No. 7. 



The Reading Rail Road. 



207 



The Reading Rail Road. 



A BRIEF history and description of this 

 great public work may prove interesting to 

 the citizens of Pennsylvania as well as the 

 public generally, of more distant communi- 

 ties, whose only ideas of the road, are con- 

 fined to the weekly reports of its immense 

 business. 



The rail road was projected in 1833, a 

 charter obtained in 1834, surveys made the 

 same year, and forty-one miles put under 

 contract and construction in 1835. 



It was originally designed for its present 

 purpose, an outlet or avenue to market, for 

 the Schuylkill coal region ; but its first 

 charter extended only to the Borough of 

 Reading, fifly-nine miles from its terminus 

 on the Delaware river, near Philadelphia; 

 as the right of constructing a rail-road be- 

 tween Reading and Port Clinton, twenty 

 miles, had already been granted another 

 corporation, "The Little Schuylkill Rail- 

 road Company," terminating at the latter 

 point. From insufficient means, this Com- 

 pany was unable to extend their road, and 

 yielded their Right and Charter to the Read- 

 ing Rail-road Company, which with a further 

 extension of their Charter, beyond Port Clin- 

 ton to Pottsville, went into an active prose- 

 cution of the whole work, from Pottsville to 

 the Delaware, ninety-three miles, under one 

 charter, now known as the Reading Rail- 

 road. 



Every Pennsylvanian is familiar with the 

 great embarrassments to the business of the 

 country, checking commercial enterprise, 

 disastrous to every branch of industry, and 

 fatal to public and private credit, during the 

 period from 1838 to 1842. Notwithstanding 

 all these difficulties, the friends of this Road 

 pushed steadily on with its construction, tax- 

 ing their energies, their means, and their 

 credit to the utmost, to insure its speedy 

 completion ; and on the first day of 1842, 

 the first locomotive and train passed over 

 the whole line, between Pottsville and Phil- 

 adelphia. 



From that date to the present, its business, 

 its revenue, and its credit, have increased in 

 a degree scarcely paralleled by any similar 

 improvement, until its tonnage and its re- 

 ceipts are measured, as at present, by mil- 

 lions. 



Two continuous tracks of railway extend 

 the whole distance of 93 miles, from Mount 

 Carbon, near Pottsville, to the Delaware 

 river, three miles above the heart of the 

 city of Philadelphia; with a branch also laid 

 with a double track, one and a half miles 

 long, connecting, by the State Road, with 

 the principal business street of the same 



city, for the passengers, merchandize, and 

 city coal business. The rail used is of the 

 H pattern, with both top edges alike; and 

 weighs 45|, 52^, and 60 lbs. to the yard ; 

 the lightest having been first, and the hea- 

 viest last used. A few tons of other rails, 

 purchased before a further supply of the 

 pattern adopted for the road could be ob- 

 tained in England, and varying from 51 to 

 57 lbs. per yard, are also in use. 



The track is laid in the most simple man- 

 ner, the lower web, or base of the rail, being 

 notched into 7 by 8 white oak cross sills, and 

 these laid on broken stone, 14 inches deep 

 and well rammed. This method is found 

 admirably calculated for the enormous ton- 

 nage of the road, being rapidly and econom- 

 ically repaired and replaced, securing a tho- 

 rough drainage, and preserving its line and 

 level true, at all seasons of the year. 



The grades of this road are the chief ele- 

 ments of its success in revolutionizing pub- 

 lic opinion, on the subject of the carriage of 

 heavy burdens by railway. From the most 

 important branch. Coal-feeder of the road, 

 at Schuylkill Haven, to the Falls of Schuyl- 

 kill, a distance of 84 miles, the grades all 

 desend in the direction of the loaded trains, 

 or are level; with no more abrupt descent 

 than 19 feet per mile. At the Falls, an as- 

 sistant locomotive engine of great power 

 pushes the train, without the latter stopping, 

 or any delay, up a grade of 42^ feet per 

 mile, for one and four-tenths miles, leaving 

 it on a descending grade, within four miles 

 of Richmond, whither it is readily conveyed 

 by the same engine which started from 

 Pottsville, never leaving her train. 



The bridges on this line are of great va- 

 riety, in plan, and material of construction, 

 stone, iron, and wood. The most perfect 

 and beautiful structure on the road, if not in 

 the State, is a stone bridge over the Schuyl- 

 kill near Phoenixville, built of cut stone 

 throughout, with four circular arches, of 72 

 feet span, and 16J feet rise each, at a cost 

 with ice-breakers, of $47,000. There are 

 75 other stone bridges and culverts, varying 

 from 6 to 50 feet span ; all of circular arcs, 

 spanning water courses, branches of the 

 Schuylkill and roads. There are seven 

 bridges from 25 to 38 feet span each, built 

 of iron, trussed after the "Howe" plan, with 

 wrought iron top, and bottom chords, wrought 

 iron vertical ties, and cast iron diagonal 

 braces. These bridges are stiff and light, 

 and present a very neat and handsome ap- 

 pearance. As, however, the flooring is of 

 wood, and therefore liable to decay and ac- 

 cident, they have only been used where the 

 width and depth rendered stone bridges im- 

 practicable; the latter being always used in 



