Railway tie

“ Very nearly the same result has been obtained at the locomotive shops of the London, Chatham and Dover Company.
“Steel-laid Railways.—A line of railway laid in steel is now well known to be superior, in respect of economy of working, to one laid in iron. It requires less labour in keeping up, and, all other things being equal, it can be maintained in a better running condition than an iron way. The reasons of its superiority are apparent enough. A yielding roadway is a bad roadway for traction; and while bad at all speeds, it is especially bad at high speeds. ”

“ When chairs are used to support the rails they must be secured to the sleepers, at least partially, by iron spikes or bolts. With flat-bottomed rails, when there are no chairs, or with bridge rails, the fastenings at the joints, and at some intermediate places, to consist of fang or other through-bolts; and such rails, on curves with radii of 15 chains or less, to be tied to gauge by iron or steel ties at suitable intervals. ”

“ As the track is the fundamental feature, the cross-ties or sleepers and rails should be the best. Iron rails are practically out of date, and it is fair to assume that the time is approaching when wooden ties will be things of the past. Where the traffic is light, heavy steel rails may not be necessary ”

“ Engine the 107 was not rebuilt for a long time and was never again employed in passenger service. The foreman in one of the repair shops wrote to Philadelphia and learned that the 109 was completed on Thursday and the 107 on Friday. As I said a while ago, railroad employees are not superstitious,—they will all tell you so,—much less railway officers; but it is a fact to-day that a new locomotive or a locomotive that has been rebuilt is never taken out on the Denver and Rio Grande on Friday. ”

“ This was because there were not enough people in the regions through which the railways were made to provide sufficient passengers and traffic to pay the expenses of running trains.
In the mountainous districts, especially in the Far West, the railways are often the principal highways. There are no other roads, and so people walk along the railway-lines. When a man tramps a long distance in this way he is said to "count the ties," for the cross-beams of wood on which the steel rails are laid are not called "sleepers," as they are in England, but they are called "ties." ”

“ Valuable and interesting statistics have from time to time been recorded, with a view to ascertain the average life of a steel rail, by obtaining the number of million tons of train load which it would sustain before it became worn down to such an extent as to be no longer of service on the line. It will be readily understood that the rate of wear of a steel rail will depend not only on the weight and section of the rail itself, but on the class of rolling-stock, and the description of traffic it has to carry. ”

“ Block-Telegraph Signalling.—However complete the outdoor signals and interlocking at any station, they can only control the movement of trains within their range, and something more is requisite to ensure the safe working of the traffic over the long lengths of line between stations. For some years a time-interval was allowed for the working of trains following one another on the UP and DOWN lines of a double line railway, no train being allowed to leave a station sooner than a fixed number of minutes after a previous train had started in the same direction. ”

“ Now here you can see that locomotive wheel, or one like it, with its tyre in place, waiting for the time when it can be fitted in place in the locomotive being built on the right. When the time comes for this loco to have its wheels put on, it will be swung in the air, the wheels will be arranged in place underneath it, and it will slowly be lowered on to them. Just as important as the work of building locomotives is that of keeping them in repair. Routine examinations of locomotives and coaches keep up the railway’s safety standards. ”

“ On shot the locomotive, like an arrow from the bow, the men throwing over the ties until the train was well nigh unloaded, when just as they were close to the curve by which the train arrives at the station, they saw the dreaded cars strike a tie, or something equally of service, and with a desperate plunge rush down the embankment, some fifteen feet, to the little valley, and creek below. ”

“ The steel rails, which are laid in the chairs, are of the single-headed section, 30 feet in length, and weigh 900 lbs., or 90 lbs. per lineal yard. It may be mentioned that over bridges, and for some other special purposes, about 10 miles of rails have been laid upon the London and North-Western Railway which are 60 feet in length.
Each 30 feet rail rests on ten sleepers, and is secured in its place by creosoted oak keys 6 inches long, 33⁄8 inches wide, and 21⁄8 inches thick, driven between the rail and the chair, outside the rail. ”

“ There were railways long before there were locomotive engines; indeed, we shall not be far out if we say that there were railways in England a few centuries before steam-engines of any sort came into use.
It was up in the North, in the colliery districts by the Tyne, that the idea of tramways, along which trains of trucks, drawn by horses or mules, seem to have first come into use; and they can certainly be traced there as far back as the time of King Charles I (about the year 1630) . The first railway which Parliament allowed to be laid in the South of England was the "Surrey Iron Railway". ”

“ This is a difficult problem, but when enough big men give it attention it will be solved. It probably means more elasticity, more inter-changeability between train service and the various kinds of maintenance, between the locomotive and the shop, between the railway and allied contiguous industries. ”

“ Further improvements in these waggons have been effected by the use of corrugated iron, which is light and strong at the same time; and the iron waggons have been again improved by employing iron covered with a thin coating of glass, under a new patent, which renders rust impossible and paint unnecessary. The simple contrivance by which the door and moveable roof is locked and unlocked by one motion, is worthy of the notice of practical men. 600 of these lock-up waggons, with springs and buffers, are in use on the London and North Western Railway. ”

“ A good fitting chair—especially when keyed on the inside—provides a most effectual support to the rail both vertically and laterally, and maintains the rail to accurate gauge. By giving proper clearance space at the tops of the chair-jaws, a bull-head rail can be taken out by simply driving out the wooden keys, and a new rail inserted without in any way disturbing the chairs or spikes. To change a flange rail necessitates the slackening and removal of a large number of the spikes and crab bolts. ”

“ As passenger carriages pass from one company’s line to another’s, it is essential for the public safety that, although the widths of the carriages on the different lines may differ from each other, the widths across the carriages from the outside of the continuous footboard on one side, to the outside of the continuous footboard on the opposite side, should be identical for the carriages of all railway companies, so that the lines of rails may be laid at the proper distance from the edges of the passenger platforms. ”

“ Leigh, they formed two solid heaps of metal, each as high as a man. The rails are of mild steel; they are double-headed, and about an inch in height; some of them are nearly twelve feet long. They are fastened down to 2,000 pitch pine sleepers by 4,000 malleable cast-iron chairs, held in place with hard-wood wedges and 16,000 screws. All the fish plates, bolts, and nuts used in joining the rails together are exact miniatures of those to be seen on an ordinary railway. ”

“ As the sleepers under the chair road suffer less from the crushing of the timber, they have a much longer life in the line, and remain serviceable until they are incapacitated from decay. This is a very important item in places where timber sleepers are expensive. The steadiness of the chair prolongs the efficiency of the spikes.
As the actual wearing portion of the rail is the head, or wheel contact surface, a liberal area—consistent with the expected traffic—must be given to that part, whether for a bull-head rail or a flange rail. ”

“ In all cases substantial parapets, with a height of not less than 4 feet 6 inches above rail-level must be provided by an addition to the girders, unless the girders themselves are sufficiently high. On important viaducts where the superstructure is of iron, steel, or timber, substantial outside wheel-guards to be fixed above the level of, and as close to the outer rails as possible, but not so as to be liable to be struck by any part of an engine or train running on the rails. ”

“ This necessarily involves a gauge of rail of about 6 feet 101⁄2 inches to 6 feet 11 inches, but 7 feet allows of its being done easily; it allows, moreover, of a different arrangement of the body: it admits all sorts of carriages, stage-coaches, and carts to be carried between the wheels. And what are the limits in the case of the Great Western Railway, as compared to those on Irish railways? Gradients of one-fifth the inclination, very favourable curves, and probably the largest traffic in England. ”

“ Back door influences had everywhere to be encountered. The North Western, for instance, is the most important of the railway companies of the United Kingdom. The locomotive superintendent of that company was the part inventor and proprietor of an emergency brake which had been extensively adopted by it on its rolling stock, but which wholly failed to meet the requirements [224] laid down in its circular by the Board of Trade. ”

“ Those interested to maintain the credit of the air-brake or of the track department are not often on the ground when the reporter gets his information, and the temptation is always great to shift the responsibility to the shoulders of the absent. Probably the displacement of the rail will have taken place after the derailment; but rails do sometimes spread. Loose spikes and rotten ties allow the outer edge of the rail-flange to sink into the wood, and the rail to roll outward enough to let the wheels drop. Sound ties are the first safeguard against such accidents. ”

“ It is very doubtful how far the addition of a single rail only would be consistent with safety, as in this case the centre of gravity of the carriages of different gauge in the same train would not be in the same straight line. If a complete double set of rails were laid down the expense would be very considerable. ”

“ It has been found that freight crews are easily induced to take advantage of the contract price to buy such plain uniforms for street wear. Such freight crews can be provided with extra caps from the office in emergencies and be utilized to advantage; sometimes reducing the amount of deadhead mileage in making special one-way passenger movements. The street railway of at least one large city has tried this system of plain uniforms with excellent results. Why should the most of us be so timid that we must have a precedent before we can endorse a proposed plan? ”

“ When the car is loaded the machine can either move on to the next car, or pull it under itself into place. With the help of four men it can load from 125,000 to 150,000 feet of timber in a day. By means of the cable it can make up a train, and then by lowering the truck and raising the legs out of the way, it is converted into a locomotive and hauls the train away to the mill or railway station at the rate of three or four miles at hour.
As forests are cut away along the water courses, railways have to be resorted to more and more, Fig. ”

“ A 6-foot gauge was introduced on the Erie Railway and retained long after the standard gauge had become general in the United States. As time passes, however, the 4 foot 81⁄2 inch gauge is becoming more common all over the world. The method of fastening rails to the ties varies. In America hook-headed spikes are almost universally used; the bull-headed rail used in England is wedged into cast-iron chairs which are bolted to the ties; in Europe considerable use is made of bolts; and when steel ties are employed various forms of clamping devices tightened by means of bolts or wedges are used. ”

“ More than once the Duke of Richmond was his companion. The time was the mid 'forties, when railway locomotives were far less powerfully built than they are now, and when, London Bridge Terminus being up a rather long incline, it was customary, on the departure of a train from the ticket-taking platform, to employ a second engine to aid the one in front by pushing from behind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For several years it held a unique position among the great systems of the world as the narrowest gauge line in operation. The metals are laid only 231⁄4 inches apart—less than half the distance between the rails forming the roads of the greater proportion of steel highways bounding the globe—and yet it has a traffic which many a more important railway would have just cause to envy. ”