maintenance of the Permanent Way of the London and North Western Railway. This extract is taken from a Report made by Mr. DOCKRAY to CAPTAIN MARTENDALE, RE., one of the Government Inspectors of Railways, soon after the Road was first laid; and the note which follows it, and which has recently been obtained from Mr. DOCKRAY, records his opinion of the system after it has been under trial for three years. Plans and Models of this system of Permanent Way can be inspected, and all information obtained at the Offices, 6 Parliament Street, Westminster; where, if desired, contracts will be entered into for its Construction and Maintenance for 7, 14, or 21 years, at rates varying from ten to fifteen per cent lower than those of other systems.

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