CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



they are employed, the exterior rail is super- 

 elevated, to counteract the centrifugal force, other- 

 wise a quickly moving train might leave the rails. 

 Gradients being expensive to work according to 

 their degree of inclination, few are more steep than 

 I in 60, though I in 30 is not unknown. On steep 

 gradients, stationary engines were sometimes em- 

 ployed, but in nearly every case these have been 

 abandoned for locomotive power. On local and 

 private lines, much steeper gradients and sharper 

 curves are common. One of the earliest, if not 

 the first trial of a locomotive on an incline of i in 

 12, was made in Scotland, in 1862, by Mr George 

 Gray, on his private line near Bathgate. 



Gauge and Earthworks. In the early stage 

 of railway operations, the gauge, or width between 

 the rails, excited a hot discussion, known as the 

 ' battle of the gauges.' The 4 feet 8^ inches gauge, 

 now prevalent in Great Britain, seems to have 

 been adopted because it was the usual width of 

 the wheels of ordinary wagons and carriages. 

 This gauge was adopted on most of the earlier 

 made railways ; and, notwithstanding the keen 

 contests of engineers, who were generally favour- 

 able to a 5 feet or 5 feet 3 inches gauge (Brunei 

 contending for 7 feet), this original 4 feet 8j inches 

 gauge, measured from the inside of one rail to the 

 inside of the other, became by degrees almost 

 universally adopted in England, Scotland, and 

 Wales, the Great Western and certain branches 

 excepted, on which the gauge was regulated at 

 7 feet. Owing to inconvenience in communicat- 

 ing with other lines, and from other causes, the 

 Great Western has found it advisable to conform 

 to its neighbours, and has now (1877) relaid 

 the greater part of its extensive system on the 

 4 feet 8i inches scale. The Irish gauge is fixed 

 at 5 feet 3 inches. The government of India 

 fixed the gauge of all the railways in that country 

 at 5 feet 6 inches. But a movement in an opposite 

 direction has set in within the last few years, and 

 the battle of the gauges is renewed. A horse 

 tramway at Festiniog in Wales, constructed in 

 1832 for the conveyance of slates from a quarry, 

 and laid with a I foot iif inches gauge, was, in 

 1863, transformed into a locomotive railway, for 

 passengers and goods, and was found to work 

 with perfect safety and with remarkable economy. 

 The success of this experiment has awakened the 

 attention of many engineers to what they believe 

 to be the needless extravagance of the standard 

 gauge ; and railways with gauges varying from 2 

 feet 6 inches to 3 feet 6 inches are now in opera- 

 tion in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Queensland, 

 Peru, Chili, Brazil, Canada, and especially in the 

 United States, where a vast mileage is built or 

 in course of construction. The great argument 

 for the narrower gauge is the obvious economy 

 both in first cost and in working. It is calculated 

 that, on an average, companies have to haul over 

 their lines seven tons of dead-weight in order to 

 carry one ton of goods ; and in the case of pas- 

 senger-carriages the excess is even greater. With 

 the whole apparatus on a smaller scale, this 

 waste is greatly reduced. Another advantage of 

 the narrow gauge is, that much sharper curves 

 may be adopted than are possible on the broader 

 one, and thus the route may be chosen to much 

 greater advantage. While it may be an open 

 question whether the narrow gauge is adequate 

 for a thicklv peopled district, where ' express ' 



444 



trains may be indispensable, and where traffic 

 may at times be exceptionally heavy, it is, without 

 doubt, especially suitable for sparsely peopled 

 districts and half-developed territories. Indeed, 

 it affords the means of supplying the benefits of 

 railway communication where otherwise they 

 would be hopeless. After careful investigation, 

 the Indian government of the late Lord Mayo 

 decided to adopt the metre gauge, about 3 feet 

 3 inches, for the greater part of an extensive 

 series 1500 miles of state railways, and con- 

 siderable progress has already been made in their 

 construction. In Canada, there are several 

 thousand miles of narrow-gauge railway. 



Ballast. This is the name given to the mass 

 of broken stones, or dry gravel, on which the 

 sleepers are placed, and which serves to keep 

 them steady. The term ballast originated in the 

 practice of using the gravel ballast emptied from 

 the ships in the Tyne for the tram and railways 

 in the neighbourhood of Newcastle. 



Rails. Rails are generally of malleable iron, 

 but steel rails have been extensively adopted where 

 there is a continuous heavy traffic, and are found 

 to reduce considerably the cost of maintenance. 

 Rails are made of various shape and weight. The 

 most common form is the ' double-headed ' rail, 

 which is reversible. Another form, which was 

 used on the Great Western for the broad-gauge 

 line, is known as the ' bridge-rail ; ' and a form fre- 

 quently used on the continent, and generally on 

 narrow-gauge lines, has a flat base formed by a 

 flange on each side of the vertical web. The two 

 last descriptions do not require chairs, but are 

 fastened directly to the sleepers by spikes. Rails 

 are generally 21 or 24 feet long, and for light rail- 

 ways vary in weight from 20 to 45 Ibs., and for 

 heavy lines from 60 to 80 Ibs. per lineal yard. 

 Cross sleepers are laid at 2 feet 6 to 3 feet 6 

 inches apart, usually about 3 feet, and on these 

 sleepers the chairs of cast-iron are fixed and held 

 firmly down by iron spikes driven into the sleepers. 

 The ends of the rails are now almost always joined 

 together by two plates of malleable iron, called fish- 

 plates, placed one on each side, and bolted 

 together by four strong bolts passing through the 

 rails. In the joining of the rails end to end, to 

 make a smooth surface, great care is bestowed; 

 perfect steadiness in the required line of direction 

 is secured by means of wooden wedges, or keys, 

 acting on the rails and the chairs. 



Owing to the scarcity of native larch, which was 

 preferred, sleepers have latterly been made of tim- 

 ber from the Baltic ; they are sometimes creosoted^ 

 to render them durable, but generally they are 

 found to split, and require renewal before rotting. 

 A cast-iron sleeper, very much the shape of a pot 

 lid, having the chair cast on the top, has been 

 much used by English engineers on railways 

 abroad. 



Tunnels and Viaducts. In designing railways, 

 tunnels have been as far as possible avoided, owing 

 to their costliness. They are made only when the 

 excavations would be more than 60 feet in depth, 

 or when land-proprietors force their adoption, in 

 order to spare the amenity of grounds near a man- 

 sion. For this latter reason, some short tunnels are 

 known to have cost railway companies as much 

 as 50,000. Latterly, the executi on of underground 

 railways in the metropolis has offered examples of 

 tunnelling more extensive than were previously 



