§ Mr. PAGETasked the Under-Secretary of State for India if he has yet received a reply from the Government of India as to whether on the North-Western State Railway in India 10,000 screw couplings are now required, at an estimated cost of £13,000, to replace one year's breakages; whether the breakages of screw couplings and draw gear constitute one of the largest sources of accident and damage to rolling stock on this railway; whether the cost of repairs and renewals of coaching and goods stock on this railway, during the year 1909, amounted to approximately £145,000; whether at least 30 per cent., or £43,500 of this amount, is due to failures of the existing system of draw gear; whether the locomotive, carriage, and waggon superintendents were unanimously of the opinion at their last conference that the present system of side buffers and screw couplings was obsolete and of inadequate strength for modern requirements, and that the only means of 568W remedying this was to adopt an automatic-buffer coupler; and whether the annual sum which would be saved, by eleminating the present breakages of couplings alone, would pay at least 4 per cent. on the capital cost of the adoption of an efficient automatic coupler?
§ Mr. MONTAGUAs I stated, in reply to a similar question in July last, the matter is within the competence of the Railway Board, whose attention was then drawn to it. I have nothing to add except that an order has been received from the North-Western State Railway, and is under execution, for ninety sets of a central buffer coupling for trial.