RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION 327 
A crew of from twenty-one to twenty-five men, provided with 
a light (^ngine, and one or more cars carrying crossties, rails and 
other supplies will lay, by hand, from 1500 to 2000 feet of track, 
daily. The usual unit for expressing the amount of work done 
in laying or taking up track is the 30-foot rail and the average 
day's work for each man in the crew is from five to six rails either 
laid in the track or taken up or both. Some highly efficient 
crews are able to lay ten rails per man, daily. When laying or 
taking up track by hand, the rails and ties are carried on flat 
cars each holding from fifteen to twenty pairs of rails with the 
required number of ties. The cars are pushed ahead of the lo- 
comotive to the point where construction is to begin. Ties 
are then laid in position on the right-of-way, and the rails placed 
on them. The rails are connected by angle bars or fish plates 
and spiked to every third or fourth tie. This gives the rail 
sufficient bracing to hold up the train which is pushed forward 
a rail length and the operation repeated. In taking up track this 
process is reversed. The cost is about the same as for laying 
track. 
Track-laying crews are followed by back spikers, who complete 
the spiking of the track. On main line and curves four spikes 
are placed in each tie, two for each rail, but on spurs every other 
tie may be spiked. The track can be taken up more readily 
if it has a minimum number of spikes to pull and the life of the 
tie is also increased. A crew of seven men will back-spike 1600 
feet of track per day. 
Spurs are moved with such frequency that it is seldom feasible 
to carry a stock of bent rails for curved portions of the track. 
In nearly all cases it is practicable to bend the rails to the proper 
curve as they are spiked. On main-line work a rail-bending 
machine is sometimes used. 
Where spurs are being built constantly the steel-laying crew 
may spend alternate days in removing steel and ties from an 
abandoned road and in placing them on a new roadbed. 
On main lines the expansion of the rails during warm weather 
must be taken into account in order to prevent buckling. To 
remedy this a space of j% inch in winter and ^V inch in summer 
is left between rail ends. On spurs the rails seldom fit closely 
so that this factor may be disregarded. 
Hand methods require a crew of strong men to handle the heavy 
