From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Reid Railton's opinions on the Terraplane engine and brakes.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 21\6\ Scan131 | |
| Date | 6th February 1934 | |
| To Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} and Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} from E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} re Terraplane etc. I spent an evening with Railton recently who, as you probably know did some work in converting the Terraplane into a sports car which was shown at last Olympia. He therefore knows something about this chassis. He is tremendously impressed by the qualities of the engine although he does not think the power output is high. He thinks a good distribution has been obtained somewhat at the expense of power but that the most important point is the extremely light weight obtained, the engine itself only scaling 400 lbs, in spite of being a cast iron job. He made a statement which is somewhat difficult to credit, that the crankcase is only 1/8" thick. Railton has a very poor opinion of the Terraplane brakes and all Bendix brakes and he thinks they are only saved by using the a rather soft material which should not be very good for long life but is not greatly affected by water or other influences affecting friction. He mentioned that he was over at the Ferodo Co's Works recently and they demonstrated to him that fading is effected by the material of the drum and occurs with chromidium to a much greater extent than with 4% carbon steel drums. As we know carbon steel does not stand up so well as chromidium from the point of view of wear, and they are proposing to try nitralloy for the drum with a view to avoiding as far as possible both wear and the fading away effect. E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} | ||