Part 3

Every man in the land is interested daily and constantly in railroads and the transportation of persons and property over them. The price of whatever he eats, or wears, or uses, the cost and comfort of travel, the speed and convenience with which he shall receive his mail and the current intelligence of the day, and even the intimacy and extent of his social relations, are all largely affected thereby. The business employs great numbers of persons, and the wages paid them affect largely the wages paid in other lines of occupation. The management of the business in some of its departments is attended by serious dangers, and thousands annually lose their lives in the service. Other thousands annually are either killed or injured in being transported; the aggregate being somewhat startling, though unquestionably this method of travel is safer than any other. The ingenuity which has been expended in devices to make the transportation rapid, cheap, and safe may well be characterized as marvellous, and some feats in railroad engineering are the wonder of the world. With all these facts and many others to create a public interest in the general subject, the editor of _Scribner's Magazine_, some little time ago, applied to writers of well-known ability and competency to prepare papers for publication therein upon the various topics of principal interest in the life and use of railroads, beginning with the construction, and embracing the salient facts of management and service. He was successful in securing a series of papers of high value, the appearance of which has been welcomed from month to month, beginning with June, 1888, with constant and increasing interest. These papers have a permanent value; and, in obedience to a demand for their separate publication in convenient form for frequent reference, the publishers now reproduce them with expansions and additions. A reference to the several titles will convince anyone at all familiar with the general subject that the particular topic is treated in every instance by an expert, entitled as such to speak with authority.

THE BUILDING OF A RAILWAY.

BY THOMAS CURTIS CLARKE.

Roman Tramways of Stone--First Use of Iron Rails--The Modern Railway created by Stephenson's "Rocket" in 1830--Early American Locomotives--Key to the Evolution of the American Railway--Invention of the Swivelling Truck, Equalizing Beams, and the Switchback--Locating a Road--Work of the Surveying Party--Making the Road-bed--How Tunnels are Avoided--More than Three Thousand Bridges in the United States--Old Wooden Structures--The Howe Truss--The Use of Iron--Viaducts of Steel--The American System of Laying Bridge Foundations under Water--Origin of the Cantilever--Laying the Track--How it is Kept in Repair--Premiums for Section Bosses--Number of Railway Employees in the United States--Rapid Railway Construction--Radical Changes which the Railway will Effect.

The world of to-day differs from that of Napoleon Bonaparte more than his world differed from that of Julius Cæsar; and this change has chiefly been made by railways.

Railways have been known since the days of the Romans. Their tracks were made of two lines of cut stones. Iron rails took their place about one hundred and fifty years ago, when the use of that metal became extended. These roads were called tram-roads, and were used to carry coal from the mines to the places of shipment. They were few in number and attracted little attention.

The modern railway was created by the Stephensons in 1830, when they built the locomotive "Rocket." The development of the railway since is due to the development of the locomotive. Civil engineering has done much, but mechanical engineering has done more.

The invention of the steam-engine by James Watt, in 1773, attracted the attention of advanced thinkers to a possible steam locomotive. Erasmus Darwin, in a poem published in 1781, made this remarkable prediction:

"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car."

The first locomotive of which we have any certain record was invented, and put in operation on a model circular railway in London, in 1804, by Richard Trevithick, an erratic genius, who invented many things but perfected few. His locomotive could not make steam, and therefore could neither go fast nor draw a heavy load. This was the fault of all its successors, until the competitive trial of locomotives on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in 1829. The Stephensons, father and son, had invented the steam blast, which, by constantly blowing the fire, enabled the "Rocket," with its tubular boiler, to make steam enough to draw ten passenger cars, at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour.

Then was born the modern giant, and so recent is the date of his birth that one of the unsuccessful competitors at that memorable trial, Captain John Ericsson, was until the present year (1889) living and actively working in New York. Another engineer, Horatio Allen, who drove the first locomotive on the first trip ever made in the United States, in 1831, still lives, a hale and hearty old man, near New York.

The earlier locomotives of this country, modelled after the "Rocket," weighed five or six tons, and could draw, on a level, about 40 tons. After the American improvements, which we shall describe, were made, our engines weighed 25 tons, and could draw, on a level, some sixty loaded freight cars, weighing 1,200 tons. This was a wonderful advance, but now we have the "Consolidation" locomotive, weighing 50 tons, and able to draw, on a level, a little over 2,400 tons.

And this is not the end. Still heavier and more powerful engines are being designed and built, but the limit of the strength of the track, according to its present forms, has nearly been reached. It is very certain we have not reached the limit of the size and power of engines, or the strength of the track that can be devised.

After the success of the "Rocket," and of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the authority of George Stephenson and his son Robert became absolute and unquestioned upon all subjects of railway engineering. Their locomotives had very little side play to their wheels, and could not go around sharp curves. They accordingly preferred to make their lines as straight as possible, and were willing to spend vast sums to get easy grades. Their lines were taken as models and imitated by other engineers. All lines in England were made with easy grades and gentle curves. Monumental bridges, lofty stone viaducts, and deep cuts or tunnels at every hill marked this stage of railway construction in England, which was imitated on the European lines.

As it was with the railway, so it was with the locomotive. The Stephenson type, once fixed, has remained unchanged (in Europe), except in detail, to the present day. European locomotives have increased in weight and power, and in perfection of material and workmanship, but the general features are those of the locomotives built by the great firm of George Stephenson & Son, before 1840.

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When we come to the United States we find an entirely different state of things. The key to the evolution of the American railway is the contempt for authority displayed by our engineers, and the untrammelled way in which they invented and applied whatever they thought would answer the best purpose, regardless of precedent. When we began to build our railways, in 1831, we followed English patterns for a short time. Our engineers soon saw that unless vital changes were made our money would not hold out, and our railway system would be very short. Necessity truly became the mother of invention.

The first, and most far-reaching, invention was that of the swivelling truck, which, placed under the front end of an engine, enables it to run around curves of almost any radius. This enabled us to build much less expensive lines than those of England, for we could now curve around and avoid hills and other obstacles at will. The illustration opposite shows a railroad curving around a mountain and supported by a retaining wall, instead of piercing through the mountain with a tunnel, as would have been necessary but for the swivelling truck. The swivelling truck was first suggested by Horatio Allen, for the South Carolina Railway, in 1831; but the first practical use of it was made on the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, in the same year. It is said to have been invented by John B. Jervis, Chief Engineer of that road.

The next improvement was the invention of the equalizing beams or levers, by which the weight of the engine is always borne by three out of four or more driving-wheels. They act like a three-legged stool, which can always be set level on any irregular spot. The original imported English locomotives could not be kept on the rails of rough tracks. The same experience obtained in Canada when the Grand Trunk Railway was opened, in 1854-55. The locomotives of English pattern constantly ran off the track; those of American pattern hardly ever did so. Finally, all their locomotives were changed by having swivelling trucks put under their forward ends, and no more trouble occurred. The equalizing levers were patented in 1838, by Joseph Harrison, Jr., of Philadelphia.

These two improvements, which are absolutely essential to the success of railways in new countries, and have been adopted in Canada, Australia, Mexico, and South America,[1] to the exclusion of English patterns, are also of great value on the smoothest and best possible tracks. The flexibility of the American machine increases its adhesion and enables it to draw greater loads than its English rival. The same flexibility equalizes its pressure on the track, prevents shocks and blows, and enables it to keep out of the hospital and run more miles in a year than an English locomotive.[2]

Equally valuable improvements were made in cars, both for passengers and freight. Instead of the four-wheeled English car, which on a rough track dances along on three wheels, we owe to Ross Winans, of Baltimore, the application of a pair of four-wheeled swivelling trucks, one under each end of the car, thus enabling it to accommodate itself to the inequalities of a rough track and to follow its locomotive around the sharpest curves. There are, on our main lines, curves of less than 300 feet radius, while, on the Manhattan Elevated, the largest passenger traffic in the world is conducted around curves of less than 100 feet radius. There are few curves of less than 1,000 feet radius on European railways.

The climbing capabilities of a locomotive upon smooth rails were not known until, in 1852, Mr. B. H. Latrobe, Chief Engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, tried a temporary zigzag gradient of 10 per cent.--that is 10 feet rise in 100 feet length, or 528 feet per mile--over a hill about two miles long, through which the Kingwood Tunnel was being excavated. A locomotive weighing 28 tons on its drivers took one car weighing 15 tons over this line in safety. It was worked for passenger traffic for six months. This daring feat has never been equalled. Trains go over 4 per cent. gradients on the Colorado system, and there is one short line, used to bring ore to the Pueblo furnaces, which is worked by locomotives over a 7 per cent. grade. These are believed to be the steepest grades worked by ordinary locomotives on smooth rails.

Another American invention is the switchback. By this plan the length of line required to ease the gradient is obtained by running backward and forward in a zigzag course, instead of going straight up the mountain. As a full stop has to be made at the end of every piece of line, there is no danger of the train running away from its brakes. This device was first used among the hills of Pennsylvania over forty years ago, to lower coal cars down into the Nesquehoning Valley. It was afterwards used on the Callao, Lima, and Oroya Railroad in Peru, by American engineers, with extraordinary daring and skill. It was employed to carry the temporary tracks of the Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad over the "Stampede" Pass, with grades of 297 feet per mile, while a tunnel 9,850 feet long was being driven through the mountains.

With the improvement of brakes and more reliable means of stopping trains upon steep grades, came a farther development of the above device, which was first applied on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado, and has since been applied on a grand scale on the Saint Gothard road, the Black Forest railways of Germany, and the Semmering line in the Tyrol. This device is to connect the two lines of the zigzag by a curve at the point where they come together, so that the train, instead of going alternately backward and forward, now runs continuously on. It becomes possible for the line to return above itself in spiral form, sometimes crossing over the lower level by a tunnel, and sometimes by a bridge. A notable instance of this kind of location is seen on the Tehachapi Pass of the Southern Pacific, where the line ascends 2,674 feet in 25 miles, with eleven tunnels, and a spiral 3,800 feet long.

The "Big Loop," as it is called, on the Georgetown branch of the Union Pacific, in Colorado, between Georgetown and a mining camp called Silver Plume, has been chosen to illustrate this point. The direct distance up the valley is 1¼ miles and the elevation 600 feet, requiring a gradient of 480 feet per mile. But by curving the line around in a spiral, the length of the line is increased to 4 miles and the gradient reduced to 150 feet per mile. Zigzags were used first for foot-paths, then for common roads, lastly for railways. Their natural sequence, spirals, was a railway device entirely, and confirms the saying of one of our engineers: "Where a mule can go, I can make a locomotive go." This may be called the poetry of engineering, as it requires both imagination to conceive and skill to execute.

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There is one thing more which distinguishes the American railway from its English parent, and that is the almost uniform practice of getting the road open for traffic in the cheapest manner and in the least possible time, and then completing it and enlarging its capacity out of its surplus earnings, and from the credit which these earnings give it.

The Pennsylvania Railroad between Philadelphia and Harrisburg is a notable example of this. Within the past few years it has been rebuilt on a grand scale, and in many places relocated, and miles of sharp curves and heavy gradients, originally put in to save expense, have been taken out. This system has been followed everywhere, except on a few branch lines, and upon one monumental example of failure--the West Shore Railroad, of New York. The projectors of that line attempted in three years to build a double-track railroad up to the standard of the Pennsylvania road, which had been forty years in reaching its present excellence. Their money gave out, and they came to grief.

II.

We have thus briefly reviewed the development of our railways to show what they are, and how they came to be what they are, before describing the processes of building, in order that the reasons may be clearly understood why we do certain things, and why we fail to do other things which we ought to do.

In the building of a railway the first thing is to make the surveys and locate the position of the intended road upon the ground, and to make maps and sections of it, so that the land may be bought and the estimates of cost be ascertained. The engineer's first duty is to make a survey by eye without the aid of instruments. This is called the "reconnoissance." By this he lays down the general position of the line, and where he wants it to go if possible. Great skill, the result of long experience, or equally great ignorance may be shown here. After the general position of the line, or some part of it, has been laid down upon the pocket map, the engineer sends his party into the field to make the preliminary survey with instruments.

In an old-settled country the party may live in farm-houses and taverns, and be carried to their daily work by teams. But a surveying party will make better progress, be healthier and happier, if they live in their own home, even if that home be a travelling camp of a few tents. With a competent commissary the camp can be well supplied with provisions, and be pitched near enough to the probable end of the day's work to save the tired men a long walk. When they get to camp and, after a wash in the nearest creek, find a smoking-hot supper ready--even though it consist of fried pork and potatoes, corn-bread and black coffee--their troubles are all forgotten, and they feel a true satisfaction which the flesh-pots of Delmonico's cannot give. One greater pleasure remains--to fill the old pipe, and recline by the camp-fire for a jolly smoke.

A full surveying party consists of the front flag-man, with his corps of axe-men to cut away trees and bushes; the transit-man, who records the distances and angles of the line, assisted by his chain-men and flag-men; and lastly the leveller, who takes and records the levels, with his rod-men and axe-men. The chief of the party exercises a general supervision over all, and is sometimes assisted by a topographer, who sketches in his book the contours of the hills and direction and size of the watercourses.

One tent contains the cook, the commissary, and the provisions; another tent or two the working party, and another the superior engineers, with their drawing instruments and boards. In a properly regulated party the map and profile of the day's work should be plotted before going to bed, so as to see if all is right. If it turns out that the line can be improved and easier grades got, or other changes made, now is the time to do it.

After the preliminary lines have been run, the engineer-in-chief takes up the different maps and lays down a new line, sometimes coinciding with that surveyed, and sometimes quite different. The parties then go back into the field and stake out this new line, called the "approximate location," upon which the curves are all run in. In difficult country the line may be run over even a third or fourth time; or in an easy country, the "preliminary" surveys may be all that is wanted.

The life of an engineer, while making surveys, is not an easy one. His duties require the physical strength of a drayman and the mental accuracy of a professor, both exerted at the same time, and during heat and cold, rain and shine.

An engineer, once on a time, standing behind his instrument, was surrounded by a crowd of natives, anxious to know all about it. He explained his processes, using many learned words, and flattered himself that he had made a deep impression upon his hearers. At last, one old woman spoke up, with an expression of great contempt on her face, "Wall! If I knowed as much as you do, I'd quit ingineerin' and keep a grocery!"

A large part of the financial difficulties of our railways results from not taking time enough to properly locate the line. It must be remembered that a cheaply constructed line can be rebuilt, but with a badly located line nothing can be done except to abandon it entirely.

It is well therefore to consider carefully what is the true problem of location. It is so to place and build a line of railway that it shall get the greatest amount of business out of the country through which it passes, and at the same time be able to do that business at the least cost, including both expenses of operating and the fixed charges on the capital invested. The mere statement of this problem shows that it is not an easy one. Its solution is different in a new and unsettled country from that in an old-settled region. In the new country, the shortest, cheapest, and straightest line possible, consistent with the easiest gradients that the topography of the land will allow, is the best. The towns will spring up after the road is built, and will be built on its line, and generally at the places where stations have been fixed.

In a mountainous country, like Colorado, the problem is how to reach the important mining camps, regardless of the crookedness and increased length given to the line. The Denver and Rio Grande has been compared to an octopus. This is really a compliment to its engineers. It sucks nutriment from every place where nutriment is to be found. To do this it has been forced to climb mountains, where it was thought locomotives could never climb. In one place, called the Royal Gorge, the difficulties of blasting a road-bed into the side of the mountain were so great that it was thought expedient to carry the track upon a bridge, and this bridge was hung from two rafters, braced against the sides of the gorge. In surveying some parts of the lines the engineers were suspended by ropes from the top of the mountains and made their measurements swinging in mid-air.

The problem of location is different in an old-settled country, where the position of the towns as trade-centres has been fixed by natural laws that cannot be overruled. In this case the best thing the engineer can do is to get the easiest gradient possible consistent with the topography of the country, and let the curves take care of themselves; always to strike the important towns, even if the line is made more crooked and longer thereby; to so place the line in these towns as to accommodate the public, and still be able to buy plenty of land; also to locate for under or over, rather than grade crossings.

In all countries, old and new, mountainous and level, the rule should be to keep the level of track well above the surface of the ground, in order to insure good drainage and freedom from snow-drifts.

The question of avoidance of obstruction by snow is a very serious one upon the Rocky Mountain lines, and they could not be worked without the device of snow-sheds--another purely American invention. There are said to be six miles of stanchly built snow-sheds on the Canadian Pacific and sixty miles on the Central Pacific Railway. The quantity of snow falling is enormous, sometimes amounting to 250,000 cubic yards, weighing over 100,000 tons, in one slide. It is stated by the engineers of the Canadian Pacific, that the force of the air set in motion by these avalanches has mown down large trees, not struck by the snow itself. Their trunks, from one to two feet in diameter, remain, split as if struck by lightning.

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After the railway line has been finally located, the next duty of the engineers is to prepare the work for letting. Land-plans are made, from which the right of way is secured. From the sections, the quantities are taken out. Plans of bridges and culverts are made; and a careful specification of all the works on the line is drawn up.