| From the Greensboro (N. C.) Patriot |
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| July 10, 1862 |
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| For the Patriot |
| Rail Roads |
| The line of a rail road should be as free
from curves as possible, and no curve should be of less radius than
1000 feet: because curves, as the radius lessens from 5000 feet,
retard the speed of trains in the relation of grades on a straight
line, and when grades occur on curves, the latter tends to double the
labor of the engine to pass over them. In that section of the N. C.
Railroad which lies between Hillsboro' and the Yadkin river, no curve
need have been necessary under 1000 feet radius, and many of the
grades might have been lessened, and the line of them lengthened,
thereby avoiding the many frequent changes from ascent to descent
which requires the engine driver to keep increasing or decreasing his
steam to run his train at a regular speed, and in order to arrive
promptly at the time fixed for the arrival at different stations. |
| It may not be the fault of the engineer
who constructed the road, that so many curves and grades and frequent
changes of grade are used, for it is reasonable to suppose that it was
done to lessen the cost of building the road. But it is doubtful that
it did. For curves lengthened the line which increased the quantity of
iron, spikes, chairs, sills and earthwork. The narrow road-beds, cuts
and embankments did lessen the cost of the earth-work, and which
entails on the company a yearly increase in cost of repairs over what
it has been in the last three years, to have made the line and grades
what they should have been, and what will have to be done before the
company will rid the road of a vexatious expense to the future
managers of its affairs. |
| Further, its construction made it
necessary to stock the road with powerful and heavy engines, many of
which on the eastern and western portions of the road are able to draw
twice the number of laden cars which they can draw over the middle
portion. |
| The iron rails of the N. C. Railroad are
No. 1, as compared with other American roads, its vertical depth being
4 inches. Other roads have used a rail from 3 inches to 3 3/4. The
square of the depth gives the relative strength. The superior strength
of this iron was well adapted to keep the line in better adjustment on
uncovered sills, and bear the weight of heavy machinery. The sills are
near enough to give a good support to the iron, and the length of the
sill is quite sufficient to give a good base to the road. But the road
bed, embankment or earth under the sills is too narrow to afford a
bearing to the entire length of the sills; and the earth being clay
chiefly, and sometimes mixed with decomposed substances, similar to
clay when acted upon by water which are not fit to put under sills.
But on this road, gravel, coarse sand or broken rock would be
expensive to obtain in sufficient quantities to ballast under the
sills one foot deep, while less than that would do no good. |
| The body of the sills being nearly all
naked, checks and cracks by the heat of the sun, and in rains these
cracks are filled with water, as also are the pores of the wood. The
surface of the sill holds all the water which falls upon it, and
conducts it into its bed underneath, where the clay earth is made soft
again, and as trains pass over, the narrow sills settle deeper into
the earth than wide ones, and hence the necessity for raising the sill
up to the rail. But it does not long remain so, and the earth not
being a uniform substance, as gravel or rock, the sills give way under
the passing of trains, both crosswise and lengthwise, and tilt and
cant the rails out of adjustment. The rails are strained also, and the
spikes and chairs become loosened, which require constant repair, and
when wet weather occurs the labor of the ordinary gang of section
hands is insufficient to make good repairs. |
| From my experience in building and
repairing rail roads from an early day, until within a few years, I
would advise the managers of the N. C. Railroad to widen the road-bed
30 or 36 inches from each end of the sill, replace defective sills
with new ones, and put new sills where the chairs are loose, and bring
the superstructure into a true adjustment both ways. Also raise the
disk where the grades meet descendingly, so that the bars will meet at
the point as they were originally laid, and cover the sill its whole
length, and one or two inches over its depth, making the slope of the
sides of the bank one and a half or tow to one, and making good, open
drainage for running water, and fasten the plank firmly at all road
crossings, and repair the crossing so a vehicle can pass quickly over,
when a train is approaching. I am confident that the sills on an
average will last double the time, and they will be much easier kept
in adjustment, and avoid much disaster which now occurs, and lessen
largely the ordinary repairing expenses. The trains will carry more
freight at the same expense, or the same freight with less fuel, and
can be more regular and prompt. |
| The effect of covering the sills from the
sun's heat gives it a more uniform temperature with the earth, and
when rain falls, moderately it is not changed; it is not filled with
cracks to hold water, and when rain falls copiously it does not absorb
as much nor carry the drainage into its own bed as if the earth about
absorb it, and then the earth about the sill becomes mushy, and soft.
If the sill does settle under the pressure of the train, as the sill
rises, the earth settles under it by the pressure of the air, and the
gravity of its more solid parts, and adjusts its own body. The rapid
decay of timber is owning to several causes. But chiefly in the
present condition of the sills, by wet and heat, and the oftener it
occurs the more rapid the decay. |
| H. |
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