3-021-217 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Locomotive engine, with horizontal extra wheels, for the Mont Cenis Railway, 1868. Railway over the Alps. 'The entire length of this line, from St. Michel to Susa, is forty- eight miles...the trial trip...was quite successful, the whole journey being accomplished at the rate of about nine miles an hour...there is no doubt of the usefulness of the mechanical system, invented by Mr. Fell, for enabling the locomotive engines to ascend and descend, with perfect safety and facility, the steepest gradients...Mr. Fell adopts a third or centre rail, upon which adhesion is obtained by the pressure of horizontal wheels, worked by the engine in conjunction with the ordinary perpendicular wheels. This plan enables the weight of the engine to be reduced to a minimum...Mr. Fell's engines are able to mount with ease gradients of 1 in 12, or twice as steep as the steepest gradient that an ordinary engine can surmount. This plan adds also to safety, as it is impossible for the engine or train ever to get off the line. Our Engraving represents an engine and train going round a curve of forty yards. This it is able to do with perfect ease and safety, whilst on the ordinary system it would not be safe to go round...curves of less than 400 yards' radius'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.