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HARDWOOD RECORD 



had it killed any in its steel cars. He alleges that among the defects 

 of steel passenger and sleeping car construction are such as had been 

 named: need of constant repairs and painting. Mr. Mudge thinks 

 that eventually the steel car may become the cheaper, "if we can 

 keep them on the track." He thinks the attitude of railroads in 

 general is such as to indicate reluctance to put on more steel cars. 



Xotwithstanding the publicity given the articles on the subject of 

 "Steel vs. Wooden Passenger Cars" in Hardwood Record and the 

 reprinting of them in hundreds of other publications; and from the 

 further fact that reprints have been supplied to all leading railroad 

 men in the United States, with the invitation to express their views 

 on the subject, there has not reached this publication, among the 

 hundreds of communications received on this subject, a single one in 

 defense of steel passenger car equipment. This certainly is a com- 

 mentary on the weakness of this type of car construction in the 

 minds of people who are the most competent to judge. 



Since this steel passenger car construction question has been taken 

 up by Hardwood Eecokd, evidence has come about that railroads and 

 the public have been almost as seriously bunkoed by steel freight car 

 equipment. The failure of this type of freight ear to stand up under 

 the strain and stress of ordinary use is coming into daily prominence 

 through the medium of railway and engineering publications like the 

 Railway and Engineering Review of Chicago, to which Hardwood 

 Record is indebted for the photographs from which the illustrations 

 of this article are made. 



The steel freight car has come into commission during the last ten 

 years, and the Review alleges that at the present time it costs more 

 to maintain freight cars than all the fuel burned on both passenger 

 and freight locomotives. It alleges that it costs an average of .$86.91 

 a year to maintain a freight car; that ten times as much damage is 

 inflicted in ordinary service as results from accidents; that condi- 

 tions are getting worse every year; that the expense of maintaining 

 freight equipment amounts to twenty per cent more than the entire 

 cost of operation did ten years ago; and that it increases two per 

 cent a year, while cost of maintenance of way declines, and that of 

 conducting transportation stands about stationary. 



Furthermore, this publication avers that it costs more than $188,- 

 000,000 a year to maintain the freight cars of railways in the United 

 States, and that it increases every year in a far greater proportion 

 than the work they do. It furthermore alleges that there is no fea- 

 ture of railway operation that offers such an opportunity of saving 

 as this. 



For years the wonderful and improved qualities of steel cars have 

 been touted until the public practically has been convinced that they 



have afforded higher efficiency and manifest economy over the former 

 type of steel-reinforced wooden cars. The illustrations accompany- 

 ing this article show the inherent weakness of all-steel freight car 

 construction, which is a weakness that few competent engineers believe 

 can be corrected. 



There is no question in the mind of any practical railroad man 

 that the steel freight car is not by far stronger than the former type 

 of composite wood and steel cars, that is, steel cars will stand up 

 under more dead weight than the former type, but they are absolutely 

 deficient in resiliency, and under the stress of jar collapse with alarm- 

 ing frequency. 



The full-length gondola car shown in this article was not in a 

 wreck, but failed in service in a local Chicago freight yard, whUe 

 loaded with sand. 



Another picture shows the effect of buffing shocks on the end of 

 a pressed-steel box car, insuring speedy failure. 



The third picture illustrates the complete demoralization of the 

 end of a steel coal car. This type of weakness never was manifest in 

 even the old wood-sill car, with the end sill mortised onto every longi- 

 tudinal sill. In this latter case each separate sill stood its share of 

 stress, and was elastic enough to stand the constant strain and buff- 

 ing, and stand up for years. The very rigidity of the steel center- 

 sills, to which is attached the coupling devices of the modern steel 

 freight car, insures the weakness noted in these smaller illustrations, 

 while the inherent weakness of rigid steel sills is manifestly shown 

 in the first picture. 



Many prominent railroad men, including numerous freight car 

 engineers, are strong in the belief that the freight car of the future 

 will return to wooden sills with steel reinforcement, i. e., will be of 

 a composite structural type. The average railroad man is not at all 

 enthusiastic over steel upper-works for any type of freight car. The 

 cost of freight car maintenance alone is sufficient to inspire every 

 railroad man with suspicion against any type of steel car equipment. 



In appearance, either the steel passenger or freight car after it 

 has been in service thirty days is a sorry-looking object. It is only 

 by dint of constant repainting that they can be kept in anything like 

 presentable shape. Either steel passenger or freight cars, when seri- 

 ously wrecked, are usually beyond the possibility of repair, and the 

 scrapping of them involves more cost than the value of the scrap. 

 On the contrary, it is a seriously wrecked wooden car of any type 

 that cannot be satisfactorily repaired to withstand many added years 

 of severe service. 



All evidence points to the fact that the steel freight car is just as 

 much of a fraud as the steel passenger car. 





ipifl Production and Use of Hickory 



v\ 



The Forest Service has just issued a paii]|ihlct by Charles K. Hatch, 

 statistician in Forest Products, entitled "Manufacture and Utiliza- 

 tion of Hickory, 1911," in which it is recited: 



"In 1910 the Forest Service published the results of an investiga- 

 tion of the commercial hickories in the United States. Although this 

 investigation was largely silvical in character, it included to a cer- 

 tain extent the study of hickory manufacture and utilization. It was 

 thought that further investigation and analysis could be made with 

 profit to the industries using hickory, and hence, in connection with 

 the National Hickory Association, the Forest Service has completed 

 an investigation to ascertain the present methods employed in the 

 manufacture, marketing and utilization of hickory, with a view to 

 suggesting improvements." 



Reports from more than four thousand manufacturers and users 

 were employed in reaching and compiling the report. 



At one time hickory in commercial quantities was found in every 

 state east, and several states west of the Mississippi river, and in 

 greatest abundance and best development was found in the Ohio and 

 lower Mississippi valleys. .\t the present time it is listed as a 

 product of thirty-four stales. This is evidence that its range of 



growth is as wide as ever, and that it has maintained a foothold in 

 spite of two or three centuries of use and abuse. It should not be 

 supposed, however, that this wood is in the distribution it once was. 

 Hickory and black walnut were said to have constituted one-fourth of 

 the original forests of tidewater Virginia. Many other large areas 

 that once furnished hickory now supply but little. This is true of 

 the states north of the Potomac river, and is generally true of the 

 states north of the Ohio river. Several other regions have passed their 

 maximum production and only fragments of the original stand re- 

 main. The largest stand of hickory remaining at the present time 

 is found in the lower Mississipjii valley. The United States is really 

 the only source of tlie world's supply, save for a very little in 

 southern Canada. 



There arc ten species of hickory, among several of which there 

 is a marked difference, both in appearance and properties. All 

 of the hickories are not found in the same region, but frequently 

 several species grow close together. Arkansas has as many as any 

 state, and is the present center of production. Hickdry does not and 

 never did form ]nire forest areas of great extent. The trees are 

 scattered among other timber. Where an average stand of two 



