602 report— 1884. 



The soft wood ties are cedar and hemlock, and have 7 inches depth by 

 7 inches face ; 3,000 ties are used to the mile. 



The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad uses oak ties entirely 

 on main line, but cedar on some of the branches, the sizes being the same 

 as for oak. The specifications for oak ties require all to be hewn from 

 sound live white, burr, or post oak, 8 feet long when squared at the ends, 

 not less than 6 inches nor more than 7 inches thick, at least 85 per cent. 

 to have not less than 8 inches face, and none less than 7 inches face. 

 3,000 ties are used to the mile on main line, and down to 2,640 on the 

 branches. 



The cross-ties are bedded in what is termed ballast. The embank- 

 ment or cutting of the road is finished to a certain width, depending 

 upon the question of single or double track, and the class of road that is 

 being built. In cuttings sufficient width must always be allowed for 

 good drainage ditches on each side, and on embankments enough width 

 to rightly sustain the ballast and ties. The road-bed should then be 

 sloped from the central portion to the sides to drain off properly. 

 Embankments on single track are made from 14 to 16 feet wide at 

 top, and 24 to 28 feet on double track. Cuttings on single track are 

 from 16 to 21 feet wide, and ou double track 26 to 32 feet. It may be 

 necessary in some cuttings, depending upon the nature of the material 

 and its liability to wash clown on the track, to have very wide ditches, 

 and these exceptional cases must be provided for. The road-bed being 

 properly prepared, the ballast is laid upon it. This ballast is either 

 broken stone, gravel, sand, burnt clay, cinders, shells, refuse coal-siftings 

 from the mines, &c, or simply earth, the latter being really no ballast at 

 all, but merely the ties bedded in the earth, properly rammed, and sur- 

 faced with the right slope for drainage between the ties. The question of 

 material for ballast depends altogether on what can be obtained at a 

 reasonable price ; and if inferior material is used, of course so much the 

 less perfect the road is. 



The ballast acts as an elastic bed, receiving the load from the moving 

 train and spreading it out over a broad surface, and also serves as a drain 

 to carry off the water from rain or snow to the ditches, and not allow it 

 to freeze around the ties in winter, or to form wet holes in the road-bed, 

 into which the ties and ballast will work and sink. First-class ballast 

 material should be clean, bard, and always of such consistency as will 

 allow of the passage of water through it. The best ballast is a hard 

 durable stone, not liable to decomposition or disintegration under the 

 action of the weather, such as limestone or trap, when broken into angular 

 fragments not larger than will pass through a two and a half inch ring. 

 The amount placed under the ties is very variable, the question, unfor- 

 tunately, not always being how much is best, but how much can the 

 railroad company afford to use. For the best, or a first-class track, there 

 should not be less than 12 inches, although many i*oads which are 

 considered as high-class do not use over 9 inches. 



On the Cincinnati Southern Railway portions of the road through 

 clay formation have twelve inches of ballast under the ties ; other parts, 

 where the grading is light, have only six inches, and the engineer's 

 estimates were made for the whole line on an average of nine inches for 

 main track and six inches for sidings. (See Report of December 1877, 

 since which there may have been some modification in the standard.) 

 The ballast on this line is specified of gravel or broken stone ; the gravel 



