LOCOMOTION BY RIVER AND RAILWAY. 



horses are yoked to the carriages, by which they are drawn to the 

 passenger depot, usually established at some central situation. 

 Four horses are attached to each of these oblong carriages. The 

 sharp curves at the corners of the streets are turned, by causing 

 the outer wheels of the trucks to run upon their flanges, so that 

 they become (while passing round the curve) virtually larger 

 wheels than the inner ones. I have seen, by this means, the 

 longest railway carriages enter the depots in Philadelphia, Balti- 

 more, and New York, with as much precision and facility as was 

 exhibited by the coaches that used to enter the gateway of the 

 Golden Cross or the Saracen's Head. 



2. Notwithstanding the apparently feeble and unsubstantial 

 structure of many of the lines, accidents to passenger trains are 

 scarcely ever heard of. It appeals by returns now before us that 

 of 9,355474 passengers booked in 1850 on the crowded railways of 

 Massachusetts, each passenger making an average trip of eighteen 

 miles, there were only fifteen who sustained accidents fatal to life 

 or limb. It follows from this, that when a passenger travels one 

 mile on these railways, the chances against an accident producing 

 personal injury, even of the slightest kind, are 11,226568 to 1 ; 

 and, of course, in a journey of 100 miles, the chances against such 

 accident are 112266 to 1. It has been shown that the chances 

 against accident on an English railway, under like circumstances, 

 are 40000 to 1.* The American railways are, therefore, safer 

 than the English in the ratio of 112 to 40. 



3. A great line of communication was established, 400 miles in 

 length, between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, on the left bank of 

 the Ohio, composed partly of railway and partly of canal. The 

 section from Philadelphia to Colombia (eighty-two miles) is rail- 

 way; the line is then continued by canal for 172 miles to Holi- 

 claysburg; it is then carried by railway thirty-seven miles to 

 Johnstown, whence it is continued 104 miles further to Pittsburg 

 by canal. The traffic on this mixed line of transport was con- 

 ducted so as to avoid the expense and inconvenience of tranship- 

 ment of goods and passengers at the successive points where the 

 railway and canals unite. The merchandise was loaded and the 

 passengers accommodated in the boats adapted to the canals at 

 the depot in Market Street, Philadelphia. These boats, which 

 were of considerable magnitude and length, were divided into 

 segments by partitions made transversely, and at right angles to 

 their length, so that each boat can be, as it were, broken into three 

 or more pieces. These several pieces were placed each on two 

 railway trucks, which support it at its ends, a proper body being 



* Museum, Vol. i., p. 168. 

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