| It is common knowledge that the South was extremely
short of all industrial materials and facilities. This definitely
included railroads and the track they required. In this essay, I will
show what it took to build a mile of that track so that you can see how
big the task was to build even a short segment of line. |
| |
| A mile of Southern railroad required a large
investment in iron, local products and labor. The labor came mostly from
slaves hired from local plantations. Frequently, plantation owners along
the proposed line of a railroad would pay for shares of ownership in the
new railroad with the labor of their slaves on the line near the
plantation. |
| |
| The local products were ballast material – sand,
gravel, crushed rock – and wood. The wood was required for bridge,
water tank, and station construction and for ties. The new railroad made
do with whichever ballast material and wood it could obtain in the area. |
| |
| The iron was the difficult part of building the
railroad. Rail was usually purchased from England and produced in Wales.
The cost, including shipping, was about the same as Northern produced
rail, but English rail had a reputation for lasting longer. Rail
produced in the South was almost non-existent. Chairs and spikes were
frequently Southern. |
| |
| Here are
the numbers for one mile of track (both rails), made as cheaply as
possible, consistent with accepted engineering practices:
|
| T-rail
|
3,500
yards of 62#/yard rail for the main line |
| T-rail
|
60
yards of 50#/yard rail for 1/5th of a 480ft station
siding (1 siding per 5 miles) |
| Chairs
|
422
18#
cast iron (1 per length of rail) |
| Spikes |
4,700 1#
iron (2 per tie) |
|
|
| Total
iron requirement |
234,500
pounds / 117 tons |
|
|
| Ties |
2,350
1 per 2.25 feet |
| Culverts |
1 per 5
miles |
| Bridges
|
1 per 10
miles, very rough average |
| Ballast
|
varied,
but always as little as possible in the initial construction |
| Station |
1 per 5
to 10 miles |
| Water
tank |
1 per 15
miles, or more if the terrain required it |
|
|