Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. - Various
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. II.--NOVEMBER, 1858.--NO. XIII.
RAILWAY-ENGINEERING IN THE UNITED STATES.[1]
Though our country can boast of no Watt, Brindley, Smeaton, Rennie,
Telford, Brunel, Stephenson, or Fairbairn, and lacks such
experimenters as Tredgold, Barlow, Hodgkinson, and Clark, yet we
have our Evans and Fulton, our Whistler, Latrobe, Roebling, Haupt,
Ellet, Adams, and Morris,--engineers who yield to none in
professional skill, and whose work will bear comparison with the
best of that of Great Britain or the Continent; and if America does
not show a Thames Tunnel, a Conway or Menai Tubular Bridge, or a
monster steamer, yet she has a railroad-bridge of eight hundred feet
clear span, hung two hundred and fifty feet above one of the wildest
rivers in the world,--locomotive engines climbing the Alleghanies at
an ascent of five hundred feet per mile,--and twenty-five thousand
miles of railroad, employing upwards of five thousand locomotives
and eighty thousand cars, costing over a thousand millions of dollars,
and transporting annually one hundred and thirty millions of
passengers and thirty million tons of freight,--and all this in a
manner peculiarly adapted to our country, both financially and
mechanically.
In England the amount of money bears a high proportion to the amount
of territory; in America the reverse is the case; and the engineers
of the two countries quickly recognized the fact: for we find our
railroads costing from thirty thousand to forty thousand dollars per
mile,--while in England, to surmount much easier natural obstacles,
the cost varies from seventy-five to one hundred thousand dollars
per mile.
The cost of railroad transport will probably never be so low as
carriage by water,--that is, natural water-communication; because
the river or ocean is given to man complete and ready for use,
needing no repairs, and with no interest to pay upon construction
capital. Indeed, it is just beginning to be seen all over the
country that the public have both expected and received too much
accommodation from the companies. Men are perfectly willing to pay
five dollars for riding a hundred miles in a stage-coach; but give
them a nicely warmed, ventilated, cushioned, and furnished car, and
carry them four or five times faster, with double the comfort, and
they expect to pay only half-price,--as a friend of the writer once
remarked, "Why, of course we ought not to pay so much when we a'n't
half so long going,"--as if, when they paid their fare, they not
only bargained for transport from one place to another, but for the
luxury of sitting in a crowded coach a certain number of hours. It
would be hard to show a satisfactory basis for such an establishment
of tolls. We need not wonder at the unprofitableness of many of our
roads when we consider that the relative cost of transport is,--
By Stage, one cent,
By Railroad, two and seven-twelfths;
and the relative charge,--
By Stage, five cents,
By Railroad, three cents;
and the comparative profit, as five less one to three less two and
seven-twelfths, or as _four_ to _five-twelfths_, or as _nine and
six-tenths to one_.
America has, it is true, a grander system of natural
water-communication than any other land except Brazil; but, for all
that, there is really but a small part of the area, either of the
Alleghany coal and iron fields, or of the granaries of the
Mississippi valley, reached even by our matchless rivers. A certain
strip or band of country, bordering the water-courses, is served by
them both as regards export and import; just as much is served
wherever we build a railroad. In fact, whenever we lay a road across
a State, whether it connects the West directly with the East, or
only with some central commercial point in the West, just so often
do we open to market a band of country as long as the road, and
thirty, forty, or fifty miles wide,--the width depending very much
upon the cost of transport over such road; and as the charge is much
less upon a railroad than upon a common road, the distance from the
road from which produce may be brought is much greater with the
former than with the latter. The actual determination of the width
of the band is a simple problem, when the commercial nature of the
country is known.
The people of the great valley have not been slow, where Nature has
denied them the natural, to make for themselves artificial rivers of
iron. These railroads are more completely adapted to the physical
character of the Western States than would be any other mode of
communication. The work of construction is oftentimes very light,
little more being necessary for a railway across the prairies of the
West (generally) than a couple of ditches twenty or thirty feet apart,
the material taken therefrom being thrown into the intermediate space,
thus forming the surface which supports the crossties, the sills or
sleepers, and the rails. Indeed, the double operation of ditching
and embanking is in some cases performed by a single machine,
(a nondescript affair, in appearance half-way between a
threshing-machine and a hundred-and-twenty-pound field-piece,) drawn
by six, eight, or ten pairs of oxen.
It is even probable that in a great many cases the common road would
cost more than the railway in the great central basin of America; as
the rich alluvial soil, when wet in spring or fall, is almost
impassable, and lack of stone and timber prevents the construction
of artificial roads.
The influence of the railroad upon the Western farm-lands is quickly
seen by the following figures, extracted from a lately published
work on railroad construction.
_Table showing the Effect of Railroad Transport upon the Value of
Grain in the Market of Chicago, Illinois_.
WHEAT CORN
Carried by Carried by Carried by Carried by
railroad wagon railroad wagon
At market $49.50 49.50 25.60 25.60
Carried 10 m. 49.25 48.00 24.25 23.26
do. 50 m. 48.75 42.00 24.00 17.25
do. 100 m. 48.00 34.50 23.25 9.75
do. 150 m. 47.25 27.00 22.50 2.25
do. 200 m. 46.50 19.50 21.75 0.00
do. 300 m. 45.00 4.50 20.25 0.00
do. 330 m. 44.55 0.00 19.80 0.00
Thus a ton of corn carried two hundred miles costs by wagon
transport more than it brings at market,--while, moved by
railroad, it is worth $21.75. Also wheat will not bear wagon
transport of 330 miles,--while, moved that distance by railroad
it is worth $44.55 per ton.
The social effect of railroads is seen and felt by those who live in
the neighborhood of large cities. The unhealthy density of
population is prevented, by enabling men to live five, ten, or
fifteen miles away from the city and yet do business therein. The
extent of this diffusion is as the square of the speed of transport.
To illustrate. If a person walks four miles an hour, and is allowed
one hour for passing from his home to his place of business, he can
live four miles from his work; the area, therefore, which may be
lived in is the circle of which the radius is four miles, the
diameter eight miles, and the area 501/4 square miles. If by horse he
can go eight miles an hour, the diameter of the circle becomes
sixteen miles, and the area 201 square miles. Finally, if by
railroad he goes thirty miles an hour, the diameter becomes sixty
miles, and the area 2,827 square miles.
In the case of railroads, as of other labor-saving (and
labor-producing) contrivances, the innovation has been loudly decried;
but though it does render some classes of labor useless, and throw
out of employment some persons, it creates new labor for more than
the old, and gives much more than it takes away.
Twenty years of experience show that the diminished cost of
transport by railroad invariably augments the amount of commerce
transacted, and in a much larger ratio than the reduction of cost. It
is estimated by Dr. Lardner that three hundred thousand horses,
working daily in stages, would be required to perform the
passenger-traffic alone which took place in England during the year
1848.
Regarding the safety of railroad-travelling, though the papers teem
with awful calamities from collisions and other causes, yet so great
is the number of persons who use the new mode of transport, that
travelling by railroad is really about one hundred times safer than
by stage. The mortality upon English roads was for one year observed:
--one person killed for each sixty-five million transported; in
America, for the same time, one in forty-one million.
If we should try to reason from the rate of past railway-growth as
to what the future is to be, we should soon be lost in figures. Thus,
in the United States,--
In 1829 there were 3 miles.
In 1830 41 miles.
In 1840 2167 miles.
In 1850 7355 miles.
In 1856 23,242 miles.
Thus from 1830 to 1840, the rate is as 2167/41 or 53 nearly; from
1840 to 1850, 7355/2167, or 3 nearly; and from 1850 to 1856, 23242/
7355 or 3 nearly; and from 1850 to 1860 we may suppose the rate will
be about 4. The rate is probably now at its permanent maximum,
taking the whole country together,--the increase in New England
having nearly ceased, while west of the Mississippi it has not
reached its average.
Among the larger and more important roads and connected systems in
our country may be named the New York and Erie Railroad,--connecting
the city of New York with Lake Erie at Dunkirk, (and, by the road's
diverging from its western terminus, with "all places West and South,"
as the bills say,)--crossing the Shawangunk Mountains through the
valley of the Neversink, up the Delaware, down the Susquehanna, and
through the rich West of the Empire State.
The Pennsylvania Central Road: from Philadelphia through Lancaster
to Harrisburg, on the Susquehanna, up the Juniata and down the
western slope of the Alleghanies, through rock-cut galleries and
over numberless bridges, reaching at last the bluffs where smoky
Pittsburg sees the Ohio start on its noble course.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad: from Baltimore, in Maryland, to
Wheeling and Parkersburg, on the Ohio;--crossing the lowlands to the
Washington Junction, thence up the Patapsco, down the Monocacy, to
the Potomac; up to Harper's Ferry, where the Potomac and the
Shenandoah chafe the rocky base of the romantic little town perched
high above; winding up the North Branch to Cumberland,--the terminus
of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and of the great national turnpike
to the West, for which Wills' Creek opened so grand a gate at the
narrows,--to Piedmont the foot and Altamont the summit, through
Savage Valley and Crabtree Gorge, across the glades, from which the
water flows east to the Chesapeake Bay and west to the Gulf of Mexico;
down Saltlick Creek, and up the slopes of Cheat River and Laurel Hill,
till rivers dwindle to creeks, creeks to rills, and rills lose
themselves on the flanks of mountains which bar the passage of
everything except the railroad; thence, through tunnels of rock and
tunnels of iron, descending Tygart's Valley to the Monongahela, and
thence through a varied but less rugged country to Moundsville,
twelve miles below Wheeling, on the Ohio River.
These are our three great roads where engineering skill has
triumphed over natural obstacles. We have another class of great
lines to which the obstacles were not so much mechanical as financial,
--the physical difficulties being quite secondary. Such are the
trunk lines from the East to the West,--through Buffalo, Erie, and
Cleveland, to Toledo and Detroit, and from Detroit to Chicago, Rock
Island, Burlington, Quincy, and St. Louis; from Pittsburg, Wheeling,
and Parkersburg, on the Ohio, to Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati,
Indianapolis, Louisville, and St. Louis; and from Cleveland, through
Columbus, to Cincinnati, and from Cincinnati to the Northwest.
In progress also may be noticed roads running west from St. Louis,
Hannibal, and Burlington, on the Mississippi, all tending towards
some point in Kansas, from which the great Pacific Road, the
crowning effort of American railway-engineering, may be supposed to
take its departure for California and Oregon.
The chief point of difference between the English and the American
engineer is, that the former defies all opposition from river and
mountain, maintains his line straight and level, fights Nature at
every point, cares neither for height nor depth, rock nor torrent,
builds his matchless roads through the snowy woods of Canada or over
the sandy plains of Egypt with as much unconcern as among the
pleasant fields of Hertford or Surrey, and spans with equal ease the
Thames, the Severn, the St. Lawrence, and the Nile. The words
"fail," "impossible," "can't be done," he knows not; and when all
other means of finding a firm base whereon to build his bridges and
viaducts fail, he puts in a foundation of golden guineas and silver
dollars, which always gives success.
On the other hand, the American engineer, always respectful (though
none the less determined) in the presence of natural obstacles to
his progress, bows politely to the opposing mountain-range, and,
bowing, passes around the base, saying, as he looks back, "You see,
friend, we need have no hard feelings,--the world is large enough
for thee and me." To the broad-sweeping river he gently hints,
"Nearer your source you are not so big, and, as I turned out for the
mountain, why should I not for the river?" till mountain and river,
alike aghast at the bold pigmy, look in silent wonder at the
thundering train which shoulders aside granite hills and tramples
rivers beneath its feet. But if Nature corners him between rocks
heavenward piled on the one hand and roaring torrents on the other,
whether to pass is required a bridge or a tunnel, we find either or
both designed and built in a manner which cannot be bettered. He is
well aware that the directors like rather to see short columns of
figures on their treasurer's books than to read records of great
mechanical triumphs in their engineer's reports.
Of the whole expense of building a railroad, where the country is to
any considerable degree broken, the reduction of the natural surface
to the required form for the road, that is, the earthwork, or,
otherwise, the excavation and embankment, amounts to from thirty to
seventy per cent. of the whole cost. Here, then, is certainly an
important element on which the engineer is to show his ability; let
us look a little at it, even at the risk of being dry.
It is by no means necessary to reduce the natural surface of the
country to a level or horizontal line; if it were so, there would be
an end to all railroads, except on some of the Western prairies.
This was not, however, at first known; indeed, those who were second
to understand the matter denied the possibility of moving a
locomotive even on a level by applying power to the wheels, because,
it was said, the wheels would slip round on the smooth iron rail and
the engine remain at rest. But lo! when the experiment was tried, it
was found that the wheel not only had sufficient bite or adhesion
upon the rail to prevent slipping and give a forward motion to the
engine, but that a number of cars might be attached and also moved.
This point gained, the objectors advanced a step, but again came to
a stand, and said, "If you can move a train on a level, that is all,
--you can't go up hill." But trial proved that easy inclines (called
grades) could be surmounted,--say, rising ten feet for each mile in
length.
The objectors take another step, but again put down their heavy
square-toed foot, and say, "There! aren't you satisfied? you can go
over grades of twenty feet per mile, but no more,--so don't try."
And here English engineers stop,--twenty feet being considered a
pretty stiff grade. Meanwhile, the American engineers Whistler and
Latrobe, the one dealing with the Berkshire mountains in
Massachusetts, the other with the Alleghanies in Virginia, find that
not only are grades of ten and of twenty feet admissible, but, where
Nature requires it, inclines of forty, sixty, eighty, and even one
hundred feet per mile,--it being only remembered, the while, that
just as the steepness of the grade is augmented, the power must be
increased. This discovery, when properly used, is of immense
advantage; but in the hands of those who do not understand the nice
relation which exists between the mechanical and the financial
elements of the question, as governed by the speed and weight of
trains, and by the funds at the company's disposal, is very liable
to be a great injury to the prospects of a road, or even its ruin.
It was urged at one time, that the best road would have the grades
undulating from one end to the other,--so that the momentum acquired
in one descent would carry the train almost over the succeeding
ascent; and that very little steam-power would be needed. This idea
would have place, at least to a certain extent, if the whole
momentum was allowed to accumulate during the descent; but even
supposing there would be no danger from acquiring so great a speed,
a mechanical difficulty was brought to light at once, namely, that
the resistance of the atmosphere to the motion of the train
increased nearly, if not quite, as the square of the speed; so that
after the train on the descent acquired a certain speed, a regular
motion was obtained by the balance of momentum and resistance,
--whence a fall great enough to produce this regular speed would be
advantageous, but no more. On the other hand, the extra power
required to draw the train up the grades much overbalances the gain
by gravity in going down.
Here, then, we have the two extremes: first, spending more money
than the expected traffic will warrant, to cut down hills and fill
up valleys; and second, introducing grades so steep that the amount
of traffic does not authorize the use of engines heavy enough to
work them.
The direction of the traffic, to a certain extent, determines the
rate and direction of the inclines. Thus, the Reading Railroad, from
Philadelphia up the Schuylkill to Reading, and thence to Pottsville,
is employed entirely in the transport of coal from the Lehigh
coal-fields to tide-water in Philadelphia; and it is a very
economically operated road, considering the large amount of ascent
encountered, because the load goes down hill, and the weight of the
train is limited only by the number of empty cars that the engine
can take back.
This adoption of steep inclines may be considered as an American
idea entirely, and to it many of our large roads owe their success.
The Western Railroad of Massachusetts ascends from Springfield to
Pittsfield, for a part of the way, at 83 feet per mile. The New York
and Erie Railroad has grades of 60 feet per mile. The Baltimore and
Ohio climbs the Alleghanies on inclines of 116 feet per mile. The
Virginia Central Road crosses the Blue Ridge by grades of 250 and
295 feet per mile; and the ridge through which the Kingwood Tunnel
is bored, upon the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was surmounted
temporarily by grades of 500 feet per mile, up which each single car
was drawn by a powerful locomotive.
Another element, of which American engineers have freely availed
themselves, is curvature. More power is required to draw a train of
cars around a curved track than upon a straight line. In England the
radius of curvature is limited to half a mile, or thereabouts. The
English railway-carriage is placed on three axles, all of which are
fixed to the body of the vehicle; the passage of curves, of even a
large diameter, is thus attended by considerable wear and strain;
but in America, the cars, which are much longer than those upon
English roads, are placed upon a pintle or pin at each end, which
pin is borne upon the centre of a four-wheeled truck,--by which
arrangement the wheels may conform to the line of the rails, while
the body of the car is unaffected. This simple contrivance permits
the use of curves which would otherwise be entirely impracticable.
Thus we find curves of one thousand feet radius upon our roads, over
which the trains are run at very considerable speed; while in one
remarkable instance (on the Virginia Central Railroad, before named)
we find the extreme minimum of 234 feet. Such a track does not admit
of high speeds, and its very use implies the existence of natural
obstacles which prevent the acquirement of great velocities.
In fine, the use which the engineer makes of grades and curves, when
the physical nature of the country and the nature and amount of the
traffic expected are known, may be taken as a pretty sure index of
his real professional standing, and sometimes as an index of the
moral man; as when, for example, he steepens his grades to suit the
contractor's ideas of mechanics,--in other words, to save work.
Not less in the construction of bridges and viaducts, than in the
preparation of the road-bed proper, does the American engineering
faculty display itself. Timber, of the best quality, may be found in
almost every part of the country, and nowhere in the world has the
design and building of wooden bridges been carried to such
perfection and such extent as in the United States. We speak here of
structures built by such engineers as Haupt, Adams, and Latrobe,
--and not of those works, wretched alike in design and execution,
which so often become the cause of what are called terrible
catastrophes and lamentable accidents, but which are, in reality,
the just criticisms of natural mechanical laws upon the ignorance of
pretended engineers.
Among the finest specimens of timberwork in America are the Cascade
Bridge upon the New York and Erie Railroad, designed and built by
Mr. Adams, consisting of one immense timber-arch, having natural
abutments in the rocky shores of the creek;--the second edition of
the bridges generally upon the same road, by Mr. McCallum, which
replaced those originally built during the construction of the road,
--these hardly needing to be taken down by other exertion than their
own;--the bridges from one end to the other of the Pennsylvania
Central Road, by Mr. Haupt;--the Baltimore and Ohio "arch-brace"
bridges, by Mr. Latrobe;--and the Genessee "high bridge," (not a
bridge, by the way, but a trestle,) near Portageville, by Mr. Seymour,
which is eight hundred feet long, and carries the road two hundred
and thirty feet above the river, having wooden trestles (post and
brickwork) one hundred and ninety feet high, seventy-five feet wide
at base, and twenty-five feet at top, and carrying above all a
bridge fourteen feet high; containing the timber of two hundred and
fifty acres of land, and sixty tons of iron bolts, costing only
$140,000, and built in the short time of eighteen months. This
structure, if replaced by an earth embankment, would cost half a
million of dollars, and could not be built in less than five years
by the ordinary mode of proceeding.[2]
Further, the interest, for so long a time, on the large amount of
money required to build the embankment, at the high rate of railroad
interest, would nearly, if not quite, suffice to build the wooden
structure.
Again, our wooden bridges of the average span cost about thirty-five
dollars per lineal foot. Let us compare this with the cost of iron
bridges, on the English tubular plan, the spans being the same, and
the piers, therefore, left out of the comparison.
Suppose that a road has in all one mile in length of bridges. Making
due allowance for the difference in value of labor in England and
America, the cost per lineal foot of the iron tubular bridges could
not be less (for the average span of 150 feet) than three hundred
dollars.
5280 feet by $35 is $184,800.00
5280 feet by 300 is $1,584,000.00
The six per cent. interest on the first is $11,088.00
The six per cent. interest on the second is $95,040.00
And the difference is $83,952.00
or nearly enough to rebuild the wooden bridges once in two years;
and ten years is the shortest time that a good wooden bridge should
last.
The reader may wonder why such structures as the bridge over the
Susquehanna at Columbia, which consists of twenty-nine arches, each
two hundred feet span, the whole water-way being a mile long, and
many other bridges spanning large rivers, and having an imposing
appearance, are not referred to in this place. The reason is this:
_large_ bridges are by no means always _great_ bridges; nor do
they require, as some seem to think, skill proportioned to their
length. There are many structures of this kind in America, of twenty,
twenty-five, or thirty spans, where the same mechanical blunders are
repeated over and over again in each span; so that the longer they
are and the more they cost, the worse they are. It does not follow,
because newspapers say, "magnificent bridge," "two million feet of
timber," "eighty or one hundred tons of iron," "cost half a million,"
that there is any merit about either the bridge or its builder; as
one span is, so is the whole; and a bridge fifty feet long, and
costing only a few hundreds, may show more engineering skill than
the largest and most costly viaducts in America. Few bridges require
more knowledge of mechanics and of materials than Mr. Haupt's little
"trussed girders" on the Pennsylvania Central Road,--consisting of a
single piece of timber, trussed with a single rod, under each rail
of the track.