RAILROAD 



491S 



RAILROAD 



Modern Railroad Construction. Uml 

 heading BRIDGE, on page 921, will be found a 

 picture of the Tunkhannock Viaduct, a concrete 

 structure 240 feet high and half a mile long, 

 built to make p- ::ort cut of three and 



a half miles and the elimination of certain 

 grades and curves. The. cost of this bridge and 

 cut-off was $12,000,00' :it that the 



directors of the railroad believe they will save 

 each year in operating costs at least half a 



TIIK MONEY OF THE RAILROADS 

 The diagram shows for what the railroad 

 spends the money it receives. The data relate 

 to average years. 



million dollars, the amount they will have to 

 pay in interest on the money borrowed to build 

 it. Anyone who has operated an automobile 

 appreciates the fact that it requires as much 

 power to turn a corner as it does to climb a 

 slight hill. The steepest grade up which a 

 locomotive can haul a load is one which rises 

 but. five feet in every hundred, and few roads 

 have grades of more than one or two per cent, 

 so it is plain that curves are quite as much to 

 be avoided as grades. 



Railroads in America are now being con- 

 structed with lower grades and more gradual 

 curves than those existing on older lines. An 

 excellent example of this is a comparison of 

 the three Canadian transcontinental lines. On 

 the Canadian Pacific, the oldest line, trains go- 

 ing either to or from the Pacific coast 'must 

 climb some grades of 2.2 per cent. On the 

 Grand Trunk Pacific, the youngest of the three, 

 the heaviest grade resisting westbound traffic 

 is 0.5 per cent, and no greater rise than 0.4 per 

 cent opposes eastbound trains. The Canadian 

 Northern has westbound grades of 1.0 per cent 



on stretches of line which were built some years 

 ago, but on the new road through the moun- 

 tains 0.5 is the maximum. Kastlxnmd this 

 same road has a few miles of 0.7 <rr;ule. The 

 importance of the distinction between 

 bound and westbound grades lies in the fact 

 that on these roads the heaviest traffic moves 

 toward the Atlantic. 



The difference in sharpness of curves on the 

 Canadian Pacific and on the Grand Trunk Pa- 

 cific is as striking as that in grades. The former 

 road has some curves of 10, while the latter has 

 none of more than 6. By a curve of 10 is 

 meant one in which the line between two points 

 100 feet apart in a straight line is an arc of 10, 

 or I/M the circumference of a circle. A 6 

 curve is therefore part of a much larger circle, 

 for a chord of 100 feet marks only }(,<) of the 

 360 in the circumference. Were a Canadian 

 Pacific maximum curve a little more than 

 3,600 feet long a train would turn completely 

 around, but on the other railroad the curve 

 would have to be over 6,000 feet in length for 

 the same thing to happen. 



The first steps toward building a railroad are 

 the surveys. The first survey (which is unneces- 

 sary if accurate profile maps of the region exist) 

 is to determine what route will serve the most 

 profitable territory at the least expense of con- 

 struction and operation; when the decision is 

 made the surveyors mark out the route, indi- 

 cating by stakes exactly where the line is to 

 run. The grade is then prepared and bridges 

 are built, material is taken from cuts and so far 

 as possible turned into fills. On many lines 

 the ties and rails are put down by a tracklaying 

 machine, which can finish two or three miles of 

 track in a day. Ties, or sleepers, are as a rule 

 rough-hewn timbers about nine feet long, six 

 inches thick and ten inches wide, set across the 

 track at intervals of two feet or less. On them 

 rest the rails, which are commonly thirty feet 

 long, and for first-class American railroads 

 weigh ninety p6unds or more to the yard. Bal- 

 last consists of crtished stone, gravel, sla^, cin- 

 ders or other material inserted beneath and be- 

 tween the ties to keep them in their proper 

 place and to cushion the roadbed. 



Almost all the railroads of the United States, 

 Canada and England are constructed according 

 to standard gauge, with their rails four feet, 

 eight and one-half inches apart. Narrow-gauge 

 roads are seldom found except in the moun- 

 tains. In other countries there are gauges of 

 all widths up to six feet, so it is frequently 

 impossible for the cars of one railroad to travel 



