Railway cutting

“ It frequently occurs that the slopes of a clay cutting, taken out to 11⁄2 to 1, appear to stand well for a time, but after exposure to the frost and rain of one or two seasons, the material becomes loosened, and forms into slipping masses, which slide down on to the line, stopping all traffic, and have to be cleared away before train operations can be resumed.
Cuttings through solid rock may be taken out to a slope of 1⁄4 to 1, as shown in Fig. 49, provided the material is compact, and there is not too great a dip in the strata or rock-beds. ”

“ The road clings for the most part to the side of the mountains, crossing deep rifts and wide clefts, as well as cutting through spurs and humps and compassing massive crags.298 Four tunnels were found to be unavoidable, one, 3,580 feet in length, burrowing 200 feet beneath the Great Wall. When the summit is gained, the railway enters a flat plateau, the only difficulty here, as on the flats around Pekin, being the preservation of the road from the attacks of floods. ”

“ But no doubt there will be trouble in getting the trains through; it is impossible to guard such an enormous length of line. The utmost that can be done will be to have detachments posted at all the bridges whose destruction would cause serious delay. We can hardly doubt that rails will be pulled up and culverts destroyed, for this can be done by two or three men working at night. But of course each train going up will carry a few rails and a couple of balks of timber, tools, and three or four railway men, and the repairs can be executed with only a very short delay. ”

“ If the railway116 embankment bars its passage the whole obstruction is swept away. Hundreds of feet of completed line have been demolished in this manner. If the rushing river is unable to break through the embankment it swirls around the obstruction, rapidly undermining the foundations, with the result that a bad cave-in ensues, which is in every way as bad as a clean wash-out, except that perhaps the railway metals and sleepers can be retrieved.
Even the mountain-sides, solid though they appear, are not free from Nature’s playful antics. ”

“ It is no uncommon circumstance for a huge gap to be cut in the railway, showing where the tearing water or descending mass of earth has crashed through the track, sweeping everything before it. Nothing can withstand the force of these onslaughts, and although heavy retaining walls of masonry may serve to check their fury, they are not completely successful. The result is that when the rains are expending their violence, the engineer-in-chief is prepared for some heavy repairing work, for possibly 100,000 tons or more of earthen embankment may be demolished. ”

“ It can use the entire surface of the street, pave, curb, gutter, build sewers, lay water and gas pipes, permit the erection of telegraph poles and the construction of horse railways. The running of a railway car, whether propelled by horse or steam power, is not a permanent obstruction of the street. The track itself, when laid down by the railroad companies, under the direction of the proper authorities, and properly planked or paved, so as not to obstruct materially the passage of persons and vehicles over it, is not a burden for which compensation should be claimed. ”

“ In order to disrupt the movement on railways and disrupt regular traffic behind enemy lines, arrange railway accidents by all means: undermine railway bridges, blow up or burn station facilities, and blow up, burn and shoot locomotives, wagons, and tanks at stations and siding. ”

“ Nothing is more likely to fracture iron than a sudden jerk or a great shock, and fractures may be hidden from the eye of the “examiner” until the part affected in time becomes very weak, and when running at great speed over badly joined parts of the road, give way, causing a break-down. Therefore the greatest care should be exercised by railway companies with regard to the usage of their rolling stock, both for their own interests and for the safety of the public at large. ”

“ Rails must be made more uniform in quality, and must be free from the imputation of fracture under regular wear. Notwithstanding the great improvements made in the preparation of the steel, and in the rolling, there are still far too many steel rails which break under traffic to allow rail-makers to rest satisfied with their work. Something is still wanting in the manufacture to effectually remove this disposition to fracture. The safe rail, the rail of the future, must be one that may bend and may wear, but will never break under ordinary use in the road. ”

“ Much method but little intelligence was shown in the destruction of the railway lines; for they often failed to remove the points, contenting themselves with removing the rails and hiding them in the jungle.
The German engineers must have wept at the orgy of devastation that followed: blind fury alone seemed to animate this scene of blind destruction. At N'geri N'geri and Ruwu they first broke the middle one of the three big spans and ran the rolling stock, engines, sleeping cars, a beautiful ambulance train, trucks and carriages, pell mell into the river-bed below. ”

“ Wash-outs and landslips will find the engineer out more quickly than any other emergency, because he is called upon to keep the track going at all hazards, and when a breach does occur, his own enterprise and initiative alone determine the length of the period of interruption to traffic. On such a line as the Leopoldina railway this is a serious factor, because there is a constant heavy volume of produce, especially coffee, maize, tobacco and sugar, pouring towards the coast. During a recent year floods, wash-outs and landslides cost the railway no less than, £24,500, or $122,500. ”

“ For these reasons, among others, troop movements by rail at the theatre of war, and especially in the enemy's country, are attended by a degree of risk which may render it desirable to abandon the use of the railway for the time being.
Railways are especially liable to destruction by the enemy, and, although the arrangements made in advance may permit of speedy repairs or reconstruction, the interruption of traffic for even a day or half a day may be a matter of grave importance during the concentration of the army or at some critical moment. ”

“ The atmosphere is rank with memories of waste and failure. The scenes that meet the eye intensify these impressions. The traveller who lands on Quarantine Island is first confronted with the debris of the projected Suakin-Berber Railway. Two or three locomotives that have neither felt the pressure of steam nor tasted oil for a decade lie rusting in the ruined workshops. Huge piles of railway material rot, unguarded and neglected, on the shore. Rolling stock of all kinds—carriages, trucks, vans, and ballast waggons—are strewn or heaped near the sheds. ”

“ Independently of the injury which this obstinacy has ever since inflicted upon the town, it cost the railway company a loss in money of more than a million sterling, a lengthened and inferior section of railway, a tunnel 2,423 yards long (only 217 less than a mile and a-half) , which, during its construction, ruined four contractors and caused the deaths of upwards of a hundred working men. Finally, the obstinacy of Northampton delayed the opening through of the railway from London to Birmingham for fully two years. No wonder, then, that its present generation of men is ashamed of the deed. ”

“ Being struck or run over by a train while standing or walking on the track is the largest single cause of “railway accidents.” Workmen are killed and injured in this way, both while on duty and when going to and from their work; passengers, with or without right, go in front of trains at stations and at highway crossings at grade level; and trespassers are killed and injured in large numbers on railways everywhere, at and near stations, at crossings, and out on the open road, where they have no shadow of right. ”

“ These men, therefore, deserve the greatest consideration from their employers. The only way to diminish the danger to which they are exposed, is to make better accommodation in the way of shunting room, and provide more men to do it. This would give them time to use the rolling stock with more care, and do away with much of the hurry and violence in shunting. It would save the men’s lives, and save Railway Companies thousands of pounds in expenses for repairs to rolling stock, compensation for accidents, and damage to goods. ”

“ They have rendered possible the carrying off of plunder from an occupied territory to an extent which would be impossible if the invaders had to depend on ordinary road vehicles for their means of transport.
They have brought fresh risks and dangers upon civil populations, the maintenance of lines of rail communication being a matter of such paramount importance to an invader that the severest measures may be adopted by him towards the community in general as a means of terrorising them and ensuring the security of the railway lines. ”

“ The most practicable means of mitigating, if not of avoiding, these various evils is to be found in the prompt removal of the sick and wounded from the theatre of war, and their distribution in smaller units, not simply among a group of neighbouring towns, but over an area extending to considerable distances inland. The adoption of this remedy only became possible, however, with a provision of adequate rail facilities, and even then many years were to elapse before an efficient system of railway ambulance transport was finally evolved. ”

“ And I believe also that, considering the absence of most of the causes of accidents, there will even be less liability of interruption and less delay in the average resulting from accidents than in the ordinary double locomotive railway.
By the modification of the gradients and by reducing the curves to 1,000 feet radius where any great advantage can be gained by so doing, and by constructing the cuttings, embankments, tunnels, and viaducts for a single line, a considerable saving may be effected in the first cost. ”

“ The expense of a little additional weight of cast iron, in the first instance, will be greatly compensated in the end, by avoiding frequent repairs, and will thereby be amply repaid, while the expense of laying the road, and other contingencies, are much the same in the light as in the heavy rail. The mode of fixing is another point of great importance in the construction of a substantial railway. In the early123 practice of laying railways, the value of this new discovery was for a time lost to the public, owing to the intricacy and difficulty of this part of the design. ”

“ The railway does not carry merely soldiers, ammunition and other war material against which it may be allowable to use violent measures; it also conveys a great number of wounded, doctors, hospital attendants, and other perfectly harmless persons. Is a peasant or franc-tireur to be allowed to endanger hundreds of those lives by removing a rail or laying a stone upon the line? Let the French see that the security of the railway trains is no longer threatened and the journeys made by those hostages will be merely outings, or our people may even be able to forgo such precautionary measures. ”

“ The taking down of one half of the old structure may necessitate the removal of stays and bracing affecting the stability of the half remaining to carry the traffic, and thus render temporary shoring and bracing necessary. The erection of the new work in such a limited space has to be watched with great care; all cranes, lifting appliances, and scaffolding must be kept clear of vehicles moving over the running-line, and very frequently it is found prudent to cease erecting operations during the passage of a train. ”

“ They destroyed 65,000 kilometers of rails and 500,000 kilometers of cables for the automatic railroad controls, signals, and communication lines. They blew up 13,000 railway bridges, 4,100 railway stations, and 1,600 water pressure stations. ”

“ As a case in point, and doubtless there are plenty of others, a quarry owner of my acquaintance is at the present time conveying some 80,000 tons of stone annually by means of traction-engines from his works to the railway along 21⁄2 miles of highway. The road authorities, levying £400 a year for extraordinary traffic, are utterly incapable of coping with the destructive action of the heavy loads, and the roads are in a state of disintegration that baffles description. ”

“ As might be expected many men were killed during the building of this railway. Once a runaway engine crashed into a derrick car on the top of a bridge and the debris can be seen in the valley below to this day. ”

“ This picture of carnage and blood and death reminded me of something which I had read a fortnight ago—statistics of railway accidents compiled by the United States Government, wherein the appalling fact was set forth that on our 200,000 miles of railway we annually kill 10,000 persons outright and injure 80,000. The war-ships in the air suggested the railway horrors, and three nights afterward the railway horrors suggested my dream. ”

“ After the work was well started, Chinese labourers, who had been working on the South African gold-fields and had returned home, were available, and proved highly useful workmen, especially when the wrestle commenced with the hard, solid rock.
The tunnelling task, however, was equalled by the work in the cuts and on the fills. Some of the cuttings are of enormous depth, and the engineers have had to guard against the danger of heavy landslides, which, with wash-outs, are two of the greatest menaces to the railway in China. ”