92 
ROUTE NEAR THE THIRTY-SECOND PARALLEL. 
Except the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, (one of the lines above mentioned) the exact height 
of whose summit I cannot state, none of these great thoroughfares pass over ground so much 
elevated above the sea as the Santiago route ; and as all, in this respect, far exceed the works 
of other countries, it may safely be said that the route described in these pages overcomes a 
greater elevation than has yet been surmounted by railroad, (except perhaps in one instance,) 
throughout the world. But the Santiago route is superior to most of the American roads above 
enumerated in one respect. In approaching to, and departing from their main summits, those 
roads cross over numerous secondary ranges and deep intervening valleys, which makes the 
aggregate rise and fall much greater than the Santiago road, as will be seen by the following 
table: 
Road. 
Length in miles. 
Elevation of summit 
above the sea. 
Total rise and fall. 
Maximum grade per 
mile. 
Remarks. 
Boston route. 
500 
1,440 
4,700 
83 
New York route, (Central). 
440 
650 
2,100 
30 
New York route, (Erie). 
460 
1,720 
6,500 
70 
Philadelphia route. 
340 
2, 400 
5,600 
95 
Baltimore route. 
390 
2,600 
or 
G 
C 
116/ 
Rise and fall, and sum- 
2,700 
) 
mit, supposed. 
Charleston route. 
490 
1,400 
5,000 
40 
Rise and fall, supposed. 
Savannah route. 
440 
1,400 
5, 000 
40 
Do. do. 
Santiago railroad... 
110 
2,640 
4, 340 
119 
Although the total elevation surmounted by European railroads is much less than in the cases 
above cited, yet even there, in some instances, inclinations equal to the maximum gradient of 
the Santiago road are now introduced, and overcome by locomotive power. Two or three 
instances may be mentioned. 
In a work entitled “The Practical Railway Engineer,” published at London, in the year 1847, 
is the following description of the Edinburgh and Glasgow railroad: 
“ The gradients vary from one in S80 (six feet per mile,) to one in 5,456 (about one foot per 
mile,) except one incline of one mile, fourteen chains in length, which descends from the Cowlairs 
towards the Glasgow station, at the rate of one in forty-three (123 feet per mile,) and has hitherto 
been worked by stationary steam-engines, which are now, or are about to be, replaced by Ameri¬ 
can locomotive engines.” 
Dr. Lardner, a distinguished writer on various scientific and practical subjects, in a late work 
entitled “ Railway Economy in Europe and America,” after giving a table of the German rail¬ 
ways, says : “In the first and third columns of this table are given the characteristic or prevailing 
gradients and radii ; and in the second and fourth columns are given those which occur only 
exceptionally, when the character of the ground rendered them inevitable. In some cases—as, 
for example, in the section of the railway constructed from Brunswick to Harburgh, on the left 
bank of the Elbe, facing Hamburgh—the prevailing gradient is 1 in 166 (32 feet per mile;) but 
in one section of this line, extending over a distance of about five miles, being the section between 
Hamburgh and the station of Weinenburgh, there is a series of gradients which vary from 1 in 
100 (53 feet per mile,) to 1 in 50 (106 feet per mile.) No practical difficulty, however, is 
encountered in the regular working of this part of the line by locomotives without assistant 
engines. Trains of an average gross weight of sixty or seventy tons are drawn over this section 
by locomotives whose weight does not exceed eighteen tons, having six coupled wheels of four 
feet nine inches in diameter.” 
