Railway train

“ An arriving goods train is first drawn out of the main-traffic lines into one of the shunting lines, and then handed over to the staff of men in charge of the sorting operations, who at once mark the waggons according to the number or designation of the particular siding into which they have to be placed. A suitable engine is generally set apart for this work, and in a very short time the entire train is divided out by one or more waggons at a time, and distributed into the various sidings, representing different sections of the line, or groups to be handed over to neighbouring railways. ”

“ The results of these tests will help in designing the dozen or so standard locomotives I have already told you about. Passenger trains are usually thought of as the spectacular part of railway working.
But goods trains too are not without romance. Many who love trains would just as soon be travelling through the Scottish Highlands in the guard’s van of this train as they would be going off on the Golden Arrow for a week in Paris. ”

“ It is evident that the rail which would last for very many years under the small traffic, would have a very short life under the frequent traffic. Hence the reason why it is found expedient to give a large increase of material in the heads of rails carrying the heavy, constant train service of many of our main lines. ”

“ Also, for the security of the workmen employed in maintaining the track as on an ordinary railway—the system of “packing” the sleepers and inspecting the various parts being common to all railways—a clear space of three feet is left between the passing trains, and strong posts, ten feet apart, are fixed along the centre of the space for the labourers to hold on by when an express rushes by. ”

“ To follow further the rapid development of the railroad in America would require many volumes. As the canal building fever had seized the fancy of the American public in preceding years, so a similar enthusiasm was instantly kindled in the new railroad, and railroad travel became immediately the most popular diversion. In a relatively few years a web of track carried the smoking locomotive and its rumbling train of cars throughout the country. Crude, and lacking almost every convenience of the passenger coach of the present day, the early railway carriage served fully its new-born function. ”

“ The railways of the country, in their present form, have been built since the close of the Civil War, or in less than fifty years, and are the wonder and admiration of students of the transportation problem who come here from other countries. There are 234,182 miles of railway, and more than 340,000 miles of track in this country, as compared with a trifle less than 300,000 miles of railway in all the other countries of the world combined. There are nearly 58,000 locomotives; more than 45,000 passenger-train cars; nearly 2,200,000 freight- and service-cars. ”

“ On most railroads the freight trainmen—engineers, conductors, brakemen, and firemen—are the most numerous and prominent class, as the number of freight trains is generally larger than that of passenger trains; and among these men there are more brakemen than anything else, because there are two or more on every train, while there is but one of each of the other classes. ”

“ MONO-RAILWAYS A ONE-RAIL railway! What kind of novelty can that be, emanating no doubt from the prolific brain of some enthusiastic engineer possessed with an idea, a fad, a craze—call it what you will! We are accustomed to highly respectable trains running in an orthodox manner on double rails. A projected, many-railed track we have also heard of to carry ships bodily across the Isthmus of Panama. ”

“ For this reason fast time on a railroad depends as much on having a good signal system to assure the locomotive-runners that the line is clear, as it does on the locomotives. If he is always liable to encounter, and must be on the look-out for, obstructions at frequent grade-crossings of common roads, or if he is not certain whether the train in front of him is out of his way or not, the locomotive-runner will be nervous and be almost sure to lose time. ”

“ As often as the yardmaster gets together a sufficient number of cars for a common destination to make up a train, he gathers them together, orders a road engine and crew to be ready, and despatches them. In the make up of "through" trains, care has to be exercised to put together cars going to the same point, and to "group" the trains so that as little shifting as possible may be required at any succeeding yard or terminal, where the trains may pass. ”

“ A RAILWAY PROJECTOR.
In the year 1819, Thomas Gray—a deep thinker with a mind of comprehensive grasp—was travelling in the North of England when he saw a train of coal-wagons drawn by steam along a colliery tramroad. “Why,” he questioned the engineer, “are not these tramroads laid down all over England, so as to supersede our common roads, and steam engines employed to convey goods and passengers along them, so as to supersede horse power?” The engineer replied, “Just propose you that to the nation, sir, and see what you will get by it! Why, sir, you will be worried to death for your pains.” ”

“ Such lines are, therefore, in proportion to the traffic carried over them, more expensive to work and maintain, but as the weight of the train, the class of locomotive used, and all the other arrangements for conducting the business are specially adapted to the circumstances, such a line as this probably involves less trouble and anxiety in working than a railway which is generally level, but which has one or more long and steep gradients in its course. ”

“ In descending steep grades, only the most constant and skilful care prevents the train from rushing at breakneck speed to the foot of the incline, or to a curve, where it would be precipitated over an embankment and crushed into splinters. ”

“ A train of carriages was attached to a locomotive engine of the most improved construction, and built by Mr. George Stephenson, in the following order:— (1) Locomotive engine, with the engineer and assistants; (2) tender with coals and water; next six wagons loaded with coals and flour; then an elegant covered coach, with the committee and other proprietors of the railway; then 21 wagons fitted up on the occasion for passengers; and, last of all, six wagons loaded with coals, making altogether a train of 38 carriages, exclusive of the engine and tender. ”

“ The ingenuity with which two narrow rods of iron are made to bear whole trains of wagons, laden with many hundred tons of commerce, and bounding across a wide, semi-fluid morass, previously impassable by man or beast, is beyond all praise and deserving of eternal record. p. 63Only conceive a slender bridge of two minute iron rails, several miles in length, level as Waterloo, elastic as whalebone, yet firm as adamant! Along this splendid triumph of human genius—this veritable via triumphalis—the train of carriages bounds with the velocity of the stricken deer ”

“ Signals.—Railway tradition alleges that on one of the early lines opened for passenger traffic, the precautions for public safety were considered to have been fulfilled by providing a man on horseback to ride along the track between the rails in the front of the locomotive engine, to give warning to persons strolling on the line, and to check the advance of the train when necessary. ”

“ Things as seen from the railway are for the most part set on wrong, face the wrong way, and as it were 'grate on the sensitive ear with a slightly mercantile accent.' The coalshed or the chimney of the heating apparatus is turned towards us in the train, and not the best line of gables or the old lych gate. ”

“ The train is first running eastwards, disappears round the corner and then is making its way in the opposite direction a few feet below, to round another curve and once more steams eastwards, this alternate running backwards and forwards continuing until the valley of the Illecillewaet River is gained, by which time the train has travelled over 6 miles of metals to make an actual advance of only 2 miles. ”

“ The vestibuled limited trains contain several sleeping-cars, a dining-car, and a car fitted up with a smoking saloon, a library with books, desks, and writing materials, a bath-room, and a barber-shop. With a free circulation of air throughout the train, the cars opening into each other, the electric light, the many other increased comforts and conveniences introduced, the steam-heating apparatus avoiding the necessity of using fires, the great speed, and absence of stops at meal-stations, this train is the acme of safe and luxurious travel. ”

“ Don't ever approach a railway crossing without looking out for the engine while the bell rings, and listening to see if the train is coming; for there is good sense as well as good law in the suggestion of Chief Baron Pollock, that a railway track per se is a warning of danger to those about to go upon it, and cautions them to see if a train is coming. ”

“ Railroads are run to make money. A motion to manage them like golf links is never in order. The track is built for running trains. To the man with too much ton mile on the brain the running of a train, the very object of the road’s existence, becomes a bugaboo. ”

“ Have you not seen cars pulled to pieces in big trains, have you not seen freight delayed in a manner to suggest to an innocent bystander that the road was perhaps running its last train and giving its cars their last load?
The inevitable tendency of the big train is to hold back and combine in large lots cars destined to the same point and to the same consignee. When a whole train can be unloaded at the ship’s side at tidewater, or at a large consuming plant, the system is ideal. ”

“ Every once in a while we are appalled by a terrible collision in a terminal, the result perhaps of some poor devil of an employe not appreciating fully the meaning of “all trains.” To the innocent bystander the switch engine and cars are just as much a train as the Pullman flyer with its two little green markers on the last car. ”

“ We act as the owners of a railway would act if they allowed luggage trains, express trains, and horse-drawn trams to run upon one pair of rails. The radiating causeways, as I conceive them, would be entirely free from this difficulty. Neither the traffic of cross streets, nor foot passengers, nor slow-going carts and vehicles would be permitted to interfere with the equable running of fast cars. ”

“ One very important part of the management of a railway, as may be easily imagined, is the arrangement of the train service. The entire service is re-organised twice in the year, viz., in the spring, to provide for the summer months, when the passenger traffic is heavy and the goods and coal traffic light; and again in the autumn, with a view to the winter months, when, conversely, the passenger traffic is light and the goods and coal traffic heavy. ”

“ In a line that is well signalled—and it may be taken for fact that there is no railway in the kingdom upon which there are not at present efficient signals—accidents are not the result of delays, although there is a very general belief in the minds of the public that it is otherwise. In two recent instances, accidents of a calamitous nature have been the result of a rail being taken up and not replaced before a train has come upon the spot ”

“ When the time for the departure of the train had almost arrived, the Englishman said, “Your friend is going to miss the train, if he is not quick.” “Oh, that is all right. I’ll keep it for him.” Soon the signal came and the train started, when the passenger seized the portmanteau, and threw it out of the window, exclaiming, “He’s missed his train but he mustn’t lose his baggage!” That portmanteau was the German’s.
GROWTH OF STATION BOOKSHOPS.
The gradual rise of the railway book-trade is a singular feature of our marvellous railway era. ”

“ In the by-gone days of the early railway, the engine that could gain the heights of Tring without baiting on the way was a wonder. In 1844, when experiments were made preparatory to running express trains between London and Birmingham in three hours, the exultation was great when it was found that a tender could be constructed to hold water enough to convey a light train as far as Wolverton without stopping.
Finality is an unknown element on the railway: Progress is its only pass-word. ”

“ It is the busiest railway junction in the worid. More than two thousand five hundred trains pass through here every twenty-four hours – that is an average of two a minute all through the day and night. Actually, at the peak period, there is a train passing about every twenty seconds, and it has been worked out that about two thousand passengers ride through the station every minute during the morning and evening peak periods. ”

“ For this class, wishing to get about quickly—going to and from their daily toil, paying visits to their sporting pals, attending dog shows, football matches, etc., taking their wives and children shopping, and on holidays going some distance afield—a local railway, even if close by, is of little use, with its rigid time-table, its fixed stopping-places, its high fares, and its general formality. ”

“ The cars are rather stuffy, and, like the train cars, are narrow and low. At each end is a small partitioned-off “cab,” where sits a motor-man. No tickets are issued from the booking-office; but, as in an omnibus, the conductor comes round and collects the fares, giving a punched voucher in return, which is retained by the traveller.
THE LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC RAILWAY
There are few overhead, or, rather, elevated, railways in the world. ”