ROUTE NEAR THE THIRTY-SECOND PARALLEL. 
93 
In the table mentioned, the maximum gradient of the Brunswick and Harburgh railway is 
stated at 1 in 43 (123 feet per mile,) and those of Wurtemburgh at 1 in 45 (117 feet per mile.) 
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The grades of the Santiago railroad, though heavy, are, in comparison with others which have 
been cited, not unfavorable; and we find on analyzing the expense of operating a railroad, that 
the cost of motive power is only a fractional part of the whole. It is sufficient for our present 
purpose to know that important railroads in other countries, with gradients equal to those of 
the Santiago route, have been, and now are, successfully and profitably conducted. One import¬ 
ant fact in this connexion is, that the line now under consideration will be free from the evils 
resulting from snow and ice, which diminish the adhesion of the engine to the rails, and reduce its 
effective power. Snow rarely lies even at the highest level over which this route is conducted. 
K # * # # # * # # * # 
It will naturally occur to many that the descent of trains on gradients of such great declivity, 
with perfect security to the lives and limbs of passengers, is quite as important a consideration 
as their ascent with profitable loads. The accounts which follow, founded on fact and official 
information, afford the most satisfactory evidence on this point. 
A branch of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, in the United States, has gradients of 135 feet 
per mile, which are worked entirely by locomotive engines. The descent is made with heavy 
loads in perfect safety, and a single engine takes up regularly a gross load of 66 tons, exclusive 
of the engine and tender. On one road in the State of New York a short gradient of 175 feet per 
mile is descended daily with passenger trains. 
The superintendent of the Baltimore and Susquehanna railroad, an important line both for 
freight and passengers, writes as follows: “We have one grade of eighty-four feet per mile, three 
miles in length. Over this grade a locomotive weighing 26 tons hauls, at the rate of twelve miles 
an hour, forty (four-wheel) cars, each containing three tons of produce—the cars themselves 
weighing 114 tons—making a gross load of 234 tons.” 
The most interesting and analogous case, however, to which I can refer, is that of the Balti¬ 
more and Ohio railroad, one of the great lines of the United States alluded to in a previous part 
of this article, as connecting the sea-board with the valley of the Mississippi across the Alle- 
ghan} r mountains. 
In the year 1850, 477,000 tons of merchandise and 180,000 passengers were transported on this, 
road, the receipts amounting to $1,343,000, the road being only about half completed. When 
finished to the Ohio river, its receipts are expected to amount to $3,000,000. On this road are 
heavy gradients, wdth several curves of six hundred feet radius, and some of four hundred feet. 
It is to the mountain district of the road just opened that I wish particularly to invite attention; 
and for this purpose an extract is made from the official report of the chief engineer, Mr. 
Latrobe, one of the most distinguished engineers of North America, in which he describes the 
route and grades over the Alleghany mountains: 
“At about a mile below this last point, the high grade of 116 feet per mile begins and con¬ 
tinues about 11J miles, crossing the Potomac from Virginia into Maryland near the beginning 
of the grade, and thence ascending the steep side-slopes of Savage river and Crab Tree creek 
to the summit at the head of the latter, a total distance of about fifteen miles, upon the last three 
and a half of which the grade is reduced to about 100 feet per mile. From the summit the 
line passes for about nineteen miles through the level and beautiful tract of country so well known 
as the Glades, and near their western border the route crosses the Maryland boundary at a point 
about sixty miles from Cumberland, and passes into the State of Virginia, in whose territory it 
continues thence to the terminus on the Ohio. From the Glades the line descends by a grade 
of 116 feet per mile for eight and a half miles, and over very rugged ground, and thence three 
miles further to Cheat river, which it crosses at the mouth of Salt Lick creek. The route, 
immediately after crossing this river, ascends along the broken slopes of the Laurel Hill by a 
