64 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[February, 



are of wood. What we have said, however, will be sufficient to in- 

 dicate the general principle of the comparison, and the utmost con- 

 cession we are prepared at present to make to the champions of 

 cheap and therefore temporary railways, is this, that the comparative 

 cost and the comparative durability of the two classes of works are, 

 in all cases, worthy of being considered by the engineer in connexion 

 with the estimated amount of revenue derivable from anv given line. 



We are aware that, in all this, we are stating nothing new to the en- 

 gineer; nothing but what has already occurred to most of the leading 

 members in the profession, and nothing but what will be extensivelv 

 practised, in laying out the numerous branch railways, which the con- 

 venience of the country still requires. Our object in making these 

 observations, will be amply fulfilled, if they succeed, in disabusing 

 some part of the public mind, of the notion, that the costly stations 

 and bridges and viaducts are all that distinguish our railways from 

 those of Europe and of America. It should be remembered, that the 

 much larger capital expended on our works has effected a system of 

 levels, which enables us to command far higher speeds, and to realize, 

 in every way, greater advantages from the railway, as compared with 

 the common road. In every case where it is desired to take a compre- 

 hensive view of railways, as a political question, it is essential to 

 distinguish between that part of the cost which is due to the superior 

 character of the buildings connected with the railway, and that which 

 is incurred in conformity with principles immediately connected with 

 the facilities for working locomotive power. On the former of these 

 points, we grant, that a statesman, a merchant, or a financier of any 

 kind, may form a competent judgment, with proper data before him. 

 On the latter, the only qualified judge is the engineer, because a de- 

 cision must in most cases be made with reference to the future, and 

 particularly with reference to the future auspices of engineering and 

 mechanical skill. Thus, in the origin of railways, the engineer alone 

 was qualified to chalk out a system of gradients which should corres- 

 pond with the known properties of the locomotive engine, and of iron 

 as a material for the wheels of carriages to roll upon — so in like 

 manner Mr. Brunei, or those of like qualifications, are alone entitled 

 to consideration in deciding such a question as that of the gauge to 

 be adopted for the Great Western Railway, because the accuracy of 

 the decision depended upon the truth or error of certain prognostica- 

 tions in physical science, which a mere financier, however able, is not 

 competent to entertain. The engineer, in fact, must regulate his 

 operations, both by past experience and by anticipations of the 

 future ; to what extent these latter arc or should be based upoD, the 

 former depends on many circumstances, but to some important extent, 

 all will admit, that the past should influence our future projects of 

 every kind. It would, therefore, be highly desirable at the present 

 time, that accurate and comprehensive returns should be framed of 

 the actual working cost of locomotive power on all railways of every 

 different rate of inclination, in order that a correct judgment may 

 be formed upon the influence which gradients really exert in affecting 

 the working expenses of railways. Thus would information of great 

 value be placed at the engineer's command j but until sufficient data 

 have been obtained to clear this subject of the obscurity which now 

 rests upon it, we certainly must protest against the blind and whole- 

 sale jumbling which has been perpetrated by some who profess to be 

 authorities on the subject of railway estimates. We insist, most 

 strongly, upon the necessity for separating the cost of attendant 

 works from those which have been rendered essential purely by the 

 character of the gradients adopted ; and we warn all those, who, 

 without any engineering knowledge to guide them, shall be rash 

 enough to commit themselves to paper, on subjects of this nature, 

 that the less they have to do with the engineering part of the subject 

 the better. The attendant works, as we have said, involve more or 

 less of commercial considerations, and these should therefore be free 

 for discussion; and anything possessing novelty and merit, which 

 can be placed before the engineer in the way of designs, applicable 

 to such attendant works, will no doubt be received by the profession 

 at large with interest and gratification. 



The spirited publisher of the work before us, is already too well 

 known, and too highly valued by the profession to require anything 

 from us iu the way of general praise. If any such testimony were 

 wanting, it will always be gratifying to acknowledge the many valu- 

 able contributions to engineering science, which Mr. Weale has origin- 

 ated, and which he has been something more than a secondary means 

 of giving to the world. In the production entitled Railway Ensam- 

 ples, however, Mr. Weale appears before us in a new character. He 

 has here assumed the province of authorship, and in this capacity 

 places himself before the bar of public opinion, subject to that. judg- 

 ment, whether of condemnation or approval, which that severe tribunal 

 hesitates not to pronounce, on all who thus prominently court her 

 notice. In some respects, we feel bound to congratulate Mr. Weale 



upon the character he has here assumed — we hail with pleasure, on a 

 first view, the modest and simple announcement of the titlepage, and 

 assuming the value of his examples, as specimens of design, we are 

 glad to perceive that an individual has had the spirit and sagacity to 

 present to the notice of the English engineer a connected series of 

 works from a foreign railway. On looking further into their exam- 

 ples, we find them to be drawn from the Utica and Syracuse Railway, 

 an American line about 53 miles in length. Whether these examples 

 be worthy or not of presentation, in such a form, to the engineers of 

 this country, is not now the question ; supposing they are so, the pro- 

 fession is undoubtedly much indebted to the iudividual who has thus 

 incurred the pains and expense of bringing them before their notice. 

 Mr. Weale's appearance in the character of an author, however, is 

 not limited to the dry and brief notices which are required to illus- 

 trate a set of railway plates, but embraces a somewhat extensive 

 catalogue of subjects connected with railway engineering which have 

 been condensed into 40 pages of preliminary observations. These 

 observations are accompanied by several maps, and by plates of an 

 American locomotive engine, and an American earth excavator. Al- 

 though we cannot agree with the writer in many of these preliminary 

 observations, we have at the same time great pleasure in stating, that 

 the reader will find amongst them much that is interesting and amu- 

 sing. We may mention particularly the description of the American 

 locomotives, and that of the Satellite engine on the London and 

 Brighton Railway. We are not able to say much in praise of the ex- 

 cavating machine ; it appears to be a very clumsy affair, encumbered 

 by a mass of machinery out of all proportion to the effect required. 

 Its economy is extremely doubtful except when put in competition 

 with very high prices for labour, in which case it might possibly be 

 more economical than manual labour for excavating earth. The ma- 

 chine is said to be capable of excavating 1500 cubic yards in 12 hours, 

 at a cost for fuel of 12s. per diem. To this statement, Mr. Weale 

 adds, that " earthwork in England has generally been taken at lotf. to 

 Is. per yard." He forgets, however, that this price includes the 

 carriage or haulage of the earth, and that the price of getting and 

 filling the stuff, which is all that the American machine performs, is 

 commonly not more than from '2d. to 5rf. per yard. It is, therefore, 

 some mean between these two prices which should be taken for com- 

 parison with the machine ; but at present, we are not able to make 

 this comparison, having no information as to her cost and working 

 expenses. 



A second division of the preliminary observations is principally 

 directed to a comparison between the cost of the American railways 

 and those of this country. The principal facts on which Mr. Weale 

 argues, are these, that the aggregate cost of the American railways 

 was estimated in 1839, at £40U0 per mile, including all buildings and 

 apparatus ; and secondly, that actual works are not executed cheaper 

 in America than in this country, as the greater expense of timber 

 here is counterbalanced by the greater expense of labour there. He 

 therefore, concludes that the greatly increased cost of the English 

 railways has been caused by the more expensive nature of the works, 

 that is by the dilference of the two systems of construction. This is 

 undoubtedly true to a certain extent, and here the comparison might 

 cease, with this observation, that we have obtained far superior rail- 

 ways, by expending more money in their construction than the Ame- 

 ricans. In case, however, any erroneous notions may be formed as to 

 the comparative eligibility of the two systems, which are here con- 

 trasted, it may be sufficient to suggest, that no fair comparison can be 

 made without full particulars, not only of the works executed on each, 

 but also of the gradients and curves with which the lines were respec- 

 tively constructed. It will be found that gradients of 25 to 3u ft. per 

 mile are considered highly favourable in America, whereas, those of 

 greater steepness than 15 or lt> feet per mile, have been held in this 

 country to be highly objectionable. Again, as to curves, the American 

 lines abound with sharp bends, which are quite inadmissible in those 

 of Great Britain, A large proportion of the American lines are 

 graded only for single lines of way; and in many of those which are 

 graded for double lines, only a single track has been laid down. The 

 cost per mile, as stated above, furnishes a very unfair comparison, in 

 every respect, with the English lines, where the gradients and curves 

 are entirely of a different order, the works are far more substantial, 

 are mostly constructed for a double line of way, and where the cost 

 of land has necessarily been excessive; whereas, in America the land 

 in many cases has cost almost nothing. Another important point of 

 comparison is the annual expense of working the railways iu the two 

 countries. M.De Gerstner estimated, in 1839, that the annual expense 

 of working the American lines was G3 - fcU per cent, of the gross in- 

 come, and that the interest on the whole capital invested iu railroads 

 in the United States does not exceed 5£ per cent, per annum. Now 

 this annual expense is far greater than that of working the English 



