358 MEMOIR OF DAXIEL TKEADWELL. 



Mr. Treadwell originated and matured the plan of conducting traffic upon a 

 single track, — a plan that has resulted in an immense benefit to this country, and 

 must be regarded as a main cause of the greater success and efficiency of its railways, 

 as compared with the Eugli;<h. 



" In tlic year 1826,"' says Mr. Treadwell, " I arranged in my own mind the method of con- 

 ducting the transportation in both directions upon a single set of railway tracks, by collecting 

 the cars in trains, starting at fixed times, and meeting and passing at determined points upon 

 the road, and made the plan known to Mr. Nathan Hale and the late David Moody, in the 

 autumn of the same year. My Qrst printed notice of it was dated the 22d of August, 

 1827, and is published in the 'Franklin Journal' for October. In 1828 I gave two lec- 

 tures before the Boston Mechanics' Institution upon railways generally, and in one of these 

 lectures I fully developed my plan, showing, by apparatus contrived and made for the pur- 

 pose, trains moving upon one set of tracks in different directions, and with three different 

 velocities." 



In the winter of 1829 the Massachusetts Railroad Association was formed. Mr. 

 Treadwell introduced this mode of transportation at an early meeting, and was 

 appointed, with two others, a committee to report upon it. The report, '• On the 

 PracticabiUty of conducting Transportation on a single Set of Tracks," was written by 

 Mr. Treadwell, as Chairman of the Committee, in May, 1829. The following ex- 

 tracts from the report sufficiently give his argument for a single track : — 



" The advantage of a double set of tracks over a single set appears to your committee to 

 be confined to a single object, namely, to enable carriages moving in opposite directions to 

 pass each other freely ; and, except in this particular, a double set of tracks can have no ad- 

 vantage over a single set save the very trifling one of their being less worn by the action of 

 the wheels upon them. As, however, a railway is injured more by frosts and rains, and by 

 natural decay, tlian by absolute wear, and as the injuries from these sources will be propor- 

 tionate to the quantity of material exposed, it must be evident that the cost- of repair will be 

 much greater for a double, than for a single set of tracks. . . . 



" Your committee believe that there is a mode by which carriages may be made to pass each 

 other, on a single set of tracks, without the least difficulty or hindrance. The mode by which 

 this mav be accomplished is in prescribing certain periods for the entrance of the carriages 

 upon aiiy part of the railway ; and by providing that every carriage so entering shall be 

 moved with such velocity that it shall arrive at a certain fixed distance within a prescribed 



time. . . . 



" Tlie only objections which have been urged against this method of conducting transporta- 

 tion, which seem to demand a serious attention, are these : 1st, the liability to hindrances 

 from a neglect of the prescribed velocities, or the impossibility of observing them ; and 2d, 

 the inconvenience that would arise from not being permitted to commence a journey at any 

 moment of the day. 



" Witli regard to the first of these objections, the committee would observe that there is no 

 mode of transportation known, perhaps none to be discovered, in which the certainty of passing 

 a given distance within a given time is so complete as that procured by means of a railway. 



