ENGINEERING REPOETS. 
57 
The 116 feet grade on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is 
eight and a half miles long, and has a curve of 1000 feet radius. 
Upon this grade, an engine -weighing twenty-four tons, built by 
Ross Winans, and with a tractive power of 15,160 lbs., has 
ascended with a train of sixteen loaded cars, weighing in the 
aggregate, exclusive of tender, 208 tons, and at a speed of from 
six to eight miles per hour. 
The same engine ascended the same grade, with a passenger 
train weighing 118 tons, at the rate of seventeen miles per hour. 
It may therefore be safely calculated that a similar twenty- 
four ton freight engine, will draw a train of tw r enty cars, weigh- 
ing 122 tons, with 178 tons of freight, from Mina-titlan to Ven- 
tosa, or the return, over the grades of the line as now r surveyed, 
and at an average speed of 20 miles per hour. 
Railroad Distances, across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, from ship nav- 
igation on the Atlantic to ship navigation on the Pacific. 
From Mina-titlan to Ventosa, 
By line of 
survey. 
By Air-lines. 
Difference be- 
tween air & 
develop'd lines. 
Miles. 
Miles. 
Miles 
Mina-titlan to crossing of Jaltepec, 
62-1 
54-2 
24-0 
22-8 
1-2 
Cerro Sarabia to foot of Chivela ) 
Pass* S 
45-1 
30-6 
14-5 
Foot of Chivela Passf to Ventosa, 
35-0 
23-6 
11-4 
Jaltepec to Rancho de la Martar, 
69-1 
53-8 
15-3 
104-1 
82-7 
21-4 
166-2 
129-8 
36-4 
Mouth of river to Mina-titlan, 
20-0 
oo-o 
oo-o 
186-2 
143-5 
42-7 
From this table it is evident that passengers may, on the 
completion of the road, pass with perfect facility from one ocean 
to the other in the short space of six hours. 
The excavations on the Tehuantepec Railroad will be made 
chiefly in the following materials : common earth, sand, gravel, 
clay, and loose and solid rock. 
In calculating for the removal of these I have added from 50 
to 100 per cent, to the usual prices in the United States. This 
estimate will be found on the safe side. 
* Rancho de la Martar. | By -way of the city of Tehuantepec. 
