bring a train to rest when travelling at 45½ to 48½ mph, this being much below the ordinary travelling speed of the fastest express trains. Railway officials were not prepared for this result and the necessity for a great deal more brake power was at once admitted Trials conducted after Abbots Ripton reported the following (for an express train roughly matching one of those involved, like it on a 1 in 200 fall, but unlike it braking under favorable conditions) However, there was no clear technical solution to the problem, because of the necessity of achieving a reasonably uniform rate of braking effort throughout a train, and because of the necessity to add and remove vehicles from the train at frequent points on the journey. (At these dates, unit trains were a rarity). The chief types of solution were: A spring system: James Newall, carriage builder to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, in 1853 obtained a patent for a system whereby a rotating rod passing the length of the train was used to wind up the brake levers on each carriage against the force of conical springs carried in cylinders. The rod, mounted on the carriage roofs in rubber journals, was fitted with universal joints and short sliding sections to allow for compression of the buffers. The brakes were controlled from one end of the train. To release the brakes the guard wound up the rod to compress the springs, whereupon they were held off by a single ratchet under his control (although in an emergency the driver could draw on a cord to release the ratchet). When the ratchet was released the springs applied the brakes. If the train divided, the brakes were not held off by the ratchet in the guard's compartment and the springs in each carriage forced the brakes onto the wheels. Excess play in the couplings limited the effectiveness of the device to about five carriages; additional guards and brake compartments were necessary if this number were exceeded. This apparatus was sold to a few companies and the system received recommendation from the Board of Trade. The L&Y conducted a simultaneous trial with a similar system designed by another employee, Charles Fay, but little difference was found in their effectiveness. In Fay's version, patented in 1856, the rods passed beneath the carriages and the direct spring application to each brake was given an intervening worm