1010 THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. May 16, 1913. buildings to accommodate more or less men, as the case might be, but, in order to provide for any case where some modification of the requirements of the Regulations would result in facilities for taking baths and drying clothes being provided, whereas if they were strictly adhered to no such provision could be made, the inspector of mines of the division should be given power, on a joint representation being made by the owners and workmen’s representatives on the management committee, to modify the Regulations, so long as such modification does not affect the efficiency of the facilities to be provided. Attendants. At all the bathing installations seen there was a succession of shifts, and a person was in charge by day and night ; in the majority of cases one man appears to be sufficient with the assistance of a boy. Except in single shift pits this should be required during the time the building is being used for taking baths or drying clothes, at any baths that may be erected at the mines in the United Kingdom, and that the attendant should have no other duties than attending to the water supply, keeping the building and fittings clean and in good order, attending to the washing of towels, cleaning of clothes, issuing stores and generally controlling the whole undertaking. The persons employed in this duty should be directly responsible to and paid by the Com- mittee of Management, and not be under the control of the management of the mine. Cost of Maintenance. It is difficult to estimate what the cost of maintenance will be. The Committee have not met with a single instance where a separate account is kept of this, but from what they have seen, and the particulars they were able to obtain, it appeared to them it will be about IJd. per head per day, leaving an equal sum to pay interest on the capital outlay, renewals, &c. The Committee’s recommendations under the three heads of the terms of reference are not reproduced here. Generally speaking, the draft regulations follow them fairly closely. In an appendix are given specifications supplied by the Oarron Company and Messrs. John Lysaght Limited. For a building 168 ft. long by 35 ft. 2 in. wide by 20 ft. high inside to underside of trusses by 30 ft. high over ridge, as shown in the accompanying drawing (fig. 2), the former estimates as the approximate cost £2,955, made up as follows.—Building (no foundations), £1,522; bath compartment and seats, £592 ; shower- fittings, tanks and hot water piping to showers, £284; clothes hooks, ropes, or chains, pulleys, belaying pins and padlocks, £557 ; extra for heating building with steam from boiler, £35. Messrs. John Lysaght Limited quote £1,670 for a building 168 ft. long by 37 ft. wide by 7 ft. 6 in. rise by 21 ft. from ground to eaves (fig. 3). No foundation or central seats provided, nor the hooks, pulleys, wire ropes, &c., for suspending clothes is included. Orders for Rolling Stock.—Included amongst the Leeds Forge Company’s orders for the African railways are 400 35-ton all-steel flat-bottomed wagons, and 50 100,000-lb. self-discharging hopper wagons, all for coal traffic on the 3 ft. 6 in. gauge lines of the South African railways, as also 50 all-steel covered bogie wagons for the Egyptian State Railways. Contracts for India include 40 patent side and centre self-discharging hopper wagons for the broad-gauge lines, and 26 similar wagons for the metre-gauge lines of the Nizam’s Guaranteed State Railway, 25 flat-bottomed bogie rail and timber wagons for the Eastern Bengal State Railway, 33 flat-bottomed wagons, 23 low-sided open wagons, 38 four-wheeled covered wagons, and 16 brake carriages for the 2 ft. 6 in. gauge lines of the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway ; 150 four-wheeled open 20-ton wagons for the 5 ft. 6 in. gauge lines of the East India Railway, and 10 similar wagons for the metre-gauge lines of the Assam- Bengal Railway; nine 15-ton bogie covered wagons, six bogie open 15-ton wagons and five bogie carriage under- frames for the 2 ft. 6 in. gauge lines of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway ; 10 all-steel brake vans for four-wheeled metre-gauge rolling stock of the Central Indian Railway, five bogie covered wagons for the Nilgiri Railway, and 1,000 Lane’s corrugated pressed steel doors, intended for bogie wagons now building for the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway system. In addition to the foregoing, the Leeds Forge Company have contracts for carriage bogies for the Glasgow and South-Western, Midland, North British, and North-Eastern railway companies, as also orders for bogie frames for the Central London Railway, and carriage bogie parts for the Metropolitan District Railway, and for carriage underframes for the Midland Great Western Railway (Ireland), and wagon underframes for the Great Northern Railway (Ireland). Delivery is now being made of 19 J 21-ton all-steel bogie covered wagons, of a special design, for carrying soda ash over the Uganda State Railways, of 100 bogie rail and timber wagons for the Indian North-Western State Railways, and 60 bogies for carriage and wagon stock for the 2-ft. gauge lines of the Ceylon Government Railway, as also 87 all-steel covered and open wagons of 20 tons capacity for the metre-gauge jines of the South Indian Railway. PEEBLES TURBO ALTERNATORS. Messrs. Bruce Peebles and Co. Limited, of Edinburgh, have favoured us with a specification of their standard turbo alternators, which refers to sizes TA 2 to TA 35 inclusive. The machines are of the enclosed type (with the exception of sizes TA2andTA3), with air inlet and outlet openings for forced ventilation. Machine sizes TA 2 and TA 3 are of the open type, a number of apertures being provided round the outside of the stator frame, and the end shields having numerous openings filled in with expanded metal. The stator core consists of high permeability annealed steel laminations, which, except in the smaller machines, are made in segments each secured to the stator- frame by dovetailing. The core is so built that joints between the segments in bach layer are overlapped by the segments in the next layer. To ensure efficient ventila- tion, special discs, with radial spacing fingers attached, are inserted at frequent intervals in the length of the core. The stator winding is of wire, strip, or bar, depending on the output and voltage of the machine ; the slots in the core are of the nearly closed form, and are lined with insulating tubes of such composition that ample mechanical strength is combined with the best insulating properties, and these tubes project well beyond each end of the core, thus avoiding the possibility of break- down at the points where the windings leave the slots. In wire - wound stators the conductors are cotton- covered, and thoroughly impregnated with special insulating plastic varnish before being drawn through the tubes, strips of insulating material being placed between each layer. In strip and bar-wound stators the ."Uvir Standard Enclosed Type) Turbo-alternator. conductors are taped and thoroughly impregnated with insulating varnish before being inserted into the slots ; in some cases of bar-winding the insulating tubes are moulded on to the bars. When the winding is com- pleted, and before the ends of the tubes and windings are taped, the whole is treated by a special process which ensures that every part of the winding is thoro.ughly impregnated, after which the ends of the tubes and windings are finally taped and varnished. The end windings are in all cases rigidly supported by heavy gunmetal clamps held by bronze studs screwed into the end plates, and thoroughly insulated from the windings by blocks and tubes of moulded mica. The ends of the stator winding are brought out by short, stiff leads to special insulating terminals usually attached to the lower portion of the stator frame, the precise form of terminal adopted varying with the size and voltage of the machine. The rotors, whether for two or four pole machines, are of the cylindrical type, the core consisting of special steel laminations keyed directly on the shaft and rigidly clamped between heavy steel endplates, spacing discs being provided as in the stator core. The slots, of the open type, are efficiently insulated before the coils are placed in position, the. conductors being of copper strip carefully insulated with impregnated tape. Centrifugal displacement of the winding is effectively prevented by phosphor-bronze wedges driven into grooves in the sides of the slots above the coils. The end windings are secured in position by massive special steel end bells, a manganese-bronze ring being placed between these end bells and the core. The shaft is of special forged steel machined all over, particular attention being given to the journals. One end is extended to take the half-coupling supplied by the turbine builders, and the other is usually prepared for connecting to the exciter. It is designed so that the critical speed is considerably higher than the running speed, and, to provide ventilation passages, the centre portion is grooved longitudinally in several equidistant places, thus allowing the air to pass freely through the core. The usual thrower rings are provided to prevent the lubricant creeping to the windings. The collector rings for conveying the exciting current to the field coils are of mild steel, and are shrunk over a mica sleeve on a steel bush which is pressed on the shaft. The brush gear takes the form of a curved casting for each collector ring, each casting having receptacles for several brushes and covering a large portion of the ring. The brushes are held, with the necessary pressure, in their respective positions by an adjustable spring plunger device securely locked between two steel plates by the half turn of a wing nut, and each brush can be immediately removed if desired without affecting the others. Flexible copper connections make electrical contact between brushes and holders. In the enclosed type of machine a system of forced ventilation is provided either by means of special fans fitted at each end of the rotor, or, in the case of the larger sizes, by a separately driven fan. The passage of air through the machine is controlled so that it first circulates round the stator end windings and rotor, passing then, by way of the special ventilating grooves cut in the shaft, through the radial ventilating spaces in the rotor core, and finally through the corresponding ventilating spaces in the stator core, the air being at last discharged from the openings in the stator frame. The exciter, when direct-coupled, is in all cases an open type continuous-current machine, the armature shaft being coupled to the alternator shaft through a flexible coupling. It is constructed generally in accordance with a separate specification issued by Messrs. Bruce Peebles, with the exception that the bearings, usually supplied by the turbine builder, are of the pedestal type. Hull Coal Exports.- The official return of the exports of coal from Hull for the week ending Tuesday, May 6, 1913, is as follows: — Amsterdam, 868 tons ; Aalesund, 467 ; Antwerp, 800; Buenos Ayres, 4,583 ; Bremen, 1.582 ; Christiania, 89; Civita Vecchia, 4,533; Cronstadt, 18,070; Drontbeim, 255; Elsinore, 908; Ghent, 402 ; Gothenburg, 599; Gefle, 1,673 ; Harburg, 6,188; Horton, 766; Hamburg, 9,458; Harlingen, 1,876; Iceland, 2,001; Kampen, 63; Moss, 544; Marseilles, 405; Naples, 506; Newfairwater, 404; Oran, 408; Oxelosund, 2.628; Oporto, 1,096; Mord- strand, 111; Rouen, 3,160; Reval, 4,096; Riga, 4,290; Rotterdam, 6,591; Rokkola, 1,206; Stockholm, 826; Stettin, 181; St, Petersburg, 7,667; Sodertelje, 776; Saxelkjobing, 1,047; Skien, 1,423; Stege, 699; Venice, 506; Wasa, 229; Windau, 1,050; Wyk, 215; Ystad, 936; total, 96,181 tons. Corresponding period last year, 98,636 tons. Scottish Railway Rates.—The Scottish railway com- panies have issued a joint notice of their intention to increase the rates for the conveyance of coal, coke and dross over their systems. A graduated scale has been adopted, and it is announced that the new charges,will come into force on July 1. An addition of Id. per ton will be made on the rates at present under Is. per ton, while on rates of Is. per ton and under 2s. the increase will be |d. per ton. The other increases are : Rates of 2s. per ton and under 3s., ’d. per ton ; rates of 3s. per ton and under 4s., Id. per ton ; rates of 4s. per ton and under 5s, l|d. per ton; and rates of 5s. per ton and over, 1 |d. per ton. The railway companies of Great Britain have also resolved to advance the charges for the conveyance of goods other than coal and coke, and particulars have been advertised this week The rates will be increased on a 4 per cent, basis ; but in the case of some companies certain charges applicable between stations on their respective systems will be raised to a greater extent. In this matter the Scottish railways are acting in conjunction with the English companies, and it is expected that a statement as to the details of the new charges for goods will be issued shortly.