Reviews. 47 



tion through wear and tear. Recent tests have shown that large 

 ties make the most stable roadbed, and the tendency of late 

 years has been to increase their size, as it is feared that the enor- 

 mously increased weight of engines and cars now requires a 

 stronger piece of timber under the rails than the lighter equip- 

 ment of the past. The idea that economy should be practised 

 by using fewer ties to the rail length in view of the increased 

 rigidity of the larger rails is decidedly negatived. This would 

 mean a decrease of the bearing surface on the ballast, which 

 would have the \evy opposite effect to what is desired, as it would 

 mean a loss of stability. The effort to manufacture more ties by 

 cutting them of a triangular shape, is unsatisfactory for the same 

 reason. With the larger and stiffer rail a decrease in surface, if 

 any is made, may well be on the upper side of the tie. A form 

 of half-round tie is, therefore, suggested, with an upper surface 

 of eight to twelve inches. It is probable that the increased stiff- 

 ness of the rail will permit of a spacing, with a tie of the form 

 proposed, very much greater than is possible with the form 

 usually employed. 



Ties are now being cut from trees of all diameters, from 9 

 inches upward. The influence which the new tie form will have 

 upon the size of trees cut for tie purposes ought to be a marked 

 one. It certainly would discourage the cutting of pole ties to a 

 very considerable extent. It would not pay to make a tie out of 

 a small tree, when by leaving it for a few years two ties could be 

 made from the same tree. In other words, the present policy of 

 cutting trees 1 1 or 12 inches in diameter would be found less pro- 

 fitable than cutting trees 16 or 17 inches in diameter. There is 

 probably no other branch of the lumber industry in which so 

 many small trees are annually destroyed, and the possible growth 

 of forests retarded to such on extent as in the manufacture of 

 ties. The practice of sawing ties from logs is going to be more 

 and more prevalent as the old feeling that a sawed tie is not 

 worth having disappears. The cutting of these trees will, more- 

 over, make possible the use of large quantities of timber which 

 now is practically wasted, and from which the lumberman has 

 no return. This is particularly true of tops. 



The subject of track fastenings is discussed in the remainder 

 of the bulletin, because the writer believes that onlv with much 

 modified systems of fastening can ties of most of the softer woods 

 be made to last sufficiently long to pay for chemical treatment. 

 With the present style of spike the soft wood tie does not hold 

 with sufficient firmness to prevent undulations and creeping of 

 the rail, which result in a more or less ra]^id wearing out of the 

 tie. In driving the spike into the softer woods the fibres are 

 broken to an unusual extent. As a result they do not withstand 

 the lateral pressure of the rail, and consequently the spike hole 



