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President I.C.E., Chief Engineer, British Railways (Western Region) for permission to present the Paper ; to the postal authorities a t London and a t Bristol for their kind assistance and valuable information ; and to many other people in the several offices of the Western Region who have also contributed useful data. DiscussionThe Authors, in introducing the Paper with the aid of lantern slides, said that t,hey had been persuaded to write the Paper not because they possessed a>ny profound knowledge of the subject but because they had, in the course of their routine work, made what might be termed an exploratory approach to it. On consideration, they had come to the conclusion that they would have preferred the t,itle to be '' Some Aspects of the Mechanical Handling of Parcels and Mails," since it was not possible to cover a subject so wide in its application and so restricted by reason of the conditions prevailing a t a particular site.Mention was made in the Paper of the fact that 65 per cent. of the outwad bags arrived a t Paddington via the Post Office railway, which passed across London from Whitechapel on the east to Paddington on the west. There were six intermediate district offices on the railway, one of which was the well known Mount Pleasant : the only main-line terminal station other than Paddington was Liverpool Street. The railway was about 6$ miles long, and had a 2-foot gauge ; it had been in operation for about 23 years. In 1948 it handled 11,500,000 bags, representing a total weight of about 750,000 tons ; the car mileage was about 1,500,000 miles. The speed of the trains, which were entirely automatic, was 35 miles per hour between stations, reduced t o about 8 miles per hour when the train was entering or leaving stations. Inside each truck was another, on four castor wheels, which was very easily drawn out a t platform-level. The bags being already labelled, the truck was put into a tipper, which discharged on t o the conveyor band below the platform, whence the conveyor took the bags to the Lawn a t Paddington.On reading Part I1 of the Paper anyone not versed in the organization Downloaded by [] on [11/09/16].

This paper discusses, with illustrations, some of the civil engineering problems encountered on a main-line electrification scheme on British Railways. These tasks are as follows: the provision of adequate clearances beneath bridges and through tunnels; the design of overhead structures and their foundations; the provision of inspection, maintenance, and repair sheds for electric stock and locomotives, sub-station buildings, signal boxes, and relay rooms. A scheme of this magnitude also requires ( a) a thorough modernization of the track formation, ballasting, drainage, soil stabilization work, and the introduction of continuous welded track; ( b) route rationalization, reducing the requirement of operating facilities to a minimum; ( 1c) station modernization and rebuilding; and ( d) strengthening and improving the type of bridges carrying the lines.

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