Railway engineer

“ In referring thus to the railway works, he must refer also to the improvement of the locomotive engine. This was as remarkable as the other works were gigantic. They were, in fact, necessary to each other. The locomotive engine, independent of the railway, would be useless. They had gone on together, and they now realized all the expectations that were entertained of them. It would be unseemly, as it would be unjust, if he were to conceal the circumstances under which these works had been constructed. No engineer could succeed without having men about him as highly-gifted as himself. ”

“ An abundant crop of engineers sprang up, ready to execute railways of any extent. Now that the Liverpool and Manchester line had been made, and the practicability of working it by locomotive power had been proved, it was as easy for engineers to make railways and to work them as it was for navigators to find America after Columbus had made the first voyage. Mr. Francis Giles himself took the field as a locomotive railway engineer, attaching himself to the Newcastle and Carlisle and London and Southampton projects. ”

“ The locomotive engineer is the popular "hero of the rail," and the popular estimate in this respect is substantially just. Others have to brave dangers and perform duties under trying circumstances; but the engine-runner has to ride in the most dangerous part of the train, take charge of a steam-boiler that may explode and blow him to atoms, and of machinery that may break and kill him, and try to keep up a vigilance which only a being more than human could successfully maintain. ”

“ I am not blaming the engineer officers who are in charge of the railway. They exert themselves to the utmost, and have no assistance in the way of practical gangers and platelayers, and have neither tools nor conveniences of any kind. Indeed, the actual laying down of a line can hardly be considered engineers’ work. An engineer makes the surveys and plans, and sees that the bridges, &c., are built of proper materials; but he is not a professed railway-maker, and is ill-calculated to direct a number of natives, who neither understand his language nor have a conception of what he is aiming at. ”

“ The train despatcher, with his constant burden of care, deserves a chapter. The locomotive fireman, who has not been directly alluded to, is practically an apprentice to the engineer, and, like apprentices in some other callings, has a good deal of hard work to do. He generally has longer hours than the engineer, as he has to clean a portion of the polished brass- and iron-work of the engine. He has to throw into the fire-box several tons of coal a day, and gets so black that his best friends would not know him when washed up. ”

“ He endeavoured to make railways commercially successful, and at the same time to combine elegance with strength and economy of design. His bridges on the Lancaster and Carlisle and the Caledonian railways, and those across the Thames at Richmond, Kew, and Kingston, show his success. Latterly he was appointed engineer to the London and South-Western Railway Company, and his plan for the line from Yeovil to Exeter was accepted in 1856. ”

“ He had considerable practice as a railway engineer, and made plans for lines to connect Birmingham and Liverpool, the Vale of Clwyd line, the railway from Mons to Manège, and the Namur and Liège railway, of which he was appointed chief engineer in 1846. ”

“ It is easy for those who have a mere newspaper acquaintance with Mr. Brunel to sneer at the education attained by the engineer at the expense of his shareholders. At the commencement of the railway system in this country something of the kind was inevitable in the case of every leading engineer. The great features on which the success of the railway system mainly hinged were not arrived at by scientific deduction. ”

“ 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 share taken by the civil engineers is not confined to providing merely for the class of railway works contingent on war, whether of construction, demolition, or of reconstruction, but in supplying the military engineers with information, advice and labour. No one, for example, can be more familiar with the features and character of a district than the engineer who has constructed a line of railway through it. ”

“ It would be well that our railway engineers should inform themselves more fully on the subject, as otherwise their valuable assistance, which would insure that narrow-gauge railways were constructed in a solid and reliable manner, will be thrust on one side by the requirements of the times, and the work will be wholly in the hands of the many manufacturers of narrow-gauge plant, whose designs, being chiefly of what is known as the portable class, are, for the most part, ill adapted for permanent locomotive traffic. ”

“ Those rails are so much liked in this neighbourhood, that I think in a short time they will do away the cast iron railways. They make a fine line for our engines, as there are so few joints compared with the other. I have lately started a new locomotive engine, with some improvements on the others which you saw. It has far surpassed my expectations. I am confident a railway on which my engines can work is far superior to a canal. On a long and favourable railway I would stent my engines to travel 60 miles per day with from 40 to 60 tons of goods. ”

“ On a small railway the chief engineer as a line officer may be able to do all the engineering himself. As the business grows he requires such special staff advisers as an office engineer, a locating engineer, a bridge engineer, a tunnel engineer, a signal engineer, etc. ”

“ Next comes the erecting shop, where the various parts of the locomotive are fitted together, and it is built up much as a ship from the keel. These semi-completed engines have a singularly helpless look—out of proportion, without limbs, and many mere skeletons. Close by is the department where engines out of repair are made good. Some American engineer started the idea of a railway thirty feet wide, an idea which in this place is partially realized. ”

“ The problem of the construction engineer becomes harder when his work is interwoven with the necessities of everyday operation. A manufacturing plant can sometimes shut down during a period of new construction. A railway, however, cannot store its product, transportation. Some car wheels must be moving all the time. It follows, then, that construction must yield to operation rather than operation to construction. Again, from the nature of a railway, construction is a component of operation, and the whole is greater than any of its parts. ”

“ Fig. 433 shows a very simple buffer-stop frequently adopted for sidings where there is not much traffic. It is made of good old sleepers bound together with old double-head rails, and the interior filled with earth or clay.
In addition to the buildings alluded to in the foregoing description, the engineer has to design and construct very many others in connection with railways. These will include large running-sheds for stabling working locomotives; sheds for housing carriages; workshops for building and repairing engines, carriages, and waggons; foundries; large stores for materials; offices ”

“ It is plain upon very little thought that to answer each of these broad general questions a multitude of minor factors have to be carefully integrated, and that altogether the location of a railway is a task which, if it be well performed, calls for skill, experience, and good judgment on the part of the engineer. ”

“ The expensive bridging has been reduced to the minimum, however, for in some cases where the water is shallow the islands are linked together by a massive solid earthen embankment.
This section of the railway may be said to be amphibious in the full sense of the word. In fact, at one point the passenger in the train is carried beyond the sight of land. The engineer had to build his structure sufficiently strong and solid as to combat the forces of wind and wave, and at a level beyond the reach of the spray. ”

“ Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon the Engineer. Although under considerable headway he stopped almost instantly and much sooner than a stage with horses could have been halted. May we now be permitted to make a single suggestion or two to the Manager of the Rail Road?
1st—The number of passengers to go in each Car should be limited. Huddling numbers on the top is extremely hazardous.
2nd—Unless a wire sieve is fastened over the top of the chimney of the engine we shall soon have some dwelling house, barn or other building near the road burnt down or the Cars themselves set on fire. ”

“ A civil engineer, of long experience in connection with railways, gives some reassuring statements as to the precautions taken in keeping the lines in order. The majority of accidents occur, not from defects in the line, but from imperfections in the living agents who have charge of the signals and other arrangements of trains in transit. ”

“ In laying down a railway the young engineer will have to consider the particular local, geographical and geological features of the country through which the line is to pass, and the extent of mechanical power that will be necessary to work it effectually, consistent with the cost of making the cuttings and embankments. ”

“ The engine, which he named “My Lord,” ran a successful trial on the 25th of July 1814. In 1822 he succeeded in impressing the advantages of steam traction on the projectors of the Stockton & Darlington railway, who had contemplated using horses for their wagons, and was appointed engineer of the railway, with liberty to carry out his own plans, the result being the opening, on the 27th of September 1825, of the first railway over which passengers and goods were carried by a locomotive. ”

“ Next year he ceased to take an active part in the management of the engine works in the New Road, but began to practise as a civil engineer for public works, and was largely consulted at home and abroad, particularly as to the capabilities of and probable improvements in locomotive engines. In 1834 the Eastern Counties railway was projected and laid out by him in conjunction with Mr. ”

“ All the passengers are requested to walk. In single file we march over the bridge, and then await the train. It comes across, lightened of its load, slowly and safely. It is quite likely that in America the engineer would have put on all steam, and dashed across in a second, or, if not, he would have gone down a hundred feet, into a frightful chasm, and the verdict, if any were sought, would have been, “nobody to blame.” Fret as we do about the railroad management in Europe, it is safer and surer than ours. ”

“ He knows exactly where he must run on to a side track to allow the express in the other direction to pass, and he knows just where he must slacken speed in order to get safely around a dangerous curve, or cross a bridge which is undergoing repairs, or which is not quite as substantial as it would be if he, instead of millionaire railroad directors, had the control of the bridge construction and repair fund.
To catch an idea of the responsibility of a locomotive engineer, it is necessary to ride a hundred miles or so in an engine. ”

“ Owing to the increasing number of experiments, and to other calls upon my time, assistance eventually became necessary, and, though I am still conceited enough to keep the more delicate manipulations in my own hands, so far as I can find time to execute them, it has gradually come about that I have seven or eight artisans in the little workshops. Practical acquaintance with every detail both in survey, design, and construction of narrow-gauge railways has given me something of a pull over the professional engineer. ”

“ Through its locomotive engineer training program, Amtrak is trying to provide the same basic operating knowledge and skills, but within a much shorter time frame and more structured setting. Prospective engineers now receive at least part of their training in classes, and operating information pertaining to equipment and train control is technologically more advanced. ”

“ The intelligence, quickness of perception and capacity for taking care of themselves—that combination of qualities which, taken together, constitute individuality and adaptability to circumstance—vary greatly among the railroad employés of different countries. The American locomotive engineer, as he is called, is especially gifted in this way. He can be relied on to take care of himself and his train under circumstances which in other countries would be thought to insure disaster. ”

“ The engineer prefers not to think of that. He prefers to think of a safe trip, terminal to terminal, to think of the long line covered, once again in safety, to think of the station at the far end of the division, where a relief engine and engineer will be in waiting to take the train another stage in its long journey across the land, to think of the home and family awaiting him. ”

“ This is where a machinist’s skill does not apply to locomotive-running until it is supplemented by an intimate knowledge of speed, of facility at handling a train, and keeping the couplings intact, and of insight into the best methods of economizing steam.
These are essentials which every man should possess before he is put in charge of a locomotive on the road. The great fund of practical knowledge which stamps the first-class engineer, is amassed by general labor during years of vigilant observation on the footboard, amidst many changes of fair and foul weather. ”