Railway wagon

“ One four-coupled locomotive weighing 3 tons in working order, and carrying enough water and fuel for an hour’s running.
Thirty wagons 6 ft. long, 3 ft. wide, 1 ft. 3 in. deep, weighing each 71⁄2 cwts., and holding 16 to 17 cwts. of coal, or 20 to 22 cwts. of bricks and road metal. The sides are of box form and removable, so that the floors can be used as flat wagons for the conveyance of large stones, castings, &c. Fittings are attachable to any wagon for carrying long timber. Also one bogie passenger car 20 ft. long and 3 ft. ”

“ 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 leading wagons follow him so nearly round the circle, that but a wagon length separates them. Each wagon follows in its track, the rear closing on the front until its tongue and ox-chains will 159 perfectly reach from one to the other, and so accurate the measurement and perfect the practice, that the hindmost wagon of the train always precisely closes the gateway. As each wagon is brought into position, it is dropped from its team (the teams being inside the circle) , the team unyoked, and the yokes and chains are used to connect the wagon strongly with that in its front. ”

“ At the height of the season, when travel was heavy and roads dry, the Standard Concord Coach was employed. At other times, a vehicle commonly termed a “mud wagon” was put to use. During this era of horse-drawn vehicles, the trains of pack mules were, of course, replaced by great freight wagons. Today, in driving over the old wagon roads, one is led to wonder how passenger vehicles succeeded in passing the great freight outfits. ”

“ We had to climb a road leading skyward, like an interminable staircase, by the funicular railway. It was incredible that the locomotive, standing on his hind legs so to speak, should creep up the mountain; I thought no one but a goat could surmount it. The funicular contains two cars, roofed but open from the sides, the seats are tilted back, which enables the passengers to sit level while going up the steep incline. Whether going up or down, the engine is always at the lower end of the train. The passengers sit backwards going up, and face forward going down. ”

“ The very wheels beneath you trundle along in an indistinct fashion, and the engine has a wheeze instead of a whistle. It is as if the railway dictionary had been run over by the cars a number of times, and there was nothing left for the owners but to serve out the fragments to passengers. The brakeman of a train holds, all things considered, the post of honor, because the post of danger. The locomotive talks to him all day, and, as a rule, that is about the only individual with whom he holds much conversation. ”

“ Each one of our wagons was drawn by six yoke, or twelve oxen, and contained from five to six thousand pounds of freight, and there was but one wagon to each team. The time had not yet come when, what was afterward adopted, trail wagons were in use. This means two or three wagons lashed together and drawn by one team. Twenty-five of our wagons and teams formed what was called a train, and these trains were scattered along the road at intervals of anywhere from two to three miles, and sometimes eight to ten miles, and even greater distances, so as to keep out of the way of each other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was a stout wagon, drawn by three pairs of lean oxen at a slow and lumbering pace—probably the last wagon of a train, as it was seldom that a family ventured upon crossing the plains alone. If so, the train was out of sight along the track, which here becomes less monotonous, winding among the bluffs and along the shallow bed of a river, in which, at present, no water was visible. ”

“ In every considerable town, there are whole fleets of wagons that reach to the outermost limits, both for collection and for distribution. In this service the automobile truck has begun readily to displace the older type of horse and wagon. The wagon service brings the express package, no matter how small or how large, to a central distributing depot, where all are gathered together and sent, in through railroad cars, to their destinations, being handled very largely as we have seen the L. C. L. freight handled in the great transfer houses of the railroads. ”

“ The genius loci must look with wonder on the gigantic offspring of the little railway, which has swallowed up its own sire. Lean mules no longer crawl leisurely along the little rails with trucks of stone through Croydon, once perchance during the day, but the whistle and the rush of the locomotive are now heard all day long. ”

“ At the present time — in large factories, at any rate — there is machinery for everything, and this is highly destructive of the purely personal faculty in manufacture. But in the case of the road-waggon builder, though a great many, or perhaps all, of the parts have been shaped for him by steam power, there yet remains the fitting up and building of the vehicle, which is reasonably a task requiring considerable care and skill. The iron frame of the locomotive or railway waggon may be clapped together quite easily, for there is no very elaborate fitting or joining to be done. ”

“ The railway trucks and waggons are moved about by horses: it is amusing to see the activity with which the heavy brutes often bring a waggon up at a trot, jump out of the way just at the right moment, and allow the waggon to roll up to the right spot by its own momentum. ”

“ Coming out of the lane along the darkness, with the dark space spreading down to the wind, and the twinkling lights of the station below, the far-off windy chuff of a shunting train, the tiny clink-clink-clink of the wagons blown between the wind, the light of Beldover-edge twinkling upon the blackness of the hill opposite, the glow of the furnaces along the railway to the right, their steps began to falter. ”

“ With literal and historical accuracy, the typical railway engineer sees the modern locomotive as just an elaborated pit pump-engine placed on wheels, and engaged all day in hauling coal-laden trollies from the pit mouth to the cities, and all night in hauling them back empty. ”

“ Five locomotives, of from 12 to 18 tons weight, were provided, and there were about forty ordinary side-tip ballast wagons—all entirely unsuitable for use on a military railway.
At first the men belonging to the contractors' staff—navvies and others—were entrusted with the working of the line. ”

“ This new locomotive has, at its rear, a drum wound round with a chain, and is provided with self-acting grips, which descend at the proper moment, and biting the sides of the rails, after the manner of a vice, so fix the locomotive to the spot that it becomes a stationary engine. Some of the wagons are fitted with similar grips, to prevent the train from running back during the ascent. When preparing to mount a hill, the free end of the chain is made fast to the foremost wagon; the locomotive moves on the whole length of the chain and fixes itself ”

“ An ordinary goods train is made up of several kinds of trucks, some empty, some loaded, many of them unequally loaded, all of them subject to heavy work and rough handling, and more likely to give trouble than the higher class vehicle, the passenger carriage. The breaking down or derailment of one or two goods trucks on a line of rails close alongside the fast passenger rails, would in all probability so foul and obstruct the passenger line as to cause a very serious accident to an express train which could not be stopped in time. ”

“ The breaking down of a waggon may endanger the safety of a whole train, and cause the loss of valuable lives and property, and a very complete and elaborate system is adopted, with a view to guarantee that every private waggon shall be properly built and maintained. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 long lead adds materially to the cost and time of forming an embankment, as it not only necessitates a considerable length of service, or temporary permanent way, but also occupies much time in the haulage of the earth waggons. For distances of half a mile and upwards, a small locomotive is more suitable than horses for conveying the waggons. ”

“ To secure perfect safety in ascending and descending such a tremendous grade, the track is composed of three rails bolted to a trestle of heavy timbers, the centre rail being an immense wrought-iron ladder, with rounds four inches apart, into which the cogs of the locomotive drive-wheel fit, and thus drag the train up the steep as well as control it, with aid of air-brakes, in making the descent. One and a half hours are consumed in making the round trip, and the fare is six dollars, but the view from the summit is so magnificent that it fully justifies the expense. ”

“ The gears provide for two ratios of reduction from engine to road wheels; the higher one is for all ordinary running, and the lower one is for steep hills or for very bad roads. The outer ends of the differential shafts are fitted with chain sprockets, from which the drive is taken to the back wheels by means of chains.
The third type (fig. 9) of steam wagon is particularly businesslike in appearance, and sound in construction and design. It is the outcome of many years’ experience in the design of road locomotives, on the lines of which it is constructed. ”

“ The reporter, as before noticed, has various modes in view, by which the branch to Leith may be made of a very easy line of draught, or be thrown into a succession of levels, by a species of lockage or stepping. Where sudden acclivities occur on the line of a railway they are generally overcome by an inclined plane, of greater or less extent, according to the particular rise, and on this the loaded wagons are brought up by a steam-engine. ”

“ Saw a steam engine drawing about twenty-five wagons, each containing about two tons and a half of coals. A single horse draws four such wagons. I went to Stockton at four o’clock by coach on the railroad; one horse draws about twenty-four passengers. I did not like it at all, for the road is very ugly in appearance, and, being only one line with occasional turns for passing, we were sometimes obliged to wait, and at other times to be drawn back, so that we were full two hours going eleven miles, and they are often more than three hours. ”

“ To see waggons with flat wheels drawn over cast-iron rails one yard long by a horse, cannot fail to interest those who watch the workings of railways, and it most clearly shows the great improvements made and the perseverance which has been required to develop the present gigantic railway system out of such small beginnings. ”

“ Where there are only two lines of rails to serve for the UP and DOWN service of a heavy passenger and goods traffic, it is imperative to restrict those lines as much as possible to the actual transit of trains, and not to block them by unnecessary occupation for shunting purposes. A goods train running a long distance collects waggons from many roadside stations, and at some of them several waggons will be taken on, to be forwarded to various and widely distant destinations. ”

“ With a narrow-gauge type there would, of course, always be the time and expense of transhipment to or from the ordinary railway trucks in the same way as with the road carts, but the time and expense may be lessened by so constructing the little narrow-gauge trucks that the bodies may be readily lifted off the frames and wheels, and be placed like packing-cases in the railway waggons.
It is natural to look to the railways of the first rank for the latest advances in construction, appliances, and equipment, and it is generally there they are found. ”