Official cynicism, too, coupled with an amount of adverse criticism, had, perhaps not unnaturally, to be faced and met. How for instance could a "flimsy" Ford chassis be expected to withstand loads and stresses for which evidently it had never been designed? Unlike that Government, however, which "foresaw nothing and only discovered difficulties when brought to a standstill by them," Mr. Cooke, with a quiet assurance bred of innate knowledge and experience, could well afford to go ahead "on his own"; official disdain should wait and see. Probably but few were aware for example that, whereas in regular locomotive practice a tensile strength of twenty-eight tons per square inch is considered ample margin for special axle steel, the "flimsy" Ford is built up of Vanadium steel, having a tensile or breaking strength of no less than seventy-five tons per square inch! The somewhat undue height of a Ford chassis for light railway purposes was a preliminary problem to be tackled, and it was decided to substitute the driving road wheels with sprockets and perforated steel rail-wheels, drop-forged with flanges. The question of a suitably short wheel-base was quickly determined by the introduction of a pressed channel steel underframe of 5/32 inch plate on which the Ford chassis was secured; the leading and driving rail-wheels and axles being so arranged that a rail wheel-base of 4 feet 5 inches was obtained, as against the 8 feet 4 inches wheel-base of the road-chassis. Radius rods ensured a nice adjustment of the driving chains, and as a measure of precaution against any possible failure of the Ford back-axle supplementary band brakes of generous dimensions were fitted to the driving rail axles, these being additional to the standard Ford brakes. A "skefko" type of ball-bearing fitted to the original tractors, had perforce to be superseded by brass floating bushes owing to ever-increasing demands in connection with the manufacture of aeroplanes. These bushes were merely a temporary rather than a permanent substitute, for very speedily there was introduced an approved type of roller bearing, which, thanks once again to the ever-ready adaptability of the fair sex element in Crewe Works, was duly forthcoming in all-sufficient quantities, and of a quality leaving nothing to be desired.