Railroad

or Railway, a road having rails instead of a flat roadbed. Railroads have grown out of the freighting business, rather than out of the needs of passenger traffic. More specifically, the railroad may be traced to the business of carrying coal from mines to the water's edge. Even a strong pack horse cannot carry more than about 300 pounds on its back. The English miners of Newcastle-on-Tyne thought that they had taken a wonderful step forward when, instead of packhorses, they began to use two-wheeled carts, by means of which the same horse could draw about 1,700 pounds. Later, the Newcastle roads were paved with flagstones to enable a horse to draw a still larger load. As early as 1672 the colliers began to lay wooden rails on their coal roads. A raised timber was laid along the outside of each rail to keep the cart wheels in place.

The next step was the adoption of four-wheeled wagons in place of carts. A strong draft horse was able, by means of this larger wagon, to draw quite a load from the mine mouth down to the wharf where boats lay in readiness to receive the coal. Some bright genius suggested protecting the wooden rails with strips of iron. Another devised wheels with flanges, or projecting rims, to keep them from running off the track. Improvement in railroads waited at this stage until 1814 for the invention of the locomotive or steam horse. In this year George Stephenson, the founder of the modern railroad, brought out the first practical locomotive. The world went wild on learning that trains were running in and out of London carrying passengers at the "astonishing speed of seven miles per hour."

American railways began in much the same way. The first American railroad was constructed between the granite quarries of Quincy, Massachusetts, and the Neponset River, four miles away. The track was five feet wide. The rails were of oak, overlaid with thin strips of iron. The road was built to bring down granite for the Bunker Hill Monument. It was opened in 1827. A single horse drew about ten tons of granite from the quarry to the landing, making the round trip in about two hours. The first American turn-table, the first switch, or "turn out," the first portable derrick, the first eight-wheeled car, and the first railroad snow plow were used in connection with this, literally, onehorse railway.

Somewhat later in the same year, 1827, a similar road was built at Mauch Chunk (mak chunk), Pennsylvania. It was nine miles in length and was designed to carry coal from the mines down to the Lehigh River. Mules were used for motive power. As the road led down hill all the way, the mules were placed in a car and rode down with the coal, but, like boys coasting, they had to draw the empty cars back to the mine again.

The first American steam railway was set in operation in 1829 by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company. It was designed to carry coal from their mines at Carbondale to their canal boats at Honesdale. Owing to the defective construction of tracks the use of the locomotive was discontinued. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad may claim fairly the credit of being the first permanent railway in the United States. In 1830 the first section, running from Baltimore to Eliot's Mills, a distance of thirteen miles, was open for traffic. The engine, known as Tom Thumb, was built by Peter Cooper. Unable to find iron tubes in the market, he used the barrels of old muskets in building his engine boiler. The Tom Thumb, a really diminutive engine, weighing less than a ton, made the round trip in 129 minutes. Later in the same year the Charleston-Hamburg Railroad of South Carolina was opened.

The first railroad accident in America occurred in connection with the operation of this road. A negro fireman, annoyed by the hissing of escaping steam, endeavored to restore quiet by sitting on the safety valve. The boiler of the locomotive exploded with fatal results. Railroad building goes on so rapidly that statistics are out of date almost before they can be put in print. The following table of railway mileage is approximately correct for the year 1909:

The total world's mileage for 1909 was 595,000, about enough to girdle the globe twenty-four times:

Total . . . . .594,867

In some countries, notably Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, and Australia, the railroads are owned, in part, at least, by the government. In all countries the government claims the right to authorize the construction of a railroad where it may seem desirable. A state has "eminent domain," that is, the right to take private property for public use. It may authorize a railroad to take a strip of land for a right of way, yards, and stations. The road must, of course, pay for lands so taken. In return for this privilege, the law regards railroads as common carriers. They are required to accommodate all passengers and to receive freight from any shipper. The laws also require railroads to charge uniform rates, that is, to charge one person the same as another for the same kind of service. Much complaint has arisen of late, especially in the United States, that companies return a part of the freight charges to favored shippers, thus giving them an unfair advantage over their competitors in business. To remedy this complaint, it has been proposed that a government commission should fix rates and forbid so-called rebates.

A part of the difficulty, in the United States at least, has arisen from the fact that railroads have been built very unsystematically. There are large districts without roads at all. In others competing lines have been built alongside of each other. All must be supported. Under such conditions rates are higher than they would need to be if there were but one system. In this respect France has possibly the most admirable railway system in the world. Before any railroads were built competent engineers laid out trunk lines radiating from Paris. These were built first. As the usefulness of railroads became more and more apparent, branch lines were built and are still being built, so that each trunk line now carries a great number of branch lines, like a tree. No two branches interfere with each other. Rates are regulated by the government. There is little chance for unfairness.

The building and operating of railways has become one of the leading occupations. There were in the United States in 1908 no less than 162,700 persons, one out of every 75, engaged in railroading. The laying out of new lines and the maintenance of old ones has become a recognized branch of engineering. The construction of railways is a business in itself. In fact, it combines several trades. The contractor who moves earth seldom undertakes to build trestles or bridges or to construct tunnels. The work of railroad building has been very much lessened by the invention of suitable machinery. Deep cuts are excavated by means of steam shovels working on derricks. The earth is scooped up in front of the derrick, swung around, swung back, and dumped into the car to be carried out of the cut and used for filling elsewhere. In track laying, a steam derrick reaches backward to a flat car, lifts the rail, and carries it forward into position. As fast as the track is laid, the train advances.

The question of railway ties is a serious one. It is estimated that there are, at the present time, not less than six hundred million pine, chestnut, cedar, redwood, fir, and tamarack ties in use. It is claimed that in 1908 American roads bought 103,000,000 wooden ties. It is very evident that the tie supply will give out in the near future. Railroads buy a fourth of the lumber produced in the United States. Engineers are at a loss what to use. No satisfactory substitute has been hit upon.

Wrought iron soon displaced the wooden rails of the earlier roads. About 1855 steel rails began to displace wrought iron rails. The making of rails requires the investment of a large amount of capital in a steel plant. The center of the rail industry is at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Large ingots of steel at white heat are lifted and swung by huge cranes and are passed between successive pairs of rollers until they finally take the shape of the steel rails now in use. The rails are sawed usually into lengths of thirty feet. The various sizes weigh from 50 to 100 pounds per yard.

The successful operation of railways is a much more complex and difficult matter than the ordinary reader is likely to suppose. A railroad is laid off in divisions, each in charge of a general superintendent. Each division is laid off in sections, each in charge of a section crew and "boss." The repair and maintenance of the road is systematized thoroughly. All trains of a division, both freight and passenger, are under the immediate charge of the train dispatcher and his assistants. He sits at a keyboard or diagram showing every siding, station, and track on his division. The operator at each station reports the arrival and departure of trains, and the dispatcher moves forward his pegs correspondingly. The conductor of each train runs in accordance with orders sent him by telegraph. The engineer of each train is under the direction of the conductor. A uniform system of signals went into effect in nearly all American railroads recently.

The records of a company show the cost of maintaining each mile of road. The culverts, trestles, and bridges are numbered and classified according to the kind of material used. The proper official can give the history, cost, material, and present condition of each. The locomotives, tenders, baggage cars, postal cars, passenger coaches, flat cars, and freight cars are numbered. The records of the road show what each cost, how long it has run, and what it has cost for repairs. Many roads actually know the number of miles each piece of rolling stock has traveled. The accounts of the repair shops are kept systematically. The total cost of maintenance is distributed and charged up to the different cars that have been repaired.

January 1, 1906, American shops and steel works had orders on hand for 6,300 locomotives, 3,300 passenger cars, 340,000 freight cars and 250,000,000 tons of steel rails. Over 20,000 miles of railway were built during the year 1906. In 1908 the orders for equipment, as compiled by the Railroad Age Gazette, were: Locomotives, 1,182; passenger cars, 1,319; freight cars, 62,669. The average orders per year for 1905, 1906, and 1907 were: Locomotives, 5,130; passenger cars, 2,827; freight cars, 267,780.

The cost of operating a road is large. An attempt is made to provide coal sheds and water tanks at intervals of about ten miles. If stations were built wholly with reference to the convenience of railroads, they would be about ten miles apart. The cost of hauling and distributing fuel is very great. The ordinary elevated water tank seen at nearly every station holds from 40,000 gallons upward. Where local supply is not obtainable, as is the case in certain arid regions, it is necessary to fill the tanks by means of a water train. In some divisions it is customary for freight engines to leave their loads at a side track and take a run for water. Taking into consideration the erection of tanks and the expense of pumping, water costs an engine about seventy-five cents for each hundred miles of run. Counting coal, water, oil, and the wages of the engineer, fireman, conductor, and brakeman, the average cost of running a train in the United States varies from $1.18 per mile for a light freight train to $1.80 for a heavy train. The present tendency is toward heavier rails, heavier locomotives, heavier trains, and fewer employes. While it costs more to move a heavy train a mile, the cost of moving freight is less per ton. On an average passenger trains cost $1.10 per mile.

Every railroad company has a superintendent of cars whose business it is to keep track of the cars belonging to the company. In order to avoid loading and reloading, freight cars are sent frequently thousands of miles beyond the end of the road to which they belong. Sometimes a car belonging to a line in Oregon, for instance, is sent to the Atlantic coast, or a car belonging to a line on the Gulf of Mexico is sent to the Dakotas. Sometimes a car is gone for months. It may be that the receiving railroad is short of cars, and retains cars not its own in order to take care of local traffic. In order to prevent the retention of cars unnecessarily, the American railroads came to an agreement in 1902 to pay each other twenty cents a day for the use of freight cars. If a car is absent from the tracks of its own road more than thirty days, the owner has the privilege of increasing the charge to one dollar per day. When used beyond the limits of their own tracks, passenger coaches are paid for at the rate of three cents a mile, and baggage cars at half that sum. This plan has been adopted widely and has proved the most satisfactory of any that has been suggested.

The following miscellaneous statistics, relative to the railways of the United States are of interest. Most of the information is taken from Poor's Manual of Railroads for 1908.

Texas, Illinois, and Pennsylvania lead in railway mileage with over 10,000 miles each, According to statistics, the total yearly amount of travel in the United States amounts to 260 miles for each man, woman, and child. Freight is moved to the equivalent of a ton, 2,155 miles for each person. European railways carry four times as many passengers as American railways, but American roads carry more freight.

The topic of railway speed is one of interest. It is a question just how fast cars can be drawn with profit against atmospheric resistance. Closed vestibules are an advantage to speedy trains. Cigar-shaped cars have been considered. In 1848 a train on the Great Western Railway of England made 53 miles at a speed of 68 miles per hour. In 1904 a Michigan Central train made a distance of 225 miles at a rate of 70.74 miles per hour. In the same year a train on the Great Western of England raised its rate to 84.6 miles an hour. In 1905 a train of the New York Central ran from Chicago to New York, a distance of 960 miles, at an average rate of 60.28 miles per hour, stops excluded. For long runs a mile a minute, stops included, is very good time. September 11, 1895, a New York Central train made the distance from New York to Buffalo, 436 1/2 miles, in 407 minutes of actual time, stops included.

The run has been made from Albany to Buffalo, a distance of 302 miles, in 295 minutes. The fastest regular trains in the United States run over the New York Central between New York and Albany, 143 miles, in 160 minutes; between Washington and Baltimore on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 40 miles in 45 minutes; over the Pennsylvania Railroad from Jersey City to Washington, 227 miles in 286 minutes. A French train, the Paris-Calais Express, runs 185 miles in 184 1/2 minutes. March 29, 1909, an official of the New York Central made the trip in a special from New York City to Chicago in 16 hours and 10 minutes, an average of a mile a minute. The regular time of the Twentieth Century Limited between New York and Chicago (1909) was 18 hours.

See Locomotive; Stephenson; Standard Time; Express; Postal Service; Saint Louis; Station; Credit Mobilier; Block System; Demurrage